Differentiated Instruction - Redefining How I Think about How I Teach

As I learn more about differentiated instruction and examine how technology can be integrated into my instruction and my students' learning, I keep coming back to the same idea - that I need very defined goals in my curriculum. The essential question(s) - what are the important ideas that my 9th graders should walk away with when they leave Biology or Earth and Space Science? These essential questions really are what will guide me as I "redesign" my classroom.

I watched a very inspiring video about an elementary school in Hawaii which really has integrated technology into the curriculum. The video comes from Edutopia, the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF). This foundation was established in order to celebrate and make public innovation in schools. As I watched the video, I began to wonder what it would take to make this kind of technology integration possible at my school. We have a tremendous amount of available technologies, yet we are no where near where this school is in terms of using these tools as a fundamental part of the learning process by our students. GLEF defines adoption of technology integration in schools as a 4-step process:

• Dabbling
  "... we have mostly been dabbling with technology in our schools: A few Apples here. A PC there. Random creation of software by teachers and other individuals -- some very good, much bad. A few edutainment disks. Dabbling."
• Doing old things in old ways
  "We use it mostly to pass documents around, but now in electronic form, and the result is not very different from what we have always known."
• Doing old things in new ways
  "...our best teachers have always used interactive models for demonstrations, and students, like scientists and military planners, have been conducting simulations in sand, on paper, and in their heads for thousands of years. So, though some observers trumpet these uses of technology as great innovations, they are really still examples of doing old things in new ways"
• Doing new things in new ways
  "For the digital age, we need new curricula, new organization, new architecture, new teaching, new student assessments, new parental connections, new administration procedures, and many other elements...What we're talking about is invention -- new things in new ways.

I feel that as a school we are in at a crossroads between "Doing old things in old ways" to "Doing old things in new ways". How can we make that leap to "Doing new things in new ways"? One way is from top down, but a more effective approach for our school may be from bottom up. Seeking out a few key teachers who would really buy in to changing how they teach and how students learn in their classrooms. For me, it will require that I take the time to really define my essential questions and use my summer vacation to "redesign" my curriculum so that it integrates technology, involves parent buy-in, connects with community resources, and establishes colleague collaboration. I feel like I am on the cusp of really taking this step. I have the opportunity with the school in which I work - which is not so constrained by FL legislation that a teacher is simply the provider of prescribed instruction - to move forward and achieve "doing new things in new ways"!