Thing # 5 Differentiation: National Center on Accessable Instructional Materials

Here is what I get when I try to link to the National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials website:



I like the 2 definitions:

Differentiation: Instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in response to individaul and diverse students in classrooms (Tomlinson,. 2001)

Universal Design for Living: Curriculum desigend approach to increase flexibility in teaching and decrease barriers that frequenlty limit student access to materials and learning in classrooms. (Rose and Meyer, 2002)

Here is a way to look at how computerized learning can help with differentiation:

Network-Appropriate Teaching Methods

To support diverse recognition networks:

Provide multiple examples
Highlight critical features
Provide multiple media and formats
Support background context
To support diverse strategic networks:
Provide flexible models of skilled performance
Provide opportunities to practice with supports
Provide ongoing, relevant feedback
Offer flexible opportunities for demonstrating skill
To support diverse affective networks:
Offer choices of context and tools
Offer adjustable levels of challenge
Offer choices of learning context
Offer choices of rewards

There are lots of other ideas in this website that I want to share with ASD and MOCI staff because it goes right along with the presentation I did for our recent collaborative day. We took the differentiation approach that Robin Fogarty uses and applied it to our new curriculum, Unique Learning Sysstem. We looked for how the curriculum already differentiated and ways teachers can further differentiate it for diverse learners.