1. How I learned to love major differences
and work with others

5. What we call differentiation is not
a recipe for teaching.
It is not an instructional strategy.
It is not what a teacher does
when he or she has time.
It is a way of thinking about
teaching and learning. It is a
philosophy.

6.  Students who are the same age differ in their
readiness to learn, their interests, their styles of
learning, their experiences, and their life
circumstances.
 The differences in students are significant enough to
make a major impact on what students need to learn,
the pace at which they need to learn it, and the
support they need from teachers and others to learn it
well.
 Students will learn best when supportive adults push
them slightly beyond where they can work without
assistance.

7.  Students will learn best when they can make a
connection between the curriculum and their
interests and life experiences.
 Students will learn best when learning
opportunities are natural.
 Students are more effective learners when
classrooms and schools create a sense of
community in which students feel significant and
respected.
 The central job of schools is to maximize the
capacity of each student.

8.  Differentiation is wary of approaches to teaching
and learning that standardize.
 Standard-issue students are rare, and educational
approaches that ignore academic diversity in favor
of standardization are likely to be
counterproductive in reaching the full range of
learners

9.  Differentiation must be a refinement of, not a
substitute for, high-quality curriculum and instruction.
 Expert or distinguished teaching focuses on the
understandings and skills of a discipline, causes
students to wrestle with profound ideas, calls on
students to use what they learn in important ways,
helps students organize and make sense of ideas and
information, and aids students in connecting the
classroom with a wider world (Brandt, 1998;
Danielson, 1996; Schlechty, 1997; Wiggins &
McTighe, 1998).

10.  Differentiation—one facet of expert teaching—reminds
us that these things are unlikely to happen for the full
range of students unless curriculum and instruction fit
each individual, unless students have choices about
what to learn and how, unless students take part in
setting learning goals, and unless the classroom
connects with the experiences and interest of the
individual (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999).
 Differentiation says, "Building on core teaching and
learning practices that are solid, here's what you do to
refine them for maximum individual growth."

11.  We first need to ask, Is a given teaching or
learning approach likely to have a positive impact
on the core of effective teaching and learning?

12.  When we are content with the answer, we can ask
further, What is the effect of the practice on
individuals in an academically diverse population?
 The latter question always helps us refine the
effectiveness of the former but cannot substitute
for it.

13. Where the majority of classroom
educators are now. Mainly due to
NCLB and standardized testing.

14.  For many teachers, curriculum has become a
prescribed set of academic standards,
instructional pacing has become a race against a
clock to cover the standards, and the sole goal of
teaching has been reduced to raising student test
scores on a single test, the value of which has
scarcely been questioned in the public forum.

15.  Teachers feel as though they are torn in opposing
directions: They are admonished to attend to
student differences, but they must ensure that
every student becomes competent in the same
subject matter and can demonstrate the
competencies on an assessment that is
differentiated neither in form nor in time
constraints.

16.  To examine the dichotomy between standards-
based teaching and differentiation, we must ask
questions about how standards influence the
quality of teaching and learning. What is the
impact of standards-based teaching on the quality
of education in general?

17.  Then we can assess ways in which standards-
based approaches make an impact on gifted or
academically challenged students whose abilities
are outside the usual norms of achievement.

18.  Do the standards reflect the knowledge,
understandings, and skills valued most by experts
in the disciplines that they represent?
 Are we using standards as a curriculum, or are
they reflected in the curriculum?

19.  Are we slavishly covering standards at breakneck
pace, or have we found ways to organize the
standards within our curriculum so that students
have time to make sense of ideas and skills?
 Does our current focus on standards enliven
classrooms, or does it eliminate joy, creativity, and
inquiry?

20.  Do standards make learning more or less relevant
and alluring to students?
 Does our use of standards remind us that we are
teaching human beings, or does it cause us to
forget that fact?

21. Then …

22.  (W)e can look fruitfully at how to make
adaptations to address the needs of academically
diverse learners. If our answers are less than
satisfactory, we should address the problems.

23.  Such problems inevitably point to cracks in the
foundation of quality teaching and learning, and
we diminish our profession by failing to attend to
them.

24.  Differentiating curriculum and instruction cannot
make up for ill-conceived curriculum and
instruction.

25. I have too many different needs
in my class(es); there is no way I
can be expected to differentiate!

26.  Overwhelmed by the task, a teacher recently
pleaded, "I have all these students with all these
different needs; how can anyone expect me to
differentiate in my classroom?"
 Odd as the comment sounds, she spoke for many
of us.
 The more complex the task, the more inviting it is
to retreat to the familiar—to find a standardized
approach and cling to it.

27.  "I know I'm missing lots of my students, but if I
don't hurry to cover all the standards, how will they
succeed on the test?“
 Or, "I know it would be good to involve students in
thinking and problem solving, but there's just no
time.“

28.  The deeper issue is about what happens when we
use any approach that allows us to lose sight of
the soul of teaching and learning.
 A secondary factor is that such approaches make
it difficult to attend to individual differences.

29.  Of course they do.
 Whatever practices invite us to be paint-by-
number teachers will largely fail students who do
not fit the template.
 Paint-by-number approaches will fall short for all
of us—teachers and students alike—because they
abandon quality.

30.  Paint-by-number approaches will fail teachers
because they confuse technical expedience with
artistry.
 They will fail students because they confuse
compliance with thoughtful engagement.
 Any educational approach that does not invite us
to teach individuals is deeply flawed.

33.  Confronted by too many students, a schedule
without breaks, a pile of papers that regenerates
daily, and incessant demands from every
educational stakeholder, no wonder we become
habitual and standardized in our practices.

34.  Not only do we have no time to question why we
do what we do, but we also experience the
discomfort of change when we do ask the knotty
questions.

35.  Nonetheless, our profession cannot progress and
our increasingly diverse students cannot succeed
if we do less.

36. The What?

38.  What is an essential question? An essential
question is – well, essential: important, vital, at the
heart of the matter – the essence of the issue.

39.  Think of questions in your life that fit this definition
– but don’t just yet think about it like a teacher;
consider the question as a thoughtful adult.
 What kinds of questions come to mind?
 What is a question that any thoughtful and
intellectually-alive person ponders and should
keep pondering?

40.  One meaning of “essential” involves important questions that
recur throughout one’s life. Such questions are broad in scope and
timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable – What is justice? Is
art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our
own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an
author’s view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may
arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but
we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other
words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and
experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that
such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good
education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes
lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea
questions signal that education is not just about learning “the answer”
but about learning how to learn.

41.  A second connotation for “essential” refers to key
inquiries within a discipline. Essential
questions in this sense are those that point to the
big ideas of a subject and to the frontiers of
technical knowledge. They are historically
important and very much “alive” in the field.

42.  “What is healthful eating?” engenders lively
debate among nutritionists, physicians, diet
promoters, and the general public.

43.  “Is any history capable of escaping the social and
personal history of its writers?” has been widely
and heatedly debated among scholars for the past
fifty years, and compels novices and experts alike
to ponder potential bias in any historical narrative.

44.  There is a third important connotation for the term
“essential” that refers to what is needed for learning core
content. In this sense, a question can be considered
essential when it helps students make sense of
important but complicated ideas, knowledge, and know-
how – findings that may be understood by experts, but not
yet grasped or seen as valuable by the learner. In what
ways does light act wave-like? How do the best writers
hook and hold their readers? What models best describe a
business cycle? By actively exploring such questions, the
learner is helped to arrive at important understandings as
well as greater coherence in their content knowledge and
skill.

45.  causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big
ideas and core content;
 provokes deep thought, lively discussion,
sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well
as more questions;

46.  requires students to consider alternatives, weigh
evidence, support their ideas, and justify their
answers;
 stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas,
assumptions, and prior lessons;
 sparks meaningful connections with prior learning
and personal experiences;
 naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer
to other situations and subjects.

48.  How well can fiction reveal truth?
 Why did that particular species/culture/person
thrive and that other one barely survive or die?
 How does what we measure influence how we
measure? How does how we measure influence
what we measure?

49.  Is there really a difference between a cultural
generalization and a stereotype?
 How should this be modeled? What are the
strengths and weaknesses of this model?
(science, math, social sciences)

50.  The most commonly asked question type is
factual – a question that seeks “the” correct
answer.

51.  In a history class, teachers are constantly asking
questions to elicit recall or attention to some
important content knowledge:
 “When did the war break out?
 Who was President at the time?
 Why, according to the text, did Congress pass that
bill?”

52.  Such questions are clearly not “essential” in the
sense discussed above.
 Rather, they are what we might call ‘teacherly’
questions – a question essential to a teacher who
wants students to know an important answer.

53.  No!
 There are all sorts of good pedagogical reasons
for using a question format to underscore
knowledge or to call attention to a forgotten or
overlooked idea.

54.  But those questions are not “essential” in the
sense of signaling genuine, important and
necessarily-ongoing inquiries.
 Teachers have to be careful not to conflate two
ideas: “essential to me in my role as a teacher”
and “essential to anyone as a thinking person and
inquiring student for making meaning of facts in
this subject.”

55.  Essential questions ask you to make a decision or
choose among various plans, strategies, or
courses of action. Instead of asking, "What is acid
rain?" you might ask, "How does acid rain affect
air quality and how can those effects be
changed?"

57.  Did your teacher provide a checklist or rubric?
 Did your teacher define the project?
 Is this type of question relevant to what I am
learning: past learning, present learning or is it
applicable to ‘future learning’?
 How can I use this question to further my
understanding of the subject?

58.  What is your general topic?
 What is a narrower term?
 What is a broader term?
 What do you want to find out?
 Will your answer be best presented in
compare/contrast, chronological, or analysis
format?

60. Your turn …

61.  Please divide into subject groups
 Discuss among yourselves which types of
essential questions you would like to write.
 Write 3 ‘essential questions’ for the group.
 Discussion will follow in the large group.

62.  Carol Ann Tomlinson (2000) How to Differentiate
Instruction, Reconcilable Differences? Standards-
Based Teaching and Differentiation, September,
Volume 58, Number 1, Pages 6-11 (
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept00/
)
 Grant Wiggins (2007) What Is an Essential Question?
Nov 15,
http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?arti
 Define: Essential Question.
http://secondary.oslis.org/learn-to-research/define/define-
essential-question-wp