Performance Standard 4: Differentiated Instruction
When I sat down to compare these two categories and say things like, “Well, this is differentiation because ______, and this is personalization because _______,” I was stuck. I was stuck because this isn’t an either/or situation. This isn’t an “I differentiate student learning,” or, “I personalize student learning,” situation either. This part of the rubric defines steps of a process or cycle. The steps of a process or cycle that are essential to the act of personalizing student learning. This process is one that has been known since the early 1980s as The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model.
The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
Level III: Differentiation Scaffolds the Learner
Differentiation is teacher-centered. If we continue to own this process and always be the ones who are making the decisions for how to differentiate content, then we are robbing students of the ability to learn in the future in our absence. Not to mention the stress that comes from owning the differentiation process for 180 days of the instructional year. This is why we must dive deeper into the “You do together” and “You do alone” stages of gradual release that allow us to personalize student learning.
Level IV: Personalization Empowers the Learner
These activities are strongest when the tasks feature spiraled content, multiple steps, or even cross-curricular content (more ideas can be found here from teachthought). These scenarios engage our students and provide them with opportunities to truly show us what they have learned. Now we have established the environment necessary to accurately assess a student’s understanding of how to use their strategies in current and relevant ways.
Documenting the Process
An Interpretation
Administrators will visit our rooms and use the TKES rubric to evaluate our teaching. However, I must take this time to implore administrators who might be reading this blog to shift your thinking around the two levels examined here today. When are you observing? Is there a bigger picture to be seen? Do your teachers know what that bigger picture is, and have they planned for it accordingly?
All of that aside, I have grown to see TKES as a tool that I use to plan and document my instruction. Its language has become my vernacular when communicating with colleagues and administrators. I hope that one day we will all be on the same page about how we are helping to empower the students in our classrooms.
Again, thank you all for this work. I admire each and every one of you. We will talk again soon.