What Really Matters in Teaching? (The Students)        

An excerpt from the forthcoming book Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe

How can students' lives influence their classroom experiences?

Why does it matter to teach responsively?

What are some starting points for responsive teaching?

At its core, teaching is an art that calls on its practitioners to work simultaneously in multiple media, with multiple elements. Central to teaching is what we ought to teach—what we want students to know, understand, and be able to do. To be an expert teacher is to continually seek a deeper understanding of the essence of a subject, to increasingly grasp its wisdom. That understanding is key to a teacher's role in curriculum planning. It is difficult to imagine someone becoming a great teacher without persistent attention to that element of the art of teaching.

A second medium or element central to the art of teaching is the student—whom we teach. The student is the focal point of our work as teachers. We believe the lives of students should be shaped in dramatically better ways because of the power and wisdom revealed through high-quality curriculum. In a less complex—less human—world, teaching might simply be telling young people what's important to know. In such a setting, students would say, "I see. Thanks." And the world would go forward.

But human beings are varied and complex. The varieties and complexities demand every bit as much study from the teacher as does curriculum content. Failure to attend to that requirement is likely to result in failure of the teaching enterprise for many, if not all, students. Before the curriculum design process begins, as it progresses, and as curriculum is tested and refined in classroom practice, the best teachers are mindful that teaching is judged by successful learning and that learners will inevitably and appropriately influence the effectiveness of the art we practice. The goal of this chapter is to provide a brief exploration of some ways in which learner variance shapes the art of teaching. We have elected to begin our discussion of Understanding by Design (UbD) and Differentiated Instruction (DI) with a focus on students as a way to affirm our belief that students should always be in the forefront of our thinking as we make, implement, and reflect on our professional plans.

Some Cases in Point

Each year, teachers enter their classrooms with a sense of direction provided by some combination of personal knowledge of subject matter, content standards, and teaching materials. As teachers become more experienced, they develop a refined sense of how the journey ahead will unfold in terms of time, benchmarks for progress, and particular routes of travel, fully mindful of the needs and interests of learners. Each year, students reinforce for those teachers that the journey is a shared endeavor and the best-laid plans of the best teachers are just that—plans, subject to change.

A Personal Barrier to Learning

Elise was failing every test and missing assignments. She was not progressing academically, and her teacher knew it. She talked with Elise and with her mom on many occasions. Elise was nonplussed. Her mom was surprised. She promised support from home—and provided it. Elise ended the year with a D in the class. An F was within easy reach. Months more passed before the mystery of a previously strong student heading steadily downhill was solved. Elise's parents had separated just as the school year began. Although she could not have articulated the plan clearly, Elise was operating with the belief that if she performed poorly in school, her parents would have to get together to address the problem. If her failures persisted, so would the parental conversations. In the end, she tenaciously believed, they would reunite. A student's personal crisis eclipsed the teacher's well-developed plans.

Identity as a Barrier to Achievement

Jason was an amazing contributor to group plans in class and to class discussions, but his individual performance was mediocre at best. He began work far more often than he completed it. Homework rarely came in on time, if at all. He was sometimes contentious in class—especially toward the teacher, to whom, at other times, he seemed to relate in a very positive way.

In a conversation with the principal later in the year, Jason flared. "When you understand what it's like to be the only kid on the bus who wants to do homework, what it costs to study after school instead of shooting hoops, then you tell me how to live my life!" Jason, an early adolescent, was struggling with issues of race and academic identity. The struggle was "loud" in his mind, drowning out the curriculum just as it was complicating his view of his teacher.

A Learning Problem as Obstruction

Yana hated writing more fervently with each assignment. Normally happy and good spirited, she could not contain tears when faced with a writing deadline. The teacher's first attempt to deal with Yana's frustration was to extend the deadline for Yana when she had no paper to turn in at the designated time. That resulted in a multipage paper that seemed to have no beginning, middle, end, or discernible intent. Multiple conversations with Yana yielded multiple approaches to solving her undefined problem—all unsuccessful.

Then one day, the teacher discovered that Yana could explain with power and conviction the ideas that turned to mush in writing. On instinct, the teacher cut Yana's essay into "thoughts"—ideas that made sense as a unit, but not in sequence. She said to Yana, "Now, put the strips in order the way you'd tell them to me. " Through tears, Yana found she was able to make sense of the jumble of ideas in that way. The approach not only opened up new possibilities for writing success for Yana but also resulted in diagnosis of a previously undiagnosed learning disability. To get to a point of productivity, the teacher had to let go of a planned sequence of assignments and work with one task until she and the student could unravel a problem that was blocking the student's progress as a writer.

An Idiosyncratic Learning Need Inhibits Achievement

Noah was generally a delightful kid who had been deemed "bad" for the past couple of years. He seemed unable to stay still in the classrooms of several teachers who valued stillness as a prime virtue in students. The more he was scolded for moving at "inappropriate" times, the more he moved inappropriately. In this year's class, Noah was fine. When he got deeply involved in an idea or discussion, he got up and paced around his desk, but no one seemed to care. In fact, his teacher came to see Noah's movement as an indicator of the energy in a class period. One day as he paced while working on an assignment, he said to no one in particular, "I think I learn better when I move. That's cool to know, isn't it?" Noah was, in fact, a highly kinesthetic learner in a world that often honors sitting still. For him, mental energy exhibited itself through physical energy. When his way of learning became acceptable, he became a better learner.

These students are not an author's creation. They are real students in real classrooms. Their teachers invested time, care, and mental energy in crafting curricula that complemented their belief in the possibilities of each student and the role of knowledge in helping students achieve their potential. Nonetheless, the students were actors in the classroom drama—every bit as potent as the teacher and the curriculum. The unique lives of the students significantly shaped their experience with and response to school. When a student need took center stage, it became necessary for the teacher to adapt the "script" to account for that need. In two instances the teacher found a way to address the learner's particular needs. In the other two, the year ended with their problems still intact. It is, of course, the optimism of teaching that if we keep trying, we will find a way to address problems that, in the meantime, obstruct learner success.

Students Are Much Alike—and Very Different

Elise, Yana, Jason, and Noah are much like all other students. They came to school not so much seeking mastery of geometry and proficiency in paragraph writing as seeking themselves. That is, like all humans, they are looking for a sense of their own meanings, roles, and possibilities. They come wanting to make sense of the world around them and their place in that world.

Toward that end, they come to the classroom first looking for things like affirmation, affiliation, accomplishment, and autonomy (Tomlinson, 2003). They are looking for adults who accept them, value them, guide them, and represent for them what it means to be a competent and caring adult. Quality curriculum should play a central role in meeting the core needs of students for affirmation, affiliation, accomplishment, and autonomy, but it is the teachers' job to make the link between the basic human needs of students and curriculum. Although the physical, mental, and emotional characteristics of students vary between kindergarten and high school, their basic needs as learners and as human beings do not. These basic needs continue to govern what young people look for in schools and classrooms.

Similarities notwithstanding, however, young people differ—sometimes remarkably—in the ways that they experience the quest for self and meaning. In fact, it is the differences young people bring to school with them that shape how they come to see themselves in the context of curriculum and school.

There are many ways to think about how student variance shapes students' school experiences. A teacher who arrives in the classroom with elegant curriculum is likely to stand before students of advanced ability and students who come trailing disabilities, students from poverty and students from plenty, students who dream bold dreams and students who do not believe dreams are worth their time, students who speak the language of power and students to whom that language is unfamiliar, students who learn by listening and those who learn through application, students who are compliant and those who challenge authority on every hand, students who trust and those who are damaged and devoid of trust. To pretend those differences do not matter in the teaching/learning process is to live an illusion. This chart presents a few possible categories of student variance, elements shaping those categories, and some implications for learning.

It is regrettably often the case that, as teachers, we identify those students whose attributes are a good fit for the structures of our classrooms and pronounce them "successful," while assigning other students to the category of the "unsuccessful." In truth, far more students would be successful in school if we understood it to be our jobs to craft circumstances that lead to success rather than letting circumstance take its course. Even the best curriculum delivered in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion will be taken by a few and left by too many.

Why It Matters to Teach Responsively

Responsive or differentiated teaching means a teacher is as attuned to students' varied learning needs as to the requirements of a thoughtful and well-articulated curriculum. Responsive teaching suggests a teacher will make modifications in how students get access to important ideas and skills, in ways that students make sense of and demonstrate essential ideas and skills, and in the learning environment—all with an eye to supporting maximum success for each learner. Responsive teaching necessitates that a teacher work continuously to establish a positive relationship with individual learners and come to understand which approaches to learning are most effective for various learners. Learner success benefits from teachers who are responsive to a learner's particular needs for numerous reasons:

Attending to teacher–student relationships contributes to student energy for learning. Beyond the potent benefits of human beings learning to understand and appreciate one another, positive teacher–student relationships are a segue to student motivation to learn. A learner's conviction that he or she is valued by a teacher becomes a potent invitation to take the risk implicit in the learning process.

• Attending to the learning environment builds a context for learning. When students feel affirmation, affiliation, a sense of contribution, growing autonomy, accomplishment, and shared responsibility for the welfare of the group, the "climate" for learning is good. Such a climate does not guarantee student success, but it opens the way and provides a setting in which consistent partnerships help students navigate success and failure as a part of human growth.
• Attending to students' backgrounds and needs builds bridges that connect learners and important content. Such connections contribute to relevance for students—an important attribute of student engagement.
• Attending to student readiness allows for academic growth. Our learning expands when the work we do is a little too difficult for us and when a support system exists to get us past the difficulty. Because students' readiness to learn particular ideas and skills at particular times will inevitably vary, a teacher must make appropriate readiness adjustments to enable consistent academic growth for each learner.
• Attending to student interest enlists student motivation. Learners of all ages are drawn to and willing to invest in that which interests them. Interest ignites motivation to learn. A teacher who makes consistent efforts to pique a student's curiosity, discover students' particular and shared interests, and show students how important ideas and skills connect to their interests is likely to find students who are far more eager and willing to learn than they would be if they found content and skill to be remote from their interests.
• Attending to student learning profiles enables efficiency of learning. Enabling students to work in a preferred learning mode simply "unencumbers" the learning process. When learning challenges are already substantial, it is sensible to allow students to work in ways that best suit them.

In all classrooms, it is important for teachers to ask, "Can I afford to sacrifice student trust and buy-in, growth, motivation, or efficiency of learning?" To the degree that a high level of learning for each student is the teacher's goal, the answer to the question must certainly be that these student attributes are imperatives. Student learning will diminish in direct proportion to teacher inattention to any of the attributes.

Basic Approaches to Responsive Teaching

Differentiation does not advocate "individualization." It is overwhelming to think that it might be the teacher's job to understand fully the needs of every single student, including those from a wide range of cultural and language groups, who struggle to read or write, who grapple with behavior challenges, who are advanced in performance, who come to us from oppressive home settings, and so on. Feasibility suggests that classroom teachers can work to the benefit of many more students by implementing patterns of instruction likely to serve multiple needs. Beyond that, it's always desirable to study individuals in order to make refinements in the teaching patterns. But implementing patterns and procedures likely to benefit students who have similar needs (while avoiding labeling) is a great starting point. Consider the following 10 teaching patterns that cut across "categories" of students and benefit academic success for many learners.

• Find ways to get to know students more intentionally and regularly. For example, stand at the classroom door and address the students by name as they come and go, use dialogue journals through which students have an opportunity to establish a written conversation with you, and take observational notes when students are discussing or working. These and many other approaches are effective in getting to know students, even when there are "too many of them." Such approaches also convey messages to students that they matter to teachers.
• Incorporate small-group teaching into daily or weekly teaching routines. Once a teacher and students become accustomed to procedures that allow some students to work independently (or in small groups) while the teacher works with a few students, the door is open for the teacher to target instruction on a regular basis to students who need to be taught in different ways, students who need assistance with basic skills, students who need to hear competent readers read aloud or who need "safe" opportunities to read aloud, students who need to be pushed further than grade-level expectations, and so on. Again, students seldom miss the point that a teacher is trying to help them succeed.
• Learn to teach to the high end. Studying and implementing strategies for extending learning of highly able students has many benefits. Most obvious among them is providing challenges for students who are often left to fend for themselves in finding challenges. However, the vast majority of students would benefit from tasks designed to foster complex and creative thinking, support for increased independence, self-assessment, metacognition, flexible pacing, and so on. The best differentiation inevitably begins with what we might assume are "too high expectations" for many students and continues with building supports to enable more and more of those students to succeed at very high levels.
• Offer more ways to explore and express learning. Many learners would benefit from routine opportunities to make sense of ideas through analytical, creative, or practical avenues, for example. Many learners would benefit from assignments and assessments that remain staunchly focused on essential learning outcomes but allow them to express their learning in ways that best suit their strengths and interests through varied products and performances (e.g., writing, speaking, acting, or visually representing).
• Regularly use informal assessments to monitor student understanding. For example, have students answer one or two key questions on an index card as a class period ends and turn the card in to the teacher at the end of the class period. Such an approach can help a teacher sense which individuals have mastered an idea or skill, which individuals hold misconceptions, which are still at the starting block of proficiency, and which individuals need extra support to become proficient. Such "exit cards" are not graded; they simply provide a snapshot that allows more targeted instructional planning for the days ahead.
• Teach in multiple ways. Use part-to-whole and whole-to-part explanations. Use both words and images. Model or demonstrate ideas. Use examples, stories, analogies, and illustrations derived from students' experiences. A teacher who regularly presents in these varied modes is likely to reach far more students than one who "specializes" in one mode.
• Use basic reading strategies throughout the curriculum. A teacher who regularly uses "read-alouds," "close reads," "split entry comprehension journals," and related mechanisms helps many students read with greater purpose and comprehension.
• Allow working alone or with peers. Many times, it makes little difference to the day's content goals whether students work independently or collaboratively on a task. Giving students the option (within required behavioral parameters) can improve learning for many students with both preferences.
• Use clear rubrics that coach for quality. Sometimes classroom rubrics resemble "bean counters"; for example, if a student does four of something, it's deemed to be better than three. Such rubrics do little to provide specific guidance or support metacognition about quality work and work habits. Rubrics that clearly explain the traits of "good" work and move up from there can coach far more students in progressing from good to exemplary. In addition, the rubrics can provide space for students to add personal goals for success or space for the teacher to add a student-specific goal.
• Cultivate a taste for diversity. Schools and classrooms often seem structured in ways that squelch diversity and lead not only to a poverty of thought but to a poverty of opportunity as well. Pose questions that can be answered from multiple vantage points, and make it safe for students to express diverse views. Ask students to find multiple ways to solve math problems. Encourage groups of students with very different talents to find varied ways to express understandings. Invite students to suggest ways they might structure the classroom, and draw on the approaches. Learn about the cultures of your students, and study the impact of race on students and learning. Consistently use examples, illustrations, and materials related to varied cultures. Ask students to compare idioms, ways of celebrating important events, heroes, stories, and so on, from their backgrounds. As a colleague reminded us, it's important not to mistake the edge of one's rut for the horizon. Our world—and our students'—is much expanded by seeing possibilities through many different eyes.

It's not necessary to implement all of these possibilities to begin being a more responsive teacher. It does matter to begin finding ways to become more aware of individual learners, to make the classroom more generous in reaching out to an array of learners with a sense of high possibility, and to develop varied pathways of teaching and learning so that the potentials of many different learners can be realized.

Beginning at the Beginning

Excellent teaching is of immense importance. So is coherent, meaning-rich curriculum. But in the end, education is about learning. Learning happens within students, not to them. Learning is a process of making meaning that happens one student at a time. Even as we begin consideration of the kind of curriculum most likely to support students in developing enduring understandings and powerful skills, we have to acknowledge that however impressive our curriculum design, it will have to be implemented in diverse ways according to diverse timetables and in response to diverse learner needs—or else it will not result in the learning for which we cast our plans.

Thus, always in our minds as we design curriculum must be these questions: Whom am I preparing to teach? How can I bring knowledge of my students to bear on the way in which I design curriculum? How can I help these particular students find themselves and their world in what I am about to teach? Then as we design and implement the curriculum, we need to continue asking: How might I teach in ways that best reveal the power of this design to these individuals? How might I learn more about these particular students as I watch them interact with the content and the ways in which I set about to teach it? In what ways might I ensure that each learner has full access to the power of this design in accordance with his or her particular needs?

With those questions indelibly in mind, the curriculum plans we make will be energized and informed by awareness of the people for whom they are designed. Curriculum design becomes a process through which we plan to communicate to real human beings our belief in the power of knowledge and the potential of the individual to develop power through knowledge. Appropriately, then, the chapter that follows explores what it means to craft curriculum that empowers learners.

References

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Carol Ann Tomlinson is professor of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. She is the author of a number of ASCD books on differentiation, including Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching  and the Differentiation in Practice series. Jay McTighe is coauthor, with Grant Wiggins, of the best-selling Understanding by Design series, which includes  Understanding by Design, The Understanding by Design Handbook, The Understanding by Design Study Guide, and most recently The Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook.

Source: Excerpted from Chapter 2 of Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids, by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe, to be published by ASCD in January 2006. This book will be mailed to Premium and Comprehensive members, who will also be able to view the full text of the book online after it is published, as a member benefit.