Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is well-known for embracing the latest innovations, be they shown effective or not. The latest pedagogical innovation embraced by the district is differentiated learning.
A link titled Instructional and Management Strategies to Support Differentiation- MCPS Division of Enriched and Innovative Instruction, the webpage asserts, is an “excellent site with many PowerPoint presentations on related topics.”
Click on that link and join me on an exploratory journey on the MCPS take on differentiated instruction. Generated from the work of Carol Ann Tomlinson, the webpage contains a multitude of topics, some with catchy titles like “The Doctor is In,” “Student Expert Desks,” and “Three Before Me.”
In Three Before Me, the teacher is asked to instruct “students to check with three other students before coming to the teacher for help, particularly when she is working with individuals or small groups.” Student Expert Desks, it turns out, is a “management strategy allowing teacher to work with individuals or small groups without interruption by designating ‘student experts’ to help peers,” and so on.
Yes, the differentiated classroom, at least in Montgomery County, depends on the child to provide instructional assistance to his or her peers. The district tacitly acknowledges that in classrooms where children run the gamut of learning abilities, from the advanced learner to the Special Needs student, the teacher may not have time to devote attention to the entire classroom.
In What It Means To Teach Gifted Learners Well, Tomlinson asserts, among other things, that “Good teaching for gifted learners happens at a higher "degree of difficulty" than for many students their age.” More importantly, Tomlinson acknowledges, “Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it asks them to do things they already know how to do, and then to wait for others to learn how.”
Tomlinson goes on to say that “Instruction for gifted learners is inappropriate when it cuts them loose from peers and the teacher for long periods of time. Asking a highly able student to sit at a desk in the back of the room and move through the math book alone ignores a child's need for affiliation, and overlooks the fact that a teacher should be a crucial factor in all children's learning. It also violates the importance of meaningful peer interaction in the learning process, as well as in the process of social and emotional development.”
Clearly, the MCPS differentiated classroom is a far cry from the recommended pedagogy in depending on advanced learners to provide instructional assistance to peers while waiting “for other to learn how.” Furthermore, it seems to overlook the fact that the teacher should be a crucial factor in a child’s learning.
Consequently, it is no surprise that the differentiated classroom has served neither the advanced learner nor the struggling learner well. MCPS, has the onus of evaluating the success of implementing an unproven pedagogical innovation. What is more, MCPS has the data, in the form of Map-R performance, to evaluate the success of the differentiated English Language Arts classroom.
(c) 2011, Kumar Singam. If you would like to receive email notifications of columns by the DC-Gifted-Examiner please use the “subscribe” button at the top of this article to sign up.
You may also receive notifications by RSS feed. Receive tweets of new articles by following the DC-Gifted-Education-Examiner on Twitter @DC_GT_Examiner.
Comments