Beliefs Behind Responsive Teaching/Differentiated Instruction

Human beings share common feelings and needs, and schools should help us understand and respect those commonalities.

Individuals also differ significantly as learners; these differences matter in the classroom, and schools should help us to understand and respect the differences.

Intelligence is dynamic rather than static, plural rather than singular.

Human capacity is malleable, and the art of teaching is the art of maximizing human capacity; a central goal of schools ought to be maximizing the capacity of each learner.

We probably underestimate the capacity of every child as a learner.

Students should be at the center of the learning process; actively involved in making sense of the world around them through the lenses we call "the disciplines."

All learners require respectful, powerful, and engaging schoolwork to develop their individual capacities so that they become fulfilled and productive members of society.

A major emphasis in learner development is self-competition for growth and progress.

Teachers and other adults need to help learners accept responsibility for their own growth and progress.

Individuals and society benefit when schools and classrooms are genuine communities of respect and learning.

Effective heterogeneous classrooms are essential to building community in our schools.

Effective heterogeneous classrooms are powerful venues because most students spend most of their school time in such classrooms.

All effective heterogeneous classrooms recognize the similarities and differences in learners and robustly attend to them.

Excellent differentiated classrooms are excellent first and differentiated second.

Promoting Effective Differentiation is Difficult if Educators' Beliefs Include the Following:

Teachers are tellers and students are absorbers.

Time in the classroom is fixed.

Curriculum is largely fact based and skill based.

Pleasurable learning is a luxury.

"Fair" means treating all kids alike.

Students don't learn what the teacher doesn't directly oversee.

Life is difficult, and teachers must help students prepare for its rigors by giving them a taste of "reality" in the classroom.

Sorting of students through grading and scheduling is appropriate and effective.

If we'd just homogeneously group students, we wouldn't need differentiation.

Intelligence is fixed.

Ability and compliance are intertwined.

Most students cannot handle responsibility in the classroom.

Most students should be able to learn in the same way.

Students who differ broadly from grade-level expectations are problematic.

Students who achieve above grade level are already fine and we don't need to worry about them.

Student deficits are generally at fault when students don't learn.