HEACOX, Diane, Differentiation Instruction in the Regular Classroom: How to Reach and Teach All Learners, Grades 3-12, 2012, pb. 176 pages, Free Spirit Publishing. If I could have only one book about differentiating instruction, this would be it. It has more background to make differentiating instruction appealing and realistic. It includes many tips on helping both your gifted students and the ELL or slower learners in your same classroom. You’ll rarely find more useful forms, prompts, and student reflective handouts in any other resource. The Updated edition for the 10th Anniversary of this book has added connections to Common Core standards, a Power Point for Staff Development, and many downloadable forms that will provide hours of valuable materials for direct use.
HIMMELE, PERSIDA & HIMMELE, WILLIAM, Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner, ASCD, 2011, paperback, 133 pages.
ISBN: 978-1-4166-1294-0. This book is a highly-recommended companion to the text for this course. It begins with a chapter “The High Cost of Disengagement,” and makes an enthusiastic case for banishing boring education. The Total Participation Techniques “are teaching techniques that allow for all students to demonstrate, at the same time, active participation and cognitive engagement in the topic being studied.” Many strategies are described with clear directions, and ways to assure higher-order thinking. The strategies have been field-tested in elementary to college classes. A real winner, very readable.
PAYNE, Ruby K, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, A Cognitive Approach, 2013, 5th Edition, aha!process Inc. pb, 237 pages, ISBN: 978-1-929229-48-2.
If you teach children who are experiencing generational poverty or situational poverty in your classes, you will learn answers to some of your most perplexing problems, both in teaching content, in motivating student motivation, focus and planning behaviors, classroom management, and parent communication.You will learn the Hidden Rules of the wealthy, the middle class, and those living in poverty, and find greater respect for the rules your students are living by. Most teachers rate this information as the most helpful they have encountered.
REEVES, DOUG B, Leading Change in our School: How to Conquer Myths, Build Commitment, and Get Results, 2009, ASCD paperback, 192 pages,
ISBN: 1416608087. This author, who is highly regarded, describes examples of both elementary and secondary schools with success in overcoming resistances to differentiating. Brings in the roles played by both teachers and administrators. It includes information about creating, planning, implementing, and sustaining change and provides assessments to measure personal and organizational readiness for change.
THOMPSON, CAROL ANN, Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching, ASCD, 2003, paperback, 165 pages, ISBN: 0-87120-812-1. “Good teaching begins with good relationships and a passion that students can see.” That is the theme of this book, and this focus is the reason why you should read another book by Carol Ann Tomlinson about differentiation. She has moved from her previous work describing how to design the components of curriculum to describe “the promise of the differentiated classroom” in which the emphasis will be on meeting student needs, both academic and personal.
THOMPSON, CAROL ANN, BRIMIJOIN, and NARVAEZ, LANE, The Differentiated School: Making Revolutionary Changes in Teaching and Learning, ASCD, 2008, 20xx, paperback, 204 pages, ISBN-13: 9781416606789. If you are looking at a school-wide plan for change, this book will provide you some of the background of Michael Fullan on the realities of planning for change, and will lead you through the processes for bringing the learning community together to increase the likelihood that second-order change can occur. There are interesting case studies of both elementary and secondary schools whose plans for change were highly successful and illustrative of possibilities for real accomplishment.
WOOD, Chip, Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14, Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc., 3rd Edition, 2007, paperback, 217 pages,
ISBN: 978-1-892989-19-2. For teachers trying to differentiate instruction, this book provides the essential child development piece. It is based on essential principles. It is based on the idea that children will generally go through predictable stages that are similar the world over, but have differences that may be due to family, personality, and other environmental features. In addition, it appears that children develop in patterns of spurts and then consolidation. You will see the overarching patterns for each of the stages described in the book. You will both be enlightened and affirmed in your own perceptions.
WORMELLI, Rick, Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom, 2006, ASCD, pb 218 pages, ISBN 1-571304240.
Once you have decided to create differentiated paths to student learning, many issues about grading the work of students need to be determined: how much to consider the effort, attendance and behavior in student grades; how to consider extra credit, homework grades, make-up work, and finding fair dividing points in assigning per cents for student work. Rick Wormelli addresses all these issues with clarity and also considers how test construction and report cards would be affected by differentiation. This book will help you think about your own beliefs and provide some reasons to create a rationale for your own decisions.