Principle 7. Teach all using authentic, multi-level instruction.

We first met Sydney when she was in the fifth grade at Kenbrook Elementary School. That year, after many years of tentative steps towards inclusive teaching, the school staff had decided to close their separate classrooms for students with cognitive disabilities and to teach these students in general education classrooms. Sydney was one of those students. She has a cognitive disability, having been born with Down Syndrome. Sydney did well that year. One project, of which she was particularly proud was what she called her ‘moose project.’ 

Sydney’s Moose Project illustrates nicely some key elements of good authentic, multilevel instruction. (Two fifth grade teachers collaborated on many lessons this year. They taught across the hall.) The project: students had to select a plant or animal and find out specific information. Note how this assignment is open-ended. While criteria were identified, students could successfully complete this project at very different levels of sophistication. The teachers in this class expected each student to work at their personal best level. Similarly, Sydney got the highest rating on the rubric and made an A on the project. Does this mean that Sydney was necessarily functioning ‘at grade level.’ No. But she worked hard, learned, made progress, and met all the expectations of the assignment. (You can see a bit of her work below).  Other students considered gifted in this class were expected to gather information and develop much more sophisticated products. Sydney wrote one of her teachers, Rod Moeller, a letter of appreciation at the end of school. The teacher particular thought this statement was important: “I was doing my important work.” In other words, Sydney felt successful, valued, and engaged in learning that matters.

While there are many, many variations on teaching strategies, three basic forms stand out: (1) lecture-worksheet-test instruction; (2) direct instruction; and (3) workshop learning. In lecture-worksheet-test instruction teachers assign reading in a textbook and then lecture on that same material. Often teachers will include worksheets for practice and homework. Students take notes and sometimes view videos. Teachers then give tests– most often multiple choice or true and false.

The second approach is direct instruction. This approach focuses on instruction in skills, most often used in reading and math. Students are taught skills by completing worksheets and drills on skills out of the context in which such skills are used.

Workshop learning actively involves students in gathering information, studying critical questions, and working to create products that demonstrate learning. Skills and facts are learned in context of authentic activities. The focus of workshop learning is understanding, meaning, and critical thinking related to important issues. Workshop classes involve sharing information with the total class to begin with and conducting mini-lessons for direct instruction on skills.

Guidelines for effective instruction

 Researchers have studied how the brain actually works in learning. They identified the following guidelines:

• Ensure a state of relaxed alertness in a challenging but nonthreatening environment.
• Orchestrate immersion in complex experience.
• Engage in processing of experiences to consolidate emerging mental models.

In 2002, ten general and special education teachers who had been identified as exemplary multilevel teachers met one day per month for a year to discuss authentic, multilevel instruction. They identified principles that guide and describe practices in their classrooms that are highly effective for students with differing ability levels. According to this panel of exemplary teachers, effective instruction will have the following characteristics:

• Authentic learning is foremost and central. authentic learning teaches through tasks that occur for a real purpose. For example, rather than writing practice letters to no one in particular, authentic writing involves students in such tasks as: writing a company regarding how they may improve their product.
• Engaging higher order thinking. In authentic multi-level teaching, teachers involve all students in higher order thinking.
• Inclusive. Teachers include all students with special needs in general education classes, assuring use of heterogeneous grouping and pairing in the classroom. Ability grouping is used minimally and under careful conditions.
• Multi-level. Students are engaged in learning activities that allow them to function at their level of ability, yet are challenged at their zone of proximal development to continue growing and learning. ‘Just right’ work for all students is expected and supported.
• Multi-modal. Multi-model methods of obtaining information, engaging in learning, and demonstrating learning are used flexibly and naturally, including multiple intelligences and learning styles.
• Scaffolding. Students are given support and assistance to move from their present level of functioning to the next level.  Students are explicitly and systematically taught to help, support, and challenge one another as part of building community in their classroom.
• Guided student leadership and direction. Children are given voice in the classroom  and explicitly taught to help, support, and challenge one another. Students are taught how to judge ‘just right work’ and provided choices, instruction and support in learning how to take responsibility for choices.
• Evaluation based on learning and growth. Student evaluation is based largely on (1) learning and growth, and (2) effort rather than standard levels of expected functioning (eg. ‘grade level’). Assessment is performance-based and authentic and skills are assessed in the context of authentic tasks.

Steps in unit and lesson planning for multilevel differentiated instruction

 Step 1: Select an authentic theme that will be of interest to students which can link various subjects. While all our instruction will not necessarily be linked around authentic themes, the more this is the case, the more successful we will be in promoting higher levels of learning.

Step 2: Develop multilevel learning goals. Define an overall learning goal for the unit or lesson that is linked to one or more strands in the district curriculum. Once we know the overall learning goal, we think about the range of functioning of our students and articulate optimum expectations for our highest, lowest, and average level learners.

Step 3: Design product, assessment, and evaluation. Next we design student assessment. What product(s) will they develop? How will they demonstrate learning and how will we assign grades? 

Step 4: Engage students in authentic multilevel learning activities using workshop-based learning.  We then design learning activities in which students obtain and use information at their own ability level while working collaboratively with other students. We use multilevel, learning materials that allow students to access information at their level of ability in multiple modalities with multiple forms of representation.

Step 5: Differentiate lessons for individual students. Finally, we consider special needs of students and individually differentiate lessons for some to insure their participation and learning. We connect lessons to individual plans such as IEPs and plan how to use support from specialists such as bilingual paraprofessionals, special education teachers, and speech therapists.

Student interests are a centerpiece of curriculum and instruction. Teachers work to design lessons where students of diverse abilities work together in learning projects. Learning activities allow students to begin at their functioning level and move to the next level of ability without ongoing grouping students based on their abilities. Teachers seek to group students in a variety of ways: interests, learning needs, relationships. Teachers work to keep grouping flexible and insure that I do not have ongoing groups of children grouped by ability.  Teachers use materials that can be used with students at very different levels of abilities.

 Characteristics of effective authentic multi-level instruction

Learning activities accommodate a wide range of styles and abilities. Teachers make adaptations and modifications in the curriculum and for specific students. Instruction is connected to the community through community projects, and other strategies.Schools in which teachers teach in this way have few children whose needs are not met. However, since staff are constantly learning, never getting it quite right all the time, there will often be children for whom teaching is not working. Staff then figure a range of adaptations to the curriculum, paying attention to what works and how this might be incorporated next time into an overall teaching strategy.