Re: [Phys-l] differentiated instruction

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

> Thank you.  And now, why would anyone want to adopt and implement any of
> these definitions?  Maybe I'm just a latecomer to the discussion, but
> almost every teacher has his/her/its own favorite approach to teaching.
>
>  			Regards,
>  				Jack

Gee we agree.  At least I think we both agree that differentiated
instruction may not be a well defined term and that different authors and
workshop leaders have different ideas about it.  This is a common problem
with many commonly used terms, and neither education nor physics are immune
from it.

Mainly the original questioner has to know what the administrators want, and
then seek to show that he is providing it.  This is often done by relabeling
existing things to conform to the new scheme.  This has been done as long as
there are administrators and peons;).  Teachers have become adept at faking
changes, so little real change happens.  They also know that each mandated
change is usually dropped in 5 years or less.

But as I always say, research based instruction will work better in the end,
so always look at it, or better yet take a good workshop such as Modeling at
AZ State.  (Yes, I am a broken record.  If you don't understand this, then
you are too young!)  Research based instruction provides a whole variety of
tasks that can be labeled "differentiated" and will satisfy most
administrators.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX