Recent research on the brain has increased our understanding of learning and, therefore, expanded our knowledge of what makes for good instruction. One significant finding is that the brain cannot effectively retain lots of unconnected facts.
Our brains are constantly seeking patterns and connections. By bunching facts into categories or organizing them around concepts, the brain can make its own sense out of information and begin to understand it. Therefore, to help students see connections and make sense of the curriculum, it should be organized around concepts and principles.
Investigate examples of differentiating instruction.
Explore how the use of concepts and essential understandings plays a vital role in differentiating instruction.
Consider how to "equalize" opportunities for each learner, giving him/her an appropriate level of challenge while learning the same concept and essential understandings.
It Begins with Good Instruction
Effective differentiation is based on the foundation of good instructional principles. Put another way, without good instruction there won't be effective differentiation. Recent research on the brain has increased our understanding of learning and, therefore, expanded our knowledge of what makes for good instruction. One significant finding is that the brain cannot effectively retain lots of unconnected facts.
We know from brain research that students need to see patterns and connections. And if they have no way to make sense of this massive amount of information that's coming at them, they tend to get confused. It just becomes traipsing over trivia.
Our brains are constantly seeking patterns and connections. By bunching facts into categories or organizing them around concepts, the brain can make its own sense out of information and begin to understand it. Therefore, to help students see connections and make sense of the curriculum, it should be organized around concepts and principles.
When we teach by the key concepts and principles, it helps students develop frameworks of meaning.
The importance of using concepts and principles to frame learning is also based on the work of Hilda Taba who focused on how knowledge is structured.
Facts are discrete pieces of information that we believe to be true. These facts may typically fall within topics. For example, under the topic of Westward Movement, two facts are that (1) early American settlers migrated to the west and (2) many settlers traveled in wagon trains.
Concepts are ways of organizing or categorizing things that have something in common. For example, the concept of migration is a way of viewing the topic of Westward Movement and organizing facts about the settlers' experiences.
Principles are the ideas and deeper understandings that give meaning to the concepts. They are also referred to as essential understandings, generalizations, or "big ideas." (e.g., "People migrate to meet a variety of needs" or "Migration may lead to enhanced opportunity or greater freedom.")
The use of concepts to frame learning helps students to retain facts. But more important, it serves as a starting point for engaging students at a higher level of thinking and understanding by providing a certain perspective or focus on the topic of study.
The use of concepts and essential understandings plays a vital role in differentiating instruction. Essentially, the concept and principles serve as the common point for all students' learning.
Keep it relative. Keep it simple. Keep to the point.