Differentiation and Engagement: PLN 34B (EDCE 5590)

Introduction

This course provides an opportunity for educators to take an in-depth look at the text, Project Based Learning: Real Questions. Real Answers. How to Unpack PBL and Inquiry by Ross Cooper and Erin Murphy. Through a study group format tailored to the needs of course participants, teachers engage in a range of group reading talks and strategies for accessing text content as they try out these techniques with their students. Participants purchase their course text. PLN provides "The Plainer Truths of Teaching, Learning and Literacy" by Morton Botel and Lara Paparoas a mentor text or participants are asked to bring their own copy of the “The Plainer Truths” (2016) from a former PLN course. Key topics include: Creating a classroom of respect to allow for supportive differentiation, easily implemented differentiation strategies for content, delivery, and assessment, issues of grading and fairness, formative assessments, management of differentiation.

Developing true differentiation based on academic readiness and student interest, exploring how to consistently evaluate student progress, instructional decisions, flexible groupings, and focused strategies that allow for adjusting of content, delivery and evaluation and increasing students' ability to make meaning and demonstrate learning against the backdrop of PLN’s Five Reading, Writing, Talking Processes and The Four Lenses of Learning.