Customer Reviews

How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition)

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Meeting all students' needs is more than a conversation and Carol Tomlinson shows the way with this book. As a staff developer for the largest county in Michigan, I use many books and resources that I keep listed on storywind. This book is great for those new to Differentiated Instruction (DI) and are seeking both a basic understanding, what DI looks like, and strategies to begin.

I must include that if you want a deeper understanding of how DI fits into curriculum, pedagogy, what DI looks like for students and teachers, and strategies with examples--get the book, Fulfilling the Promise of Differentiation. I sue it when facilitating staff in professional learning groups. It's good for doing independent research for a department, grade level team, and school implementation.

How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms is a quick read that you'll want to reread with a highlighter and pen. Carol Tomlinson is a great communicator and teacher. She provides in this book a beginning understanding of how DI is good for students, and varied ways that teachers can implement into curriculum. I especially recommend chapter two which makes the case of DI for struggling and advanced learners, and address the areas teachers teach: content, process, and product, and how students respond for successor failure: readiness, interest, and learning profile. The appendices contain strategies described in a page for each.

This book should be in every school's professional library. Its information is essential for getting a basic understanding of Differentiated Instruction and examples. Also consider Fulfilling the Promise of Differentiated Instruction.

This book is a great place to start for individuals who already have some teaching experience, have a general familiarity with differentiated learning, but need help with the scope and implementation. This is not for someone who wants linear how-to manual. This book begins with a rationale for differentiated learning and then provides a framework for understanding the process, content, and structure for setting up your classroom. There is plenty of practical advice and examples. If you already know that this is the direction you want to take, I highly recommend this purchase.

This would be an excellent resource for all classroom teachers and reading coaches. With much emphasis on differentiating instruction, many teachers are at a loss as to what it really is. This book explains the idea of differentiating instruction in simple easy to read chapters. You will be glad you purchased it and will want to share it.

I first was shown this book in a graduate class on Effective Teaching and used it for an assignment. I couldn't get over how many useful strategies were laid out in front of me to apply in my classroom. The strategies offered are realistic and useful in any subject - I teach high school French and apply many. The tools offered are applicable to all and any student in your class.

This book should be part of every good teacher's professional toolbox; it is highly recommended.

I like the theory and implementation strategies behind this book! It was easy to read and understand, too. I bought it for an education/ teaching methods course and I've used it to write every lesson plan, unit plan since. It relates to the idea that classrooms are made up of so many diverse types of learners that you must try and vary your instruction. (It's a lot like Howard Gardner's "Ways of Knowing".) It gives suggestions on how to add "difference" to your lessons. A lot of school corporations near where I live are adopting "DI" as well. It's catching on along with "Understanding by Design." Differentiated instruction works really well with Special Needs students, too. I recommend that anyone teaching these students at least read a copy of the book if not keep one for their own libraries!

Carol Tomlinson is a master at making sense out of pedagogy, making what is complex, clear, and making the principles inspirational. She is excellent at weaving together all the best practices in education to give 21st century teachers what we've been dying to hear -- that all approaches we've been taught have some merit, somewhere, for some child. The art is in the weaving it all together, which is what differentiated instruction is all about. This book is essential. Read also Understanding By Design Expanded 2nd Edition and then search for any book that differentiates specifically for your content area. Amy Benjamin is wonderful at not only English instruction and Social Studies but sampling other subjects (see Differentiated Instruction: A Guide for Middle and High School Teachersand then there's Tomlinson's and Strickland's Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 9-12. If you have these on your shelf, you have great foundational principles plus great specific models to work from. NCTE has also just released the first book of differentiated lessons that I've found on Shakespeare, Teaching Romeo and Juliet: A Differentiated Approach. We've still got a long way to go as a profession to providing ready-made models that teachers don't have to invent on their own, but we're getting there. If you're in English, Benjamin and the NCTE book should get you started.

Tomlinson's "How to Differentiate Instruction" has been quite helpful in two ways. First, she gives an excellent summary of differentiated instruction- a brief breakdown of what it is and is not. Second, she provides practical tips in how to manage a differentiated classroom, dealing with parents, etc. I'm not sure how helpful this would be for an experienced teacher, but for me (a first-year teacher wanting to begin differentiating instruction) the tips were practical and to the point. I felt this was more than theory- this was a how-to, which is exactly what I needed. I had actually borrowed this from a library, but wanted to hold onto for a reference so much I ended up buying it.

Wonderful book, easy to read book about differentiation. The book covers all areas of differentiation a simple way. Does not read like a textbook! Great book to refer back to.

So I've been teaching successfully for almost 20 years. I'm proud of that -- and think I do a good job -- but I've NEVER been good at differentiating learning in my classroom. Worse yet, I've NEVER had ANY good PD around how to make differentiation happen in the classroom. As a result, it has always been a concept that intimidated me. In theory, I'm down with differentiation. In practice, I never do it.

Tomlinson's book -- which is full of practical and approachable examples of differentiation in action -- has been super valuable to me mostly because I can see all kinds of places where I can incorporate differentiation into my work without radically changing what I do. That matters, y'all. Innovation is about evolution, not revolution -- and Tomlinson has shown me places where my practice CAN evolve without killing me!

#goodstuff

This is an excellent book that we used in a graduate school class that I took on middle school curriculum. The book is very readable and doesn't overwhelm the reader with an excessive number of techniques. It is very practical and hands on. Some parts come off as a bit utopian, but as long as the reader stays grounded it is not a problem.