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Differentiated Instruction

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We are teaching biology in the best of times and the worst of times.  On the one hand, we are fortunate enough to live in a breathtaking era of biological discovery - new research, solved mysteries, exciting discoveries, fresh understandings about everything from atoms to ecosystems are coming to us every day.  On the other hand, it can be overwhelming.  Often times it feels like we’ve got too much biology to teach in too little time.  As my co-author, Neil Campbell, often put it, “ For today’s student, studying biology must feel a bit like trying to drink from a fire hose.”

And at the same time that the science of biology is exploding around us, our teaching methods and results are under increasing scrutiny.  Teachers and students are experiencing the burden of high-stakes testing in our schools.

 Even with all of these pressures upon us, I am certain that together, we would have no trouble agreeing that our common goals as biology educators are to:

 My co-authors and I feel that Biology: Exploring Life can help you accomplish those goals – even against the daunting backdrop of an information explosion and the demands of high stakes testing.  One of the advantages that a program like Exploring Life offers is the opportunity to readily differentiate instruction to meet the various needs within your classroom and thereby, achieve success with more students.

 But what is differentiated instruction?  The basic definition is to provide learning experiences for students that are suitable to their skills, background, and interests. 

Personally, I like Carol Tomlinson’s (an educational researcher at University of Virginia) definition:

 “In a way, it's just shaking up the classroom so it's a better fit for more kids.”
Carol Ann Tomlinson

 Another way to think of it is to recognize that many different roads can lead one to the same destination.  Once we set our learning goals, each student might (and probably will!) take a different path to achieve those goals.  At first blush that might sound a bit like offering an individualized instruction plan for each student in the class but it isn’t. 

 Biology: Exploring Life offers you a baseline of conceptual information (a straightforward and easy-to-read textbook) and a very rich set of online media activities.  And it’s the combination and intersection of these two environments (text and web site) that can assist your efforts to differentiate instruction in your classroom. The Exploring Life program provides you with a repertoire of tools and strategies.

 Let’s talk about a specific example:  Protein Synthesis.  Your teaching goal for this topic might be for students to understand that:

1)      A gene provides the information for making a specific protein

2)      That there are two main steps - transcription and translation - from gene to protein.

 Success for some of your students might be to come away with a clear, and yet mostly conceptual, understanding of this fundamental principle without the mechanical specifics.  Other students might be able to use the genetic code to transcribe a strand of mRNA, understand the base pairing rules, and the basic mechanics of protein building.  While still other students might be able to grasp ribosome function, the way start and stop codons work, the structural differences between DNA, mRNA, tRNA, and rRNA, and can begin to speculate on what happens when errors in translation occur.  For simplicity sake, let’s call these three levels of learners challenged, intermediate, and accelerated students.

 In order to accommodate that range, you could ask the challenged students to read the textbook, study the illustrations, proceed with the first web activity (which gives them practice with the overall concept without mechanical specifics), and quiz themselves with the end of chapter text review.  The intermediate students could do all of that plus the second web activity (where students dig into the mechanical specifics) and complete the online assessment to check their progress.  The accelerated students may just skim the text but be responsible for all four of the web activities (which gives them practice with more advanced material) on this topic. All students are using Chapter 11 of the book and the web site but they are using them in different proportions and to different extents.

 You can also use the EL textbook and web site to accommodate a range of learning styles.  There are five categories of activities on the EL web site: 1) WebQuests (fun jumpstart exercises, one for each chapter); 2) the Online Concept activities (one for every concept in each chapter); 3) Closer Look activities (for students who want to go a little deeper); 4) Online Lab Companions (one per chapter); and 5) Special Feature activities (Careers; Biology in the News; Science, Technology & Society). Your students who need a little more motivation to get them started may work most effectively by beginning a new chapter with a WebQuest.  Those students who need to know how the material connects to their everyday lives might start with a Special Feature activity.  Other students prefer to get right to the meat of the matter and should begin with the Online Concept activities. While your more accelerated learners, who benefit from being challenged, will enjoy the additional work of the Closer Look activities.  You can also blend a combination of textbook work and online activity manipulation that works best for certain students or groups of students. What’s more, the computer is endlessly patient.  So students who require repetition in order to master content can complete these activities over and over again.

 In addition to matching resources to the range of abilities and learning styles, you can readily align EL resources to your students’ schedules.  The online environment is available 24-7 so that students who have jobs, sports, or personal commitments outside of school hours can take advantage of the class’s learning resources when it is convenient for them.  Once they’ve established their log-in ID and password, they can access the ebook and the online activities electronically from any internet enabled computer, anywhere.  Having their materials always available also makes it easier for you to accommodate absences or illness.

 Each class we teach includes a wide range of student backgrounds, skills, learning styles, and interests.  The key is to fully understand those differences and then make creative use of your resources in order to construct appropriate matches between educational tool and learning need.

 I hope you enjoy experimenting with these ideas and we hope that the Exploring Life resources will provide you with the flexibility you need to best fit your students’ capabilities, learning styles, and schedules.  Please feel free to contact me with any advice or suggestions; I’d love to hear how it’s working!