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A current major priority and buzz word in education is differentiated instruction. Ongoing scientific research on learning demonstrates that students achieve at higher levels when teachers and students have daily access to these elements of differentiated instruction:
- Quick and easy access to a wide variety of relevant learning resources for both historic and current topics that students can read, view, and understand (lexiles)
- Learning assignment formats that focus on topics/issues that are relevant to students' lives and interests
- Tools that help student organize, analyze, and synthesize information quickly for problem solving and critical thinking
- A variety of models, strategies, and assessments that students can use to demonstrate what they have learned to a variety of audiences
Differentiated instruction is not new. The best example of its effective utilization in traditional education is tutoring. Unfortunately, this is not replicable in classroom teaching. Despite the difficulty, many effective classroom teachers have tried to implement the strategies of differentiated learning with their students.
This always required a combination of great deal of effort, great ingenuity, and the good fortune to have high quality resources easily available. Needless to say, differentiated instruction is not practiced by many educators or found in most schools.
Other obstacles to differentiated instruction are:
- Lack of easy access to a variety of visual media and other current resources
- Too much focus on textbook learning with a one-size-fits-all textbook that is often out-of-date
- Excessive emphasis by the state and schools to cover and memorize textbook content
- An undue emphasis on grading using a single mode for assessing learning—multiple—choice testing
- A teacher evaluation system that focused on lecture and discussion pedagogy—"The Sage on the Stage."
The good news for teachers today is that educational technology makes it possible to implement differentiated instruction with little of the effort needed in the past.
The caveat is that school leaders have to acquire Web 2.0 technology as well as providing the essential professional development needed so that teachers know how to use these tools effectively to differentiate instruction. Educational research and current 21st Century reform initiatives and standards suddenly are poised to help pave the way for this radical change in how teachers teach and how students learn.
These are the priorities of 21st Century Literacy and Skills:
- Problem-solving and critical thinking vs. traditional rote learning
- Collaboration across networks and leading by influence vs. traditional individual effort
- Agility and adaptability vs. traditional conformity to norm
- Initiative and entrepreneurship vs. traditional "tried and true"
- Effective written and oral communication vs. traditional worksheets and multiple choice tests
- Accessing and analyzing information vs. traditional remembering the "right" answer
- Curiosity and imagination vs. traditional one way to solve problems
The new eLibrary from ProQuest provides a solution that can help teachers and students implement differentiated instruction and 21st Century Skills in schools, libraries, and at home.
eLibrary also includes lexile scored resources to enable schools to find resources matched to student reading levels.
Here are just a few of the new eLibrary tools and content that support differentiated learning (see elements in numbered list above) and 21st Century essential skills:
- Wide variety of editor-selected print, multimedia, and websites in one search that save time for learning (1)
- State standards correlated content that supports accessing and analyzing information (3)
- Archives for teachers of student learning activities (2)
- Engaging Issues BookCart learning activities (2)
- Lexile reading level scores help challenged readers (1)
- Written and presentation models for students to use (4)
- BookCart lesson planning template with essential questions for critical thinking (2, 3)
- Professional development--creates learning activities (2)
- Access at school or at home 24 x7 (1)
- Translation tool--10 languages including Spanish (1)
- Hundreds of ProQuest model BookCarts to customize for the needs of students (1)
- My List and My eLibrary collect student selections (3)
- Essential Collections address popular topics (1)
Find out more about the all new eLibrary, and don't miss our videos to give you a sneak peek: New eLibrary quick tour, multimedia, and smart content.
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