Tiered+Instruction+Explained

"Teachers use tiered activities so all students focus on essential understandings and skills but at different levels of complexity, abstractness, and open-endedness. By keeping the focus of the activity the same, but providing routes of access at varying degrees of difficulty, the teacher maximizes the likelihood that 1) each student comes away with pivotal skills and understandings and (2) each student is appropriately challenged" (Tomlinson, 1999, page 83).

__ She gives the following explanation of how to clone a lesson along a ladder __ : "Cloning occurs when you allow students to express learning in ways that range from very familiar to unfamiliar. It occurs when you develop a range of applications, from those that closely relate to students' experiences to those far removed. Match a version of the task to each student based on student need and task requirements. The goal is to match the task's degree of difficulty and its pacing to student readiness (Though you want to stretch the student slightly beyond his comfort zone)" (Tomlinson, 1999, page 86). __ In her examples of what to differentiate, she states __ : "In this illustration, Mrs. Lightner has differentiated content by presenting students with reference materials at different readability levels and suggesting varying Internet sites. What she has not differentiated is the essential understanding of what ozone is and why it is important to living things. She has differentiated process by varying the amount of support given for note taking, and the level of complexity, abstractness, and multifacetdness of the demonstrations of understanding. What she does not differentiate in process in the need for all students to use print and Internet resources, distill information, develop and apply understandings, and share with peers what they have learned” (Tomlinson, 1999, page 86).