The Equalizer - ASCD

1 Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer _____. The Equalizer When teachers design tiered lessons or tasks to respond to differences in student readiness, they are trying to adjust the difficulty level of the task so that all students experience a challenge that is neither too great nor too small. To visualize the various ways an assignment or activity can be adjusted or tweaked for students at varied readiness levels, it's helpful to use the Equalizer , a tool devised by Carol Ann tomlinson ( tomlinson , 1999). The Equalizer suggests nine continuums along which the difficulty level of lesson content, process, or product may be located. It can help teachers expand the repertoire of ways they think about varying the challenge level of a specific task. The Equalizer works in the same way that you might adjust the volume, bass, treble, or Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 2.

2 _____. balance on your audio equipment. In general, as a task is moved to the right on the continuum, the more challenging it becomes. The idea is for the teacher to adjust one or more of the continuums in an effort to vary the difficulty level of student work. Using the Equalizer to Meet Student Readiness Needs When examining sample tiered lessons, many teachers find the Equalizer to be an excellent tool for analyzing just exactly what the teacher did to adjust the difficulty level from task to task. They also find it useful in considering good ways to adjust a lesson for their own students. The table below illustrates some readiness needs advanced and struggling students may have. Advanced students may need Struggling students may need To skip practice with previously mastered skills Someone to help them identify and make up and understandings.

3 Gaps in their learning so they can move ahead. Fewer opportunities for direct instruction or More opportunities for direct instruction or supervised practice. practice. Activities and products that are quite complex, Activities or products that are more structured open-ended, abstract, and multifaceted, or more concrete, with fewer steps, closer to drawing on advanced reading material. their own experiences, and calling on simpler reading skills. A brisk pace of work, or perhaps a slower pace A more deliberate pace of learning. to allow for greater depth of exploration. It is easy to get stuck in a rut of adjusting difficulty only by making a task more or less concrete or more or less scaffolded. The Equalizer expands our thinking in multiple ways about how a task might vary in difficulty. The following includes information adapted from Carol Ann tomlinson 's work with these continuums over the years (for example, tomlinson , 1999 and 2001).

4 Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 3. _____. Elements Foundational Transformational Build a solid foundation of Cause students to stretch, bend, or understanding. They are presented or modify the idea beyond the way it was experienced in a way that is basic, presented in class or in the textbook, straightforward, and close to the and to see the intricacies of the already known. material. One child may benefit from a more Another student may need the more Information, basic task of classifying animals by transformational task of predicting how ideas, the types of body covering. changes in environment would likely materials, and affect the body covering of several applications animals. In a math class, one young learner An appropriate challenge for another may be ready for a basic application student may be the more of the concept of fractions by cutting transformational task of writing fruit and placing it to reflect a given measures of music that represent fraction.

5 Certain fractions. Elements Concrete Abstract Representations, Focus on key information, are Focus more on meaning, implications, ideas, tangible, can be physically principles, and interrelationships. applications, and manipulated, or deal with specific materials events. Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 4. _____. In a science class, some students Others might work from a list of these may work with principles concerning principles and make predictions about wind and water current via hands-on future trends. experiments. Working with concrete information should open a door for meaningful abstraction later on. For example, grasping the idea of plot (more concrete) typically has to precede investigations of theme (more abstract). Ultimately, however, all students need to delve into the meanings of stories, not just the events.

6 The issue here is readiness or timing. Elements Simple Complex Deal with one or few events or Deal with multiple events or meanings meanings; perhaps in a big picture that include many details. that provides a framework skeleton without many details. Resources, Some students may be ready to work Other students look at inter- research, issues, with the theme in a story (a single relationships between themes and problems, skills, abstraction). symbols (multiple abstractions, or and goals complexity). In a class store, some elementary Others keep an ongoing tally of profits students may work at making and losses. change. Most learners need to begin with the simple before moving to the more complex. Even adults often find it helpful to read a children's book on black holes, for example, before they tackle the work of Stephen Hawking.

7 Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 5. _____. Elements Single Facet Multiple Facets Require one or few steps, actions, Require more steps, actions, and and applications. applications. Disciplinary In a math class, some students need Others are ready for multiple-step connection, to work with word problems that word problems. direction, and require only one step to solve. stages of development Most students in a high school Others may take on the additional English class may work on writing step of interpreting and performing interior monologues based on the monologues. specific characters from a novel. Elements Small Leap Great Leap Students apply ideas in settings Call for putting ideas to work in relatively like those they have already unfamiliar settings or making mastered, or make connections connections among far-flung fields among ideas that are comfortable or and ideas.

8 Application, familiar to them. insight, and transfer For some students, learning about Other students may be able to move how to measure area and then from estimating and verifying area to applying that learning by estimating estimating materials needed to a and verifying the area of the hamster building project and proportional cost house compared to the teacher's implications of increasing the building Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 6. _____. desk may be enough of a leap of area. In both cases, students make application and transfer, at least in mental leaps from reading information the beginning. on a page to using that information. The latter task calls for relatively greater leaps of application, insight, and transfer. Some students may be able to make But others might need to be a connection between what they challenged by making connections studied in science today and what between subjects that scarcely they studied last week.

9 Seemed related before, such as science and art. Notice that this continuum does not provide the option of no leap. Students should always have to run ideas through their minds and figure out how to use them. Activities that call only for absorption and regurgitation are generally of little long-term use. Elements More Structured More Open Tasks provide for more guidance Tasks involve relatively greater from the teacher for students to improvisation or decision making for complete them, or include fewer students to complete them, or include options with which to work. many options. Solutions, Novice drivers begin by managing More experienced drivers are ready decisions, and the car on prescribed driving ranges to take unknown routes that may approaches or delineated routes. contain new obstacles. Being new to a computer or word When students become processor often requires completing knowledgeable and comfortable with programmed and closed lessons that basic computer operation and involve right answers.

10 Keyboarding, they are ready to move on to more advanced and open- Differentiated Instruction: Teaching with Student Differences in Mind > Module 5 > Reading: The Equalizer Page | 7. _____. ended tasks such as selecting varied uses of graphics to illustrate ideas in a formal presentation. For a beginner, following a At some point, students are ready to predetermined format for a writing craft their own essays designed to assignment or a chemistry lab often address a communication need, or makes more sense than create a chemistry lab that improvisation. demonstrates principles of their choosing. Sometimes students need to complete tasks that are fairly well laid out for them, where they don't have too many decisions to make. In this case, modeling helps most of us become confident enough to eventually wing it. But when modeling has served its purpose, it's time to branch out and get creative.