Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design (Connecting Content and Kids)

• Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition
• How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition) (ASCD)
• Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook
• Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
• The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (ASCD)

Simultaneously, teachers find it increasingly difficult to ignore the diversity of the learners who populate their classrooms. Few teachers find their work effective or satisfying when they simply "serve up" a curriculum--even an elegant one--to students with no regard for their varied learning needs. For many educators, Differentiated Instruction offers a framework for addressing learner variance as a critical component of instructional planning.

In this book the two models converge, providing readers fresh perspectives on two of the greatest contemporary challenges for educators: crafting powerful curriculum in a standards-dominated era and ensuring academic success for the full spectrum of learners. Each model strengthens the other. Understanding by Design is predominantly a curriculum design model that focuses on what we teach. Differentiated Instruction focuses on whom we teach, where we teach, and how we teach. Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe show you how to use the principles of backward design and differentiation together to craft lesson plans that will teach essential knowledge and skills for the full spectrum of learners.

Connecting content and kids in meaningful ways is what teachers strive to do every day. In tandem, UbD and DI help educators meet that goal by providing structures, tools, and guidance for developing curriculum and instruction that bring to students the best of what we know about effective teaching and learning.