In Chapters 2 and 3, you gathered informationabout your students and examined your curricu-lum to determine what's essential to teach. Onyour curriculum map, you also identified poten-tial places for differentiated activities by think-ing about times when your students weretypically in different places in their learning orcould benefit from more advanced work. Nowyou are ready to find out how differentiated yourcurrent instructional plans are and to design, asappropriate, additional or alternative activities.

Many .of you already have components andaspects of differentiated instruction in yourplans. With some reflection on how you teachand how your students best learn, and with somecareful review and revision of your instructionalplans, you will be well on your way to a differ-entiated classroom.

TWofamiliar educational models, Bloom's tax-onomy and Gardner's theory of multiple intelli-gences, can be applied to differentiation. In thischapter, you'll first review the different levels ofthinking in Bloom's taxonomy, which can enableyou to identify how challenging various learningactivities are. Then you'll further explore the dif-ferent ways of thinking and learning reflected inGardner's model. You'll try out new ways to usethe familiar.

This chapter describes how you can applythese two familiar· models to your curriculummap in order to create a matrix plan for differ-entiated activities. Many teachers have foundthat the matrix formats make it quick and easy touse Bloom's and Gardner's models in their plan-ning. Matrix plans can be an essential first stepin differentiating instruction since they takewhat is and allow you to design what's missing.Matrix plans let you look systematically at yourcurrent instruction so you can more skillfullydesign differentiated learning activities that rep-resent a spectrum of challenge and variety.

Challenge: Bloom's Levelsof ThinkingLooking at instruction through the lens of chal-lenge means considering the rigor, relevance,and complexity of what you're .teaching.Learning that is challenging demands:

• higher-level thinking that motivates allstudents to achieve.

• substantive instruction that is clearly relatedto the essential curriculum.

• content that has both depth and breadth.

Challenge does not mean simply morework, especially not more work of the samekind. Students rightfully resent being asked totake a challenge when it's clear to them that allit means is more work.

Educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom'sTaxonomy of Educational Objectives presents auseful and time-tested model for examining anddifferentiating the challenge level of activities.His classification can help you design activitiesthat are appropriately rigorous, relevant toessential curriculum, and sufficiently complex.He describes six levels of thinking: knowledge,comprehension, application, analysis, evalua-tion, and synthesis. (See Figure 6, page 68.) Allare important.

Students who are more academically talentedwill often need less time developing the solidbase of facts, concepts, and ideas represented atthe knowledge and comprehension levels ofBloom's model. At the same time, students whoare less academically ready, or who generallyrequire more time and practice to learn, alsoneed to use higher-level thinking skills. We'veall known students who had great difficultyremembering facts but were so creative they

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could easily function at the higher level of syn-thesis. We'veknown others who would have givenup in frustration and boredom if their tasks weretoo often limited to lower-level thinking. All stu-dents need opportunities to work at all levels.

Keep in mind that, by its very nature, Bloom'shigher levels of thinking reteach or reinforcebasic content. For example, when you ask stu-dents to identify the problem presented in a storyand come up with an alternative solution,' you'reasking them to work at the level of analysis andevaluation. But to do this they need to revisit thestory, recall what happened and recall the originalsolution. Thus you are reteaching the storythrough a more rigorous learning activity. Do allstudents need content knowledge? Absolutely. Dosome students need more time than others todevelop their content knowledge? Yes. Offeringmore time to students who need it while provid-ing sufficient challenge for all is part of what dif-ferentiated instruction is about.

Bloom's taxonomy enables you to categorizeactivities by their level of challenge and complex-ity. You can then modify or adapt your activities-or even design new ones-to offer a wider rangeof thinking challenges and more opportunities forall students to use higher levels of thinking.

In the list below, you'll notice that synthesis,rather than evaluation, is presented as the high-est, most challenging kind of thinking and doing.When Bloom first introduced his taxonomy, syn-thesis came before evaluation in the hierarchy.However, most educators are now convincedthat to come up with something new is morechallenging than evaluating what already exists.

68 . Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom

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Knowledge: The least complex kind of thinking asksstudents to recall facts and other information they havepreviously learned. When you ask students to tell, list,define, and label, you are eliciting this kind of thinking.Example: List China's most important exports.

Comprehension: The next level asks students to showtheir understanding ofwhat they have learned. Directingstudents to explain, summarize, retell, or describeencourages them to think at the comprehension level.Example: Explain the reasons the GreatWallof Chinawasbuilt.Application: The application level of thinking asks stu-dents to do something with what they have learned. Whenstudents demonstrate, construct, record, or use theirknowledge, they are thinking at the application level.Example: Organize a time line of the MingDynasty.Analysis: When you ask students to take apart an ideaand examine it critically, you are expecting analyticalthinking. Activities like comparing and contrasting, clas-sifying, critiquing, and categorizing call for analysis.Example: Compare and contrast the judicial systems ofChina and the United states.Evalnation: Evaluation means determining the value orworth of something based on a set of criteria. Evaluationis usually preceded by analysis; in order to evaluate orjudge something, students must look closely at (analyze)its characteristics or elements. When students judge, pre-dict, verify, assess, or justify, they are thinking at theevaluation level of challenge. Example: Whodo you thinkwas the most influential figure in early Chinese history?Defend your choice.Synthesis: Synthesis means putting things together in anew or different way, that is, inventing or reinventing,not simply reformatting. Synthesis requires creativethinking. Use care in distinguishing between applicationand synthesis. For example, an illustration involvesappli-cation if the student simply uses or demonstrates factualknowledge, such as in a time line of historical events.Putting information into a new format (for example, froma textbook paragraph to a chart) is not synthesis since itdoes not require original thinking. An illustrationinvolves synthesis if it demands original thinking. Askingstudents to compose, hypothesize, design, and formulateencourages this challenging kind of thinking. Example:Compose a letter to the editor of a Chinese newspapersuggesting possible ways to resolve the conflict betweenthe government and the people on personal rights andfreedom.

Using Bloom's Yaxono"'!y toDifferentiate InstructionIn differentiating instruction, a critical step is toask, "How challenging is this learning activity?"1b help you answer this question, Figure 7 (page69) provides quick definitions of each of Bloom'slevels, as well as verbs that you can use todevelop and categorize activities at each level.

'Based on Thxonomy of Educational Objectives: Book 1 Cognitive Domain by Benjamin S. Bloom, et al. (New York: Longman, 1984).Described in Resources, page 18.

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How Do You Teach? Planning for Challenge and Variety 69

FIGURE 7

Challenge Levels

Level Definition Action Activities

Synthesis Put together in a new Create It compose, hypothesize,or different way design, formulate,

create, invent,develop, refine,produce, transform

Evaluation Determine worth or value Judge It - judge, predict, verify,based on criteria assess, justify, rate,

prioritize, determine,select, decide, value,choose, forecast,estimate

Analysis Examine critically.

Examine It compare, contrast, clas-sify, critique, categorize,solve, deduce, examine,differentiate, appraise,distinguish, experiment,question, investigate,categorize, infer

Application Use what you Use It demonstrate, construct,have learned record, use, diagram,

revise, record, reformat,illustrate, interpret,dramatize, practice,organize, translate,manipulate, convert,adapt, research, calculate,operate, model, order,display, implement,sequence, integrate,incorporate

Comprehension Show your Understand It locate, explain, summa-understanding rize, identify, describe,

report, discuss, locate,review, paraphrase,restate, retell, show,outline, rewrite

Knowledge Recall facts and Know It tell, list, define, label,information recite, memorize, repeat,

find, name, record, fill in,recall, relate

Based on Thxonomy of Educational Objectives: Book 1 Cognitive Domain by Benjamin S. Bloom, et al. (New York: Longman, 1984).Described in Resources, page 18.

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