Plan Around Thinking, Not Just Content

When I learned to differentiate, a key switch in my mindset was to focus on thinking, not content.

What do I mean?

Rookie Ian Merely Planned for Content

As a new teacher, if someone asked me what I was teaching tomorrow, I’d say, “Oh, we’re doing fractions.” Or “My class is learning about the American Revolution.” Or “We’re studying biomes.” I’d just name the content.

But this led to low-level lessons that focused on memorization.

• “Fractions” meant that students just practiced the steps to multiply fractions – over and over.
• “American Revolution” meant my class learned the meaning of “the Stamp Act.”
• “Biomes” meant we memorized the difference between a rainforest and a deciduous forest.

Because I left off the thinking skill, I defaulted to “memorize.” And I don’t know how to differentiate a lesson if its end goal is memorization. The ceiling is too just low.

Great Teachers Plan for Thinking

I’ve noticed that teachers who are most successful at differentiating focus on a lesson’s thinking, not the content. Ask them what they’re teaching, and these teachers say things like:

• My students are deciding which has more power: the numerator or the denominator. (I have this lesson here!)
• We’re ranking the top three mistakes made by the British that led to the American Revolution. Then, students who have time will decide if the American Revolution was inevitable or if Great Britain could have prevented it. (See that built-in differentiation!)
• We’re ddetermining which is more useful to humanity: a rainforest or a deciduous forest. Then, we’ll consider whether this was different for prehistoric humans.

See how these statements focus on how students are thinking about the content.

Differentiation Becomes Natural

When you plan for the thinking (not just the content), you’ll naturally see different levels of answers from students with different abilities. Differentiation is built-in. That’s because we’re giving advanced students enough room to spread their wings. We’re purposefully including those lovely Analyze and Evaluate stages of Bloom’s.

I never got great thinking from students when I asked them to restate things I already knew.

The Low Levels Are Still There

Now, sure, students will still have to learn the steps to multiply fractions. They’ll still need to know what The Stamp Act is. And they must be able to distinguish between a rainforest and a deciduous forest. But now we’re using those low-level tasks to climb up Bloom’s. We’re building a sequence of tasks that will build on memorization. We have a place for students to go!