Carol Ann Tomlinson

When reading this book from a teacher librarian perspective, there comes an overwhelming urge to sit down with a group of major educational consultants like Carol and Jay McTighe and a number of others to work through a different scenario than helping the isolated teacher in the isolated classroom “covering” prescribed content. Dr. Tomlinson addresses content understanding and “process” by which she means a teaching strategy. We would like these major thinkers to turn their attention show more to the real world of rich information environments, rich technology environments, and teaming the classroom teacher with a teacher librarian to assess how both working together can produce not just an expected result but challenge kids to exceed expectations. This volume concentrates on what teachers assess, when, and how they assess. But. what about the students themselves? What about what other specialists in the school can contribute to assessment? There are solid ideas here for just one piece of the total picture of assessment and teacher librarians are likely to participate in a professional development discussion of these strategies, but we urge that you be prepared with other perspectives that demonstrate your contribution to teaching and learning, and urge other types of measures. So, if this book is being discussed in your faculty, you must read it; otherwise, we are still looking for a broader perspective some time this century… show less

This book was required reading for my M.A. in Secondary Education. It contains some useful examples of how to make differentiation work in your classroom. In order to provide a broad range of examples, however, you will also find many examples that are relevant for other fields (ex: tips for history that don't directly apply to my life as a science/math teacher) or grade levels (ex: elementary tips that don't work with high school students).

This book is a frustrating curriculum. It takes weeks to grasps the idea of parallel curriculum.
I finally got the concept and started to love it as a very valid and effective (albeit unpractical) method to teach. It's important to notice that the classification of your lessons is essential (you need to know which method you use the most), and that not all lessons will require the 4 components.

See my quick presentation of the concept here:
show more target="_top">http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sophie65-1322405-502-shopping/ show less

This is an important book. One of the major titles of the year in which Tomlinson and team look at differentiation beyond the classroom and into the school as a whole. Previously, most of Tomlinson’s writing has centered on the classroom teacher, introducing and coaching the NCLB crowd into a different mentality where many paths are given to individual students to achieve learning objectives. Direct teaching advocates mark one path toward Rome. Tomlinson defines many roads and in this book show more tries to explain how the school as a school adopts such a teaching philosophy. The chapters lay out the plan as one would expect: Setting the Stage for Change Toward Differentiation; Leadership for Change Toward Differentiation; The Nature of Professional Development for Change Toward Differentiation; Monitoring and Evaluating Change Toward Differentiation; Snapshots of Change in several schools; Change in actual classrooms. I would guess that Tomlinson will have a spotlighted keynote address at the next ASCD conference, so get a leg up on that presentation by reading this book cover to cover before attending, or just use it as a volume to study with the professional learning community. Excellent. P.S. Identify the major areas that the learning commons can have as differentiation happens in your school. show less