Differentiation Professional Learning

 

A Differentiated Professional Learning Opportunity on Differentiation: A Workshop for Teachers New to Differentiation and a Workshop for Teachers Ready for the Next Level

Educators know the importance of matching the learning to the student, but not all understand how to make that happen in their classrooms or schools. Others do understand and already apply differentiated instruction, but they are ready for the next level. Presenters Julia Roberts and Tracy Inman specialize in differentiating to meet the needs of all students, including those with gifts and talents. Participants will self-assess to select the workshop best fitting their needs.

Participants new to differentiation may attend the beginning workshop. Each attendee will receive a copy of the award-winning Strategies for Differentiating Instruction: Best Practices for the Classroom (3rded.) and will explore establishing a culture conducive to differentiation, the use of assessment in differentiation, differentiation strategies, and more.

For those ready for a more advanced approach, the experienced workshop will guide them in the differentiation of products and the use of a protocol that simplifies the differentiation process and removes the learning ceiling for students. Each participant will receive a copy of Assessing Differentiated Student Products: A Protocol for Development and Evaluation (2nd ed.). Additional teaching strategies will also be shared.

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Julia Link Roberts is the Mahurin Professor of Gifted Studies and the Executive Director of The Center for Gifted Studies and The Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky. She is an active advocate for gifted children at the state, national, and international levels. For her advocacy work, she received the very first David W. Belin Advocacy Award from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) in 2001. In Profiles of Influence in Gifted Education (Prufrock, 2004), Dr. Roberts was described as one of the fifty-five most influential people in the field of gifted education. Dr. Roberts is a leader in gifted education serving on the boards of the Kentucky Association for Gifted Education and The Association for the Gifted (a division of the Council for Exceptional Children); and she is President of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children. She is chairperson of The Kentucky Advisory Counsel for Gifted Education. Dr. Roberts enjoys the opportunity to direct summer and Saturday programs for hundreds of young people, something she has done each year for more than thirty years.

Tracy Ford Inman has devoted her career to meeting the needs of young people, especially those who are gifted and talented. She has taught on both the high school and collegiate levels as well as in summer programs for gifted and talented youth. Associate Director of The Center for Gifted Studies,. Tracy has presented on the state, national, and international levels, trained thousands of teachers in differentiation and gifted education, published multiple articles, and serves as writer/editor for The Challenge, the award-winning newsmagazine for The Center for Gifted Studies. She and Julia Roberts co-authored and co-edited several six books, three of which won the Legacy Book Award from the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented. She is chair of the Kentucky Association for Gifted Education (KAGE) Foundation and webmaster for The Association for the Gifted, a division of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC-TAG).