Teacher Toolbox: Differentiation LiveBinders
CISD educators will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of differentiation at the CISD summer training the week of June 4, 2012 — Dr. Bertie Kingore, renowned differentiation expert, will be presenting Nurturing High-Achievers, Gifted Learners, and Creative Thinkers, as a keynote address and some additional breakout sessions.
Looking for some existing guidance on differentiation? Live binders has information on “Tiered Lessons,” “Flexible Grouping,” “Assessment,” “Collaboration,” and “Triangles for Advanced Learners” and other information to help you meet the needs of all students in your classroom. See the following information posted on Differentiation LiveBinders – Unwrapping the Gifted – Education Week Teacher.
LiveBinders are a free, virtual 3-ring binder, a place to collect and store (using cloud technology) documents, links, PowerPoint presentations, images, videos, etc. One nice feature of LiveBinders is you can view the external link (or other source) within the LiveBinder page, so you’re not constantly loading new windows, media, or pages (unless you want to, and a separate link is provided for that option.) They are a great way for students and teachers to gather together information and other resources for various educational purposes.
A selection of excellent LiveBinders are publicly available, many of them with strategies, tools, and other digital media that teachers can access for ideas on many topics (such as lesson plans for various content areas, school-friendly web tools, Common Core information and resources, etc.) Of particular interest to many of you would be the over 100 LiveBinders tagged as relating to Gifted Education. For today, I wanted to highlight a few that focus on differentiation of instruction.
The best one I have found: AHA (Advocates for High Ability Learners) has an extensive and thorough compilation of resources in their Differentiation for High Ability Learners LiveBinder. Tabs within it include “Tiered Lessons,” “Flexible Grouping,” “Assessment,” “Collaboration,” and “Triangles for Advanced Learners,” which shows many great examples of what RTI/MTSS interventions can look like for advanced learners. You can find templates for creating differentiated lessons, a menu of possible final products, and a diagram that makes clear the essential steps and pieces of differentiation. Click this icon of a binder and it will preview AHA’s Differentiation LiveBinder for you:
Differentiation for High Ability Learners
Another great Differentiation LiveBinder is this one by Leslie Graves of Ireland. Tabs include “Differentiated Instruction Activities,” “Differentiating Instruction for the Gifted,” and “Differentiating Instruction for Advanced Learners in the Mixed Ability Classroom.” This binder icon will preview the full collection for you:
A wealth of information is also collected in this Identifying Gifted Learners LiveBinder byGinger Lewman. Tabs have tips for “Records Review,” “General Ed Interventions,” and “Early ID,” among others. Here is the icon for a full preview:
It’s pretty fun (and easy) to poke around these and other LiveBinders and find incredible ideas. A helpful tip: click the “P” in a little screen icon on the right side of the top bar. It will open the binder up into a bigger, more readable window. (It looks like this: 
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Check out this LiveBinder if you have an iPad.
Coppell Gifted Association 