Office of Instructional Improvement Volume 3 No. 2

Renton Technical College September 2004 Office of Instructional Improvement Volume 3 No. 2

004 Fall Faculty In-Service

The September, 2004 Faculty Focus focuses on Differentiated Instruction, the topic of the 2004 In- Service “One Size Does Not Fit All.”

Many of you requested Bruce Campbell’s PowerPoint to pick up activities that were not in your packets. There are four files to choose from: Campbell PP#1.ppt (Dance of Dendrites), Campbell PP#2.ppt (Differentiated Instruction), Campbell PP#3.ppt (Differentiating Instruction, Now Expand) and Campbell Tiering PP.ppt (Using Tiered Activities to Differentiate). They are located in: S:\Instructional Improvement

Several requested the materials from Black and White and Shades of Gray: Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Classroom. Please credit Daphne Schneider on materials that you use verbatim or adapt. Go to: S:\Instructional Improvement\RTC Sexual harassment fac sept1.doc

If you are interested in How the Brain works in Learning you may be interested in these additional websites: http://help4teachers.com/gardening.htm is an interesting short article about how dendrites grow. http://www.brains.org is a website put up by Dr.Katie Nunley which has articles on the brain and education. You can sign up for her free bi-weekly newsletter that references articles about brain-related topics such as Alzheimer’s disease, and great teaching tips.

Here are some websites for the Theory Multiple Intelligence first introduced by Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind in 1983: http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm has a good overview of the eight intelligences. http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm links to a number of other relevant sites.

Differentiated Classroom Techniques help students succeed by always keeping the learning ceiling just beyond what the student already knows. Many of these come from the K-12 sphere, but are effective with Adult Learners. http://www.cast.org/ncac/index.cfm?i=2876 http://www.ascd.org/cms/index.cfm?TheViewID=1123 http://www.weac.org/kids/1998-99/march99/differ2.htm

Tiering, or leveling, is a very effective way to differentiate in your classroom. In this context, the term “tiered classroom” does not mean an auditorium style like Blencoe Auditorium, but how to have a variety of activities to promote the success of all the students in your classroom. There is a great tutorial on this Teach-nology site that leads you through the process of tiering your classroom step-by-step: http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/teaching/differentiate/planning/

If you are interested in developing rubrics to measure performance you will find these websites useful: http://www.rubrics.com contains a rubric generator and sample rubrics. http://Webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/weblessons.htm has information on how to create rubrics and many samples http://landmark-project.com/classweb/tools/rubric_builder.php3 is a treasury of rubrics that you can clone and modify http://www.school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html is the Discovery School rubrics page with great variety of rubrics organized by subject. http://www.teachnology.com/web_tools/rubrics/ Has a number of rubrics on communications, presentations and teamwork which some RTC instructors have found useful.

Let us know how you incorporate ideas from the In-Service into your instruction and we spotlight what faculty is doing in a future Faculty Focus.

Professional Technical Teacher Certification Courses If you plan to attend a Professional Technical Teacher Certification Course this Fall Quarter, please contact Office of Instructional Improvement to pre-register. Classes begin the week of September 27, 2004. If you need to know what classes are running go to:..\SPU Course Info\2004-2005;Fall- Summer\Professional Technical Teacher Certification Courses.doc

Watch for the October Faculty Focus in your e-mailbox about the first of the month.

Quotable: Knowledge comes by taking things apart: analysis. But wisdom comes by putting things together. ~ John A. Morrison

For more information regarding the articles in the Faculty Focus or to make suggestions for this newsletter, please contact the Office of Instructional Improvement.

The mission of the Office of Instructional Improvement is to advance educational strategies, seek to improve the quality of learning environments, and support RTC staff as they prepare a diverse student population for work.