<p>Renton Technical College September 2004 Office of Instructional Improvement Volume 3 No. 2</p><p>004 Fall Faculty In-Service</p><p>The September, 2004 Faculty Focus focuses on Differentiated Instruction, the topic of the 2004 In- Service “One Size Does Not Fit All.” </p><p>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</p><p>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</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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</p><p>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/</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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</p><p>Watch for the October Faculty Focus in your e-mailbox about the first of the month.</p><p>Quotable: Knowledge comes by taking things apart: analysis. But wisdom comes by putting things together. ~ John A. Morrison</p><p>For more information regarding the articles in the Faculty Focus or to make suggestions for this newsletter, please contact the Office of Instructional Improvement.</p><p>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. </p>