Suggestions for a DI Grow-folio

If you decide to create a DI Grow-folio, here are some general suggestions:

• Start Slow, but Start: Even if it starts as “just a binder,” it will mean much more as you invest in a process of reflection, include samples of growth, and share with others what you are learning.
• Let Students Know What You Are Up To: you will be surprised by how some students may be extremely motivated to have their work sample demonstrate growth that you then include as an example of your own progress. Students may dramatically increase effort and attention to quality if they can see that acknowledgement of this kind is even possible.
• Continue to Empower Students: As students grow in expertise, your own portfolio will reflect their strengths. When students struggle, this should be viewed as further opportunity to empower a student–perhaps in a different area. When an alternate strategy is attempted, be sure to consider including it in your Grow-folio, because the student’s growth is a direct result of your attention to a teaching decision.
• Make Principles the Constant, and Teaching Strategies the Variables: Don’t forget to include examples that reflect principles, not just variations of strategies. Principles run like themes across the year(s), and throughout all content areas, classes, and settings. You may want to start with a modest list of principles (such as the Try DI! High Five Principles) or create your own. Work samples of your own and/or students can be powerful artifacts of the timeless principles of teaching and learning.
• Develop a Professional Learning Community Within and Outside of the Classroom: Fullan and Hargreaves (1996) observe that teaching has long been called “a lonely profession” (p. 5), a situation that is supported by the architecture of the building and the schedule that prevents collaboration.  Consider how a digital portfolio will help you to break down barriers that might otherwise exist when collaborating. Talk with your technology staff or administration to see if there are ways to connect isolated efforts to differentiate. Consider how viewing parents, students, and staff as a single community of learners will help build connections to student successes.
• Solicit the Alignment of Many (Coherence PELP Framework): Revisit your role(s) within your building or educational system so that you can learn what others are doing. When possible, share your approach to meeting the needs of a diverse learning population and invite discussion. No one has all the answers, and there is no single best way to teach all students.
• Construct a Theory of Action Utilizing Principles and Practices of DI: Consider revisiting your Personal Teaching Philosophy and making any necessary adjustments so that there is a strong link between the principles that guide you and the actions you take in the classroom. Consider also that instead of having a fixed, stationary theory of action, your approach will reflect student needs, which change.
• Involve Parents and Community: Consider ways in which your willingness to share the progress of your students will be tremendously positive for those who do not have the privilege of being in your class each day. A class page on your building’s website or a blog may be a very powerful communication tool to accomplish this. Depending on your level of expertise and role, you may consider leading an effort to hold a Differentiated Instruction Fair in your building or district. Such an event allows all staff to share with families the many wonderful ways in which the needs of all students are understood, planned for, and welcomed.
• Solicit and Reflect on Feedback From Sources Other Than Yourself: Perhaps the most challenging aspect of teaching in general is that we operate in relative isolation. One of the best things you can do for yourself, and students, is to invite feedback. While it may be uncomfortable on some levels, it will speak volumes to students, who live with the discomfort of feedback on their performance every day. Start small and safely, but start.

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Of the 8 items below listed as ways to get a professional Grow-folio started, reflect on which three you would select as your highest interest and top priority. Think also about which three would be your lowest priority. What would be a reasonable timeline for accomplishing your top three priority items? How might you go about setting up sections of your Grow-folio? Would you do a digital, a hard copy, or a hybrid Grow-folio? 

____    Let Students Know What You Are Up To
____    Continue to Empower Students  
____    Make Principles the Constant, and Teaching Strategies the Variables
____    Develop a Professional Learning Community Within and Outside of the Classroom  
____    Solicit the Alignment of Many (Coherence PELP Framework)
____    Construct a Theory of Action Utilizing Principles and Practices of DI  
____    Involve Parents and Community
____    Solicit and Reflect on Feedback from Sources Other Than Yourself