A plaintive and familiar voice rises up from the back row: "I don't get it!" You sigh. Young Sam might be a smart and engaging kid, but only, it seems, out of the classroom. Once he's behind a desk, the mental shutters have already clanged shut over his mind.

Every classroom has a range of learners, from Sam who doesn't get it, to Samantha, who is bored with the same old lesson. For a teacher, this is a frustrating experience. How do you accommodate different types of learners while you struggle to implement curricula and standards?

WIDE World's Differentiating Instruction courses help teachers engage the Sams and the Samanthas of this world within the same classroom. According to a report from the Alliance for Excellent Education, 70% of U.S. middle and high school students required differentiated instruction. WIDE World's Differentiating Instruction courses offer teachers practical steps on accommodating different types of skills and intelligence, incorporating the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) framework and Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory.

TfU, and the framework built around it, are the bedrock of WIDE World's Differentiating Instruction courses. Teachers involved in these and other WIDE World courses learn how to think about what topics are worth understanding, what they want their students to understand from their teaching, what kinds of ways their students can demonstrate their understanding, and how teachers can assess how much is being absorbed.

MI theory suggests that everyone, children and adults alike, have varying ways of processing and understanding information - visual, linguistic, spatial, etc.

Julie Viens (pictured above), WIDE World's education manager, is an MI expert, having designed the MI course and written textbooks and articles on the subject. She is fiercely articulate when it comes to describing the application of MI: "MI has been done so badly and superficially in the past. But it's really about acknowledging that people think and learn in different ways." In Julie's words, instead of slapping a label on a student (he's 'linguistic' or she's 'spatial'), teachers who observe their students with TfU and MI in mind can focus on working with their students' strengths.

What, then, can you do with Sam, or an artistic dyslexic child, or a struggling English language learner, or a math-phobic writer, after learning about Differentiating Instruction? In short, you can use the tools and concepts you've been given in the course to adjust your method of attack. This doesn't mean reworking your whole lesson plan - it means building on what you already have in place and adapting it to the needs of different learners.

For instance, you can easily combine non- differentiated units with differentiated ones, personalizing lesson plans without individualizing them. A math teacher who spends fifteen minutes outlining the theory of fractions can then provide tiered class projects for students to work on, alone and in groups. By providing them with the right directions, teachers show each student how to take control of their learning.

In the end, the goal is to help the Sam and Samantha use all of their talents to move on to a new step of understanding. So that the next time you hear Sam's voice wafting from the back, he's saying, "I still don't get it - but I think I know which way to go now."

In the 21st century, the importance of technology has become our most frequently quoted cliché. Technology, so the saying goes, will make our students brighter and our teaching easier. But dumping technology on students' desks, like a box of disorganized tools, doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be able to build a house.

One of the difficulties in assessing the use of technology in schools is the contradictory evidence. In a recent 2005 survey of 1000 U.S. K-12 public school teachers, 86% said that computer technology has changed the way they teach. 77% said computer technology was of importance to the way they teach (as opposed to administrative functions and research). And while the teachers' perceived skill level has increased since last year, the amount of school-funded professional development in technology use has not.

Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that the number of teachers who feel that students' academic performance has improved using classroom computers is dropping. A University of Munich study of 174,000 students in 31 countries showed an intriguing trend in students' use of computers. Other factors being equal, a little school computer time meant higher achievement than no computer time at all. However, more than three or four computer sessions per week added up to lower achievement.

There are, as Benjamin Disraeli once said, three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. The difficulty with these numbers is that we can't peer into the classroom and see how technology is being applied. Are kids learning how to use technology as part of a range of tools they possess, to gain insight into new ways of understanding the world? Or are they aimlessly surfing the web?

Part of WIDE World's goal is to provide teachers with classroom strategies, showing them how technology can serve a student's experience, not rule it. The Teaching to Standards with New Technologies (TSNT) course, and its follow-up course Practical Strategies for Integrating Technology to Improve Learning are aimed at teachers who want to help their students build their houses of understanding. WIDE World initiatives in Cambridge and Namibia/Uganda have taught teachers about taking advantage of available resources. Technology becomes a part of the process - the hammer to drive in the nail - in a classroom.

As the amount of teachers familiar with the web and computers increases, new ways will be found to incorporate technology into the classroom. But if we're to give our kids the full benefits of these tools, we're going to need some time learning how to use them.

This one comes to us from Isabelle Hoag Gason, our instructor in Differentiating Instruction and August's Ambassador of Learning...

"Research studies show the value of student reflection in class - if reflection is effective, it doesn't have to take up too much time and it leads to deeper understanding.

Class Activity 1: Many teachers use reflection journals in class for extra punch, and send those journals home with students to collect parents' comments. (Read more research on the benefits of journal writing.)

Class Activity 2: At the end of the day write a reflection question on the board. When the kids come into class, invite them to discuss the question in pairs or groups."

We use reflection in our courses too! Here's what two teachers have said:

?The reflection guide we used was very helpful because it guides us to give the correct focus on the relevant areas. I often fall back on it when I feel myself losing direction of my work.?

Boon Haur, Bowen Secondary School, Singapore. WIDE World participant in Focus on Student Understanding (TfU 1)

?Encouraging reflection to take place, though time- consuming, is such an important ingredient in any endeavor. I must incorporate this aspect of learning when teaching.?

Summer '05 participant in Focus on Student Understanding (TfU 1)

November 14-15, 2005

WIDE World will be exhibiting at the Annual Technology Conference of the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators, Inc. in Sturbridge, MA. You can find us on the lefthand side of the map.

November 29-December 1, 2005

WIDE World will be exhibiting and giving a session at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Nashua, NH.

Qin Jiang, our China contract manager, comes to us via China and Hong Kong. Qin, whose name means a "musical instrument", completed her undergraduate education in Shanghai in English Literature and Linguistics, where she studied the novels of Thomas Hardy. After teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) for a time in the States, Qin and her bright personality have landed in WIDE World's office. Qin loves the Cambridge lifestyle, but could do without the excitement of a Massachusetts's winter.

Betsy Carter's My View, an account of her team experience with The Freetown Four, has been forwarded to local superintendents and school committee members, and will be featured in her quarterly newspaper, "School Talk". If you'd like to develop a piece on how WIDE World courses have impacted you as a teacher or administrator, please email wideeditor@gse.harvard.edu with your account of classroom success.

Have a classroom tip that utilizes Teaching for Understanding and WIDE World's coursework? Email wideeditor@gse.harvard.edu and tell us all about it.