A teacher inventory is a very useful tool for teachers because it gives you a profile of the current levels of your

professional development across five domains of differentiation (Heacox, p. 12). After completing this inventory myself, I asked four of my fellow teachers to complete it as well. I asked teachers who in my opinion are at different levels of professional development in differentiation. I chose two teachers in first grade and two teachers in second grade. The teachers ranged from having three years of experience to having twenty years. The inventories were done anonymously and when I compared the results I was not able to guess which inventories belonged to the novice teacher, practitioners, and experts. This leads me to believe that differentiation is a concept that has not been strongly practiced in my school. All of the inventories showed multiple low levels of usage. Flexible instruction was the area that concerned me most. I also found that this is an area that I had given myself lower scores in. For the most part, the issue seems to be with adjusting the pace of instruction and providing additional time to meet students learning needs (Heacox, p. 13). We are all so engulfed with the standards and curriculum we are responsible for that we it is hard to find time for any additional planning or work. This is where it can become easy to set differentiation to the side which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. I have found that the process of developing a plan for differentiation can be very overwhelming and intimidating at times. Having only been in the teaching field for five years, I know I still have a lot to learn. However, I do feel that I can make a difference. I can present my ideas and strategies for differentiation and help to implement them in the first grade classrooms. I must remember that the key to not getting overwhelmed is to start small but start somewhere (Heacox, p. 11). That is exactly what I plan to do.

One statement that multiple teachers scored themselves low on was that they preassess students to determine their readiness level (Heacox, p. 13). Especially now at the start of the new school year many teachers are scrambling to find ways to assess their new students and determine their readiness level. We have an extremely large population in our district. The first grade consists of approximately three hundred and fifty students. With this large number, we have a wide variety of students all coming to us at different readiness levels. Therefore it can be difficult to grasp an understanding of where to start your curricular instruction that will best meet the needs of all students. Over the past few years I have been compiling a collection of assessments that align with the state standards. I would like to expand these assessments to include a wider variety of assessments that focus on each standard. I could include assessments such as an oral test, written, observations, etc. This would give more options to teachers and address each students learning profile. One strategy I feel that I could help to be effective for all students at all readiness and grade levels is the use of flexible grouping. I have been working with other teachers to create a system for having workstations where students are working with partners or in small groups to complete a variety of activities. Workstations help teachers to manage multiple tasks in the classroom and can be very helpful in managing differentiated tasks (Heacox, p. 104). Flexible grouping gives teachers a large amount of flexibility in their planning. The grouping should be based on the students interests, readiness level, or learning profile (Heacox, p. 14). When grouping by readiness levels, teachers can provide higher level thinking activities for those students have already accomplished their learning goals. Those students who are struggling can have extra reinforcement and individualized help when needed. As a teacher leader, this would be a wonderful opportunity to encourage flexible grouping in all classrooms.

The area on the teacher inventory that I found to be the most secure is the understanding of the curriculum. All teachers believe that they study the standards and plan their lessons and assessments around them. This shows that my school is very serious about addressing all of the standards. However, I see the problem of teaching to the standards rather than to the students needs. This is why as a teacher leader I feel that it is essential to work with my fellow teachers at creating a proactive and effective plan for differentiation.

Resources Heacox, D. (2009). Making differentiation a habit:How to ensure success in academically diverse classrooms. Minneapolis, MN:Free Spirit Publishing.