Differentiating by Student Interest: Practical Lessons and Strategies
Publication Type:
Web ArticleYear of Publication:
2007Abstract:
Donna C. White, an elementary teacher in North Carolina, says that Turville's book provides strategies for addressing students' lack of motivation with lessons that will relate to their own interests. She also comments that Turville "does not dodge the assessment bullet" as she presents ways to incorporate student interests into lesson plans.
Turville, J. (2007). Differentiating by student interest: Practical lessons and strategies. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
Full Text:
Differentiating by Student Interest: Practical Lessons and Strategies
By Joni Turville
2007 (184 pp/paperback
Eye on Education, Inc.
ISBN: 1-59667-047-9
$29.95
Reviewed by Donna C. White
Elementary Teacher & Literacy Coach
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Parents of three-year old children quickly learn that the only way to happily coexist is to offer children choices: “Do you want to wear your red shorts or your blue shorts today?” “Do you want to eat green beans or green peas?”
Based on her observations of her own son, who struggled with the drudgery of book reports during his elementary school years, Joni Turville researched the role of choice and differentiation by interest with her students. Her book Differentiating by Student Interest: Practical Lessons and Strategies examines the evidence from research, gives step-by-step strategies for the implementation of interest based differentiation, and provides a wealth of lessons and resources that can be easily used in the elementary classroom.
Turville cites compelling research that supports the link between student interest, student motivation, and student learning. There is probably not a teacher lounge in the United States where teachers have not talked about how “unmotivated” students are today. Yet teachers know that personal or situational interest is a certain motivator for students. Translating that knowledge into lessons and strategies for our students is the challenge. Turville provides a guide for effectively creating a classroom environment that values and supports the unique talents and abilities of each student.
She begins by illustrating a plethora of methods to assess student interest. These include interest inventories (even for non-verbal students) and surveys that can be completed by students and by parents. All of these techniques provide the teacher with the information he/she will need in order to design effective lessons based on student interest. However, the greatest value of these tools is the message they communicate to students: “Your teacher genuinely cares about you.”
The activities can be easily incorporated in typical classroom instruction. For example, a “VIP Venn Diagram” is used as a tool for students to compare the interests of everyone in the class. Another activity has the students tally their interests and make a classroom graph. Recognizing that teachers need to have an idea of what differentiation by interest would look like, Turville provides sample lessons in Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. With the caveat that these lessons would necessarily need to be adapted to fit the specific interests of a teacher’s own students, she helps even the most reluctant teacher take those crucial first steps.
Differentiation by interest does not seem to be so overwhelming because Turville highlights a few strategies and shows how they can be used throughout the curriculum. A subsequent chapter gives further strategies for creating new lessons that focus on specific understandings and learning outcomes. A lesson plan template is provided.
Teachers often consider it important to teach material to students in the format in which it will be tested. To her credit, Turville does not dodge the assessment bullet. Instead, she confronts the issue from the perspective of mandated and/or standardized testing as well as teacher management and accountability. She provides many tools for formative as well as summative assessment and guides the reader through a thought-provoking discussion of what should be assessed and how the information should be used. She makes a convincing argument that if the students learn material through their own choices and interests, they are more likely to retain the information and succeed on subsequent tests.
In summary, Differentiating by Student Interest: Practical Lessons and Strategies is a teacher-friendly and useful resource. Turville provides a wealth of tips and hints in addition to easy to follow strategies and lessons. The book is filled with examples, templates, and blackline masters that can be copied from the book or downloaded from the publisher’s website. While it is easy for an individual teacher to follow the path that Turville has blazed (several teachers in my school have ordered copies after I shared some of the activities I am using), this book would also be an excellent choice for a book study by a faculty or small group or teachers. The reflective questions at the end of each chapter, in addition to the many suggestions for collaboration, enhance the application of the strategies school-wide. The online resources and incorporation of technology throughout each chapter strengthen its relevance in modern classrooms.
Yet, through it all, Joni Turville never lets the reader forget that the basis for all effective differentiation and instruction begins with teacher knowledge of each individual child.
