Keynote speaker TDW 2021

Teachers' Day Conference, Brunei Darussalam

Dr Carol Ann Tomlinson

William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor Emeritus
University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education

Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education where she served as Chair of Educational Leadership Foundations, and Policy, and Co-Director of the University’s Institutes on Academic Diversity. Prior to joining the faculty at UVa, she was a public school teacher for 21 years. During that time she taught students in high school, preschool, and middle school and also administered programs for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974.

Carol is the author of over 300 books, book chapters, articles, and other educational materials, including: How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms (3rd Ed.), The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (2nd Ed.), Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom, (with Jay McTighe), Differentiating Instruction and Understanding by Design, (with Kay Brimjoin and Lane Narvaez), The Differentiated School, (with Marcia Imbeau), Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom, (with David Sousa), Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom (2nd Ed.), (with Tonya Moon), Assessment in a Differentiated Classroom: A Guide for Student Success, and (with Mike Murphy), Leading for Differentiation: Growing Teachers who Grow Kids. Her books on differentiation are available in 14 languages.

Carol was named Outstanding Professor at Curry in 2004 and received an All-University Teaching Award in 2008. In 2019, she was ranked #8 in the Education Week Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of 200 “University-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling,” and as the #3 voice in Educational Psychology. She works throughout the United States and internationally with educators who seek to create classrooms that are more effective with academically diverse student populations.


KEYNOTE OVERVIEW

Title: An Introduction to Differentiating Instruction: Why, What, and How

The speaker will design the keynote to help teachers develop a “big picture” understanding of why differentiation matters in supporting the success of all learners, what it is (and is not), and particularly what differentiation asks us to do as teachers.  After a brief introduction and some user-friendly definitions of differentiation, the speaker will highlight what differentiation asks of teachers in creating an invitational learning environment, developing curriculum that emphasizes student engagement and understanding, using assessment to mentor students rather than to judge them, and taking care to teach in response to what we learn through formative assessment and to teach like students learn best.  The speaker will conclude by stressing that teachers do not become experts in differentiation all at once or in a hurry, but rather by have a clear sense of what they want their classrooms to look and feel like and by moving in that direction steadily, over time, and will leader support to learn what it means to create a responsive classroom.

(In the process of this presentation, the speaker will address curriculum, pedagogy (instruction), and assessment—as well as learning environment and will briefly address teacher well-being as the speaker discuss the reality that we do not become expert teachers in a hurry, but rather by steady, persistent movement toward expertise.)

The speaker will provide a pdf of the keynote presentation which will include a set of questions related to the content of the session for participants to discuss together so they can clarify and begin to think about changes they might make in their classrooms.