A large part of a differentiated curriculum's success can come from it's use of assessments. The first is the "pre-assessment", which gauges students understanding before the lesson or subject has been taught. Pre-assessments are so influential on where your curriculum will go, that many teachers won't plan the first few lessons of a unit until the pre-assessments have been completed and analyzed. Then there's the "formative assessment" which can serve as a sort of "en-route checkpoint" as it is put on page 27, so that you can see what is and isn't being absorbed while you still have the time to fix it. Finally is the "summative assessment" which is given at the end of a unit to see if they've met the goals set by the teacher. The assessments help understand your students learning as well as provide an opportunity for feedback during the curriculum, which has been shown to improve student performance.
On page 22 the book discussed the idea that if a student's assignment is not clear and precise that he or she may be more likely to put it off for fear of spending too much time on something that they're not even sure that they're doing correctly. So instead of saying "Study this chapter", saying something like, "Make flashcards of the vocabulary in this chapter," may actually be more helpful to them. Just as a student is less likely to attempt something if they don't fully understand it, I'm less likely to implement new ideas (such as differentiated curriculum) if I don't have a firm understanding of it. Some suggested ways to cope with this include talking to a mentor teacher about the idea or problem, reading a professional journal on the subject, and reflecting on my own in quiet.
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