About the Authors
David A. Sousa, EdD, is an international consultant in educational neuroscience and author of more than a dozen books that suggest ways educators and parents can translate current brain research into strategies for improving learning. He has made presentations to more than two hundred thousand educators across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Dr. Sousa has taught senior high school science and served as a K–12 director of science and a district superintendent in New Jersey schools. He has been an adjunct professor of education at Seton Hall University and a visiting lecturer at Rutgers University.
Dr. Sousa is past president of the National Staff Development Council (now Learning Forward). He has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Alumni Award and an honorary doctorate from Bridgewater State University and an honorary doctorate from Gratz College in Philadelphia. Dr. Sousa has been interviewed on the NBC Today show and by National Public Radio about his work with schools using brain research.
Dr. Sousa has edited science books and published dozens of articles in leading journals on staff development, science education, and educational research. His most popular books for educators include How the Brain Learns, Fifth Edition; How the Special Needs Brain Learns, Third Edition; How the Gifted Brain Learns, Second Edition; How the Brain Learns to Read, Second Edition; How the Brain Influences Behavior: Management Strategies for Every Classroom; How the Brain Learns Mathematics, Second Edition; The Leadership Brain: How to Lead Today’s Schools More Effectively; Engaging the Rewired Brain; and Mind, Brain, and Education: Neuroscience Implications for the Classroom. His books have been published in French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and several other languages.
Dr. Sousa has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, a master of arts in teaching degree in science from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Rutgers University. He makes his home in south Florida.
Carol Ann Tomlinson, EdD, is a faculty member at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, where she is the William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor and chair of the Department of Education Leadership, Foundations and Policy. Dr. Tomlinson codirects the university’s Institutes on Academic Diversity. As a consultant and presenter, Dr. Tomlinson works with teachers throughout the United States and internationally to develop more responsive, heterogeneous classrooms. Her education experience includes twenty-one years as a public school teacher and twelve years as a program administrator of special services for struggling and advanced learners.
During her time in the public school classroom, Dr. Tomlinson was recognized by the state of Virginia as Teacher of the Year. She has focused on a number of critical issues throughout her career, including curriculum and instruction for struggling and advanced learners, effective instruction in heterogeneous settings, and encouragement of creative and critical thinking in the classroom.
She was named Outstanding Professor in the Curry School of Education in 2004 and received an All-University Teaching Award in 2008. In 2017, she ranked thirteenth in the Education Week Rick Hess Straight Up Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings of academics having the greatest impact on discussions about education policy.
Dr. Tomlinson is the author of more than three hundred articles, book chapters, books, and professional development materials. Among her books on differentiation are How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms, Third Edition; The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, Second Edition; Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching; Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids (with Jay McTighe); Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (with Marcia B. Imbeau); and Leading for Differentiation: Growing Teachers Who Grow Kids (with Michael Murphy). Her books on differentiation are available in fourteen languages.
She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina and a master’s degree and doctor of education degree from the University of Virginia.
Some resources on differentiation are available at www.differentiationcentral.com, or follow Carol on Twitter @cat3y.
To book David A. Sousa or Carol Ann Tomlinson for professional development, contact [email protected].
Introduction
With so many books available on differentiation, why do we need this one? That is a fair question, and here is our answer. To our knowledge, this book is different from all the others in that it combines two imperatives facing nearly all educators.
1. Research is revealing so much about how the brain learns that educators can no longer ignore the implications of these discoveries for educational practice.
2. Teachers need to find ways to use this brain research to develop strategies that will allow students to succeed in classrooms with a diverse mix of abilities, cultures, and languages—hallmarks of contemporary schools.
The neuroscientific research discoveries that can affect educational practice have accumulated since the 1980s, leading to a whole new exciting discipline called educational neuroscience, which brings together related research from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and pedagogy. This research pool offers information and insights that can help educators decide whether certain curricular, instructional, and assessment choices are likely to be more effective than others. In this book, we examine the basic components of differentiation in light of what current research reveals, and the result is surprisingly positive, indeed. We want to share those surprises with the reader.
In this book, we examine the basic components of differentiation in light of current research, and the result is surprisingly positive, indeed.
How Brain Friendly Is Differentiation?
As authors and longtime educators, we focus on somewhat different areas of educational practice. Carol has been intimately involved in developing frameworks for establishing differentiated classrooms at all grade levels and in all subject areas—and teaching in them. David has investigated how the findings from cognitive and neuroscientific research could be translated into what educators do in schools and classrooms. When we discussed the possibilities for this book, we recognized that the processes for differentiating curriculum, instruction, and assessment are supported in many ways by what researchers in cognitive psychology and neuroscience are revealing about how the brain learns. In other words, differentiation is brain friendly and brain compatible.
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Differentiation
Differentiation is not a new idea. Think back to the one-room schoolhouse of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where one teacher had to educate students of varying ages and grade levels at the same time in a single classroom. That teacher had to be an expert in differentiating curriculum, instructional
