High-Access Instruction: Practical Strategies to Increase Active Learning in Diverse Classrooms.

Determining how to enhance teaching and motivate students to learn continues to present a challenge for educators. The challenge today is, perhaps, greater than ever, as more diverse students with complex academic and emotional needs look to teachers for social support and academic assistance. Adding to the problem is the fact that creating opportunities for students with learning challenges to access the district's or school's core curriculum of study requires a significant shift in teaching attitude and focus. Research-validated instructional methods have made a substantial difference for students with diverse learning needs, but all too often, creating the time for teachers to learn these methods is not of high priority for the district or school. Further, the organization of schools is sometimes structured in a way that prevents powerful teaching, innovative organizational arrangements, and new curricular approaches. As Peter Senge, organizational expert, stated, "Schools may fail to incorporate research-validated practices for students with learning disabilities because schools themselves suffer from learning disabilities" (cited in Knight, 1998, p. 1). To truly meet the academic and social needs of a diverse population of students, organizations will need to re-create themselves to meet this diversity head-on, or they will be left sideswiped by an anachronistic system geared for a student who no longer exists (Katz & Denti, 1996). The ensuing discourse challenges schools to redesign themselves based on the given that every classroom contains a diverse group of students with large variances in prior knowledge, skills, motivation, and ability in English. More specifically, it responds to the demands of classroom diversity by providing empirically valid and practical learning strategies that teachers can implement without extensive training. Further, it suggests that traditional approaches (e.g., undifferentiated curriculum, "sage on the stage" teaching, removing children who do not fit) only serve to widen the gaps between successful and struggling students. Challenging the notion that schools are for those students who "do school well," this article offers teachers a view of powerful instruction that empowers all students. The focus of the article is the following question: How can teachers more effectively respond to classroom diversity and help all students improve or "get smarter"?