Cognitive Skills and Differentiation

The concept of differentiated instruction is intuitively appealing. Each child is unique and each brain learns uniquely. In a sense, all learning is differentiated, by definition, even when instruction isn’t. But many teachers struggle with providing meaningful and effective differentiation in the classroom and there is controversy regarding the value of differentiation and its impact.

Teachers typically differentiate instruction based on students’ interests, students’ goals, students’ readiness to learn something, and other factors. But some of the most important factors that affect the learning process are largely invisible – a students’ cognitive strengths and weaknesses.

Cognitive skills are the mental processes our brains use to take in, comprehend, organize, store and retrieve information. And while some, like attention, working memory and processing speed, have almost become household terms, even those are not well understood by most teachers. This webinar will review the value of cognitive assessment as the basis for meaningful differentiation of instruction by tying cognitive skills directly to learning strategies.