Brian Thompson is an award-winning teacher of History and Reconstructive Language at The Gow School, a world-renowned boarding and day school in South Wales, New York, which has been educating students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities since 1926. He is also one of the recipients of the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council’s Innovator Award, an honor that he knows may not have been possible without the knowledge and skills he gained while in Canisius’ Differentiated Instruction program. Brian has used these tools and strategies to modify instruction for the broad range of learners that he sees each day. He has also shared them with colleagues through workshops and recently presented on them at a conference in Chicago. He describes his time in the DI program as “one of the most meaningful and worthwhile experiences of my life."
Mary Bongiovanni is the Enrichment Teacher at South Buffalo Charter School. Her school follows Joe Renzulli's Schoolwide Enrichment Model, where she sees all students, kindergarten through sixth grade once a week. For grades K-2, she works to develop creative and critical thinking skills and centers that incorporate differentiated instruction. For grades 3-6, she is implementing a program called GoQuest, where she has students explore activities based on their interest. She notes, “The Differentiated Instruction program at Canisius University has helped me tremendously. It has prepared me with many different strategies and teaching techniques that I have incorporated into my lessons. The reason I have this position is because of the knowledge that I have received from the DI program.”