Differentiation
What is differentiation?
Differentiation or differentiated instruction occurs when a teacher mediates curriculum
to meet the needs of students with different abilities, talents, or interests.
Choice is viewed as a critical component of differentiation that aims at
matching tasks to the students’ different learner profiles. Choices might
occur in:
·
Content –
when teachers allow students to set their own pace and explore content that
interests them.
·
Process
– when teachers offer multiple methods for delivering content (e.g.,
lecture, independent research, group-work, etc.)
·
Product
– when teachers allow students to demonstrate understanding by completing
assignments that play to their various strengths (e.g., writing an essay,
designing a webpage, preparing an oral presentation, performing a skit).
How Might One Differentiate Instruction?
Acceleration/Deceleration – move more slowly or quickly through a unit depending on what students know or do not know.
Adjusting Questions – skip questions, or direct the higher level questions to students who can handle them. Adjust or scaffold questions for students with other needs.
Anchoring Activities – prepare activities that students can do to at the beginning of class (prior to core instruction) or after they have completed core assignments.
Buddy-Studies - allow two or three students to work together on a project but require each student to complete an individual product as evidence of understanding.
Choices – offer students choices in assignments.
Choice-Boards – write different assignments on individual cards and place them in hanging pockets. You might limit student choices in consideration of unique abilities or allow students to select from any of the options on the “board.” Invite students to progress to new cards (i.e., assignments) after completing others.
Compacting Curriculum - assess the students’ understandings, skills, or attitudes prior to instruction then allow those who demonstrate mastery to skip instruction dealing with things they appear to have mastered. Offer alternative activities to students who have already met instructional goals.
Consider Student Interest – prior to instruction and assessment, use strategies such as surveys or KWL to uncover aspects of a topic that interest students. Then, create or adjust assignments so that students have opportunities to explore and share their interests.
Cooperative Learning – organize students in small heterogeneous groups and assign individuals to roles that play up to their strengths and allow for peer teaching through strategies such as Jigsaw, STAD-Student Teams, or Group-Investigation.
Entry Points – offer students up to five ways to enter a new topic, including: narration (through a story), logical-quantitative (analyzing numerical data or making deductions), foundational entry (big question about life and our place in the world), aesthetics (focus on sensory features), and experimental (hands-on).
Flexible Grouping - A student may be struggle in one area but excel in another. Permit movement between groups. Do not assign students to one group without opportunities to advance or move on.
4MAT –plan instruction for four different learning preferences. Activies might tap into linguistic, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and interpersonal orientations. This offers students chances to approach a topic through preferred modes, but also offers opportunities to develop weaker areas.
Independent Study Projects – assign research projects that develop skills for independent learning. Offer broad outlines in terms of themes or standards to be addressed but allow students to investigate subtopics that interest them and or suit their different abilities.
Inquiry-Based Learning – have students organize and conduct their own experiments or investigations.
KWL – (see Survey Students’ Interests below) find out what students Want to learn about then offer opportunities to explore these interests.
Learning Contracts - negotiate written agreements with students in which you negotiate daily and weekly work goals and that allow students to work independently.
Learning Profiles/Styles – adjust the classroom or instruction to preferred learning environments (e.g., more quiet, lower lighting, formal/casual seating etc.) or learning modalities (e.g. auditory, visual, or kinesthetic).
Peer Teaching – use students who are achieving at higher levels or faster rates to provide one-on-one instruction to peers who are achieving at lower levels or slower rates.
Problem-Based Learning – organize instruction around problems that are relevant to students’ lives, invite creative solutions, and allow students to speak from multiple perspectives.
Student Agendas – create personalized and different lists of tasks that students must complete in a specified time.
Tiered Assignments – level assignments based on their complexity and have students progress through the various levels at different paces. One might tier by…
·
Willis, Scott and Mann, Larry (Winter 2000). Differentiating Instruction: Finding Manageable Ways to Meet
Individual Needs. Curriculum Update. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). Found
on 10/ /07 at http://www.ascd.org/ed_topics/cu2000win_willis.html |