NOTE: This blog was first published in January 2021 via Twinkl: Differentiation in Action (twinkl.com.au)
When it comes to differentiation, there are many strategies that a teacher can use. Here are some suggestions for effective, easy to implement differentiating strategies for the classroom.
Differentiation is an expectation for all teachers and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Standard 1.5 requires teachers to ‘differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities’. However, differentiation is about more than just ticking a box. Effective differentiation can have a significant impact not only on a child’s academic performance but also their engagement, self-esteem, and wellbeing. It is therefore important that we get it right. Carol Tomlinson defines differentiation as adjusting:
- What students learn (content)
- How students learn (process)
- How students will demonstrate their knowledge (product)
- Where learning takes place (environment)
This may mean creating Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for students with additional needs, grouping students into like-ability groups for completing activities, and using a range of instructional strategies that target different learning styles. While each of these approaches incorporate some differentiation, it is important to go beyond these to truly achieve a differentiated classroom that promotes the needs of all learners.
Getting Started
Differentiation cannot happen without:
- Knowing your students’ backgrounds, cultures and interests.
- Understanding your students’ strengths, weaknesses, goals and aspirations.
- Understanding your students’ needs – physical, social-emotional, medical.
- Assessing students’ prior knowledge.
It is important to draw on all sources when getting to know students at the start of the school year. Information provided by a child’s previous teacher can be informative, however transition notes tend to focus only on academic and behavioural information. It’s important to engage with parents and the students themselves to really get to know them.
Equally, we shouldn’t rely on school reports or work samples alone to assess students’ prior knowledge. This is especially true for students with additional needs who may struggle to express their knowledge through standardised assessment tasks and for gifted and talented students whose knowledge may be well in advance of what is measured in end of year reports. Formative assessment at the beginning of the school year is a must.
Try some of these useful resources for getting to know your students:
Content
The year level achievement standards of the Australian Curriculum provide a starting point for planning. However, adjustments should be made to meet individual needs by drawing on the whole F-10 curriculum, including the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.
While content differentiation is achieved in most classrooms through teacher-led small group direct instruction, it is also important to consider differentiation during whole class instruction. Some suggestions for differentiating whole-class instruction include:
Keep whole class instruction short: This reduces behaviour issues and allows more time to focus on scaffolding and extension activities later.
Vary the delivery: Include videos, diagrams, images, and modelling as well as talking.
Allow for student participation: Invite students to solve sample maths problems at varying levels of difficulty.
Think-Pair-Share: This allows students to discuss the concept with a partner, however, teachers need to be active during this, ensuring pairs stay on topic.
Use questions strategically: Provide appropriate challenges during whole class discussions by providing a range of questions and allowing students to select the question they feel most comfortable answering.
Why not try some of these differentiated resources:
Process
Differentiation can be achieved by providing a range of learning activities that allow students to engage with the content in ways that are meaningful to them. Rotational activities and learning centres are popular ways to incorporate differentiated small group, direct instruction. However, it is important to remember that simply rotating students between tasks in like-ability groups is not differentiation.
To successfully differentiate group activities, it is necessary to differentiate ALL tasks to ensure they are appropriately challenging for ALL groups. It is not enough just to differentiate the teacher-led explicit teaching activity. Using mixed ability groupings in which students cooperate and support each other to achieve the outcome of each task is a good way to differentiate rotational activities.
The following are some suggestions for differentiation that don’t require much extra planning or preparation and that can be used in either small group or whole class activities:
Rotations
Rotations within a single lesson can be difficult to differentiate as each group’s needs must be catered for multiple times in a short space of time. Rotations that span the week, where each group completes a different activity each day, provide the opportunity to design quality differentiated activities for each group.
Open-Ended Tasks
Design tasks that focus on a single concept but have multiple ways to complete them and that are challenging at all levels.
Projects
Provide students with a topic for investigation, focusing on a clear and measurable learning outcome, and allow them to work towards the outcome in the way that suits them best.
Learning Centres:
A learning centre isn’t just an area where an activity is completed; it should be an area set up with a variety of manipulatives, resources and activities that enable students to investigate a focus concept independently or in groups.
Choice Boards
Provide choice boards with a range of activities that offer different levels of challenge and that are linked to the learning outcome. Lower ability students may complete one activity while higher ability students have the opportunity to extend their learning through multiple tasks or by choosing one, more complex, task.
Twinkl has a wide range of differentiated resources. Below is a small sample:
Product
Many students have a much deeper understanding of content than they are able to demonstrate through traditional products, such as written essays. It is crucial that these students are given the opportunity to accurately demonstrate their knowledge. The following are some suggestions for differentiating product in the classroom:
Consider what you are actually assessing
Unless you are actually assessing handwriting, there is no reason to insist on a hand-written essay to demonstrate learning. Similarly, if you want to accurately determine the ability of a student to solve Maths problems, it is inappropriate to include worded maths problems if the student has reading difficulties, as reading is not the focus of the assessment.
Provide students with a choice of formats
Depending on the content area and learning intention, these may include: oral/video presentations, posters, dioramas, letters, debates, reports, role-play, brochure, PowerPoint presentation, webpage, poems, puppet show, graphic organisers etc.
Provide assessments with different levels of complexity
This is not the same as more work, rather it means adjusting the requirements of the task to meet the needs of the students, for example answering inferential questions about a topic instead of literal.
Differentiated Worksheets
If a worksheet is used it must be differentiated so that all students can be both challenged and achieve success. It is not enough to simply provide extension questions for those students who finish quickly and just accept that some students won’t finish the worksheet. Continuously failing to complete classwork can have a severe negative impact on mental health and self-esteem.
Twinkl has a wide range of differentiated resources. Below are some examples:
Environment
The classroom environment refers not only to the physical environment but also the social and organisational aspects of the classroom. While teachers cannot control every aspect of the physical environment there are things that can be adjusted to facilitate learning, for example:
Ensuring there are areas for quiet individual work as well as areas for collaboration.
Organising resources to promote student independence.
Considering flexible seating options.
Ensuring posters and displays enhance learning and are positioned where students can use them.
Varying where learning occurs by utilising outside areas and other school spaces.
Social and organisational considerations include:
Establishing classroom routines that minimise transitions and maximise productivity.
Ensuring all students are aware of expectations for group and individual work.
Promoting diversity by showing representations of different cultures and abilities within the classroom.
Encouraging positive relationships by modelling respect and responsibility.
Take a look at some examples of differentiated resources:
Bringing it All Together
Meeting the needs of diverse learners in a mainstream classroom is a complex task. It requires teachers to have a thorough understanding of their students’ strengths, weaknesses, backgrounds and interests, as well as comprehensive knowledge of the curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment. Nevertheless, it is essential that every effort is made to engage all learners in the classroom. Twinkl has thousands of resources to support this process, helping teachers and students achieve success in the classroom.
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