Your views on differentiation for learning

Throughout the course we will look at some of the research which underpins ideas about differentiation, but first we would like you to think about your current view of differentiation: what, for you, it is and what it isn’t.

To help you to get started, take a look at the two infographics by Carol Ann Tomlinson: What Is (and Is Not) Differentiated Instruction? (tip: right-click or hold-tap to open links in a new tab). An accessible selection of the points from these graphics is listed below.

Differentiation is…

• Lessons designed around patterns of student need.
• Use of whole-group, small-group and individual tasks based on content and student needs.
• Necessary for success with standards for a broad range of learners.
• Valuing and planning for diversity in heterogeneous settings.
• A student-focused way of thinking about teaching and learning.
• Designed to address learning and affective needs that all students have.

Differentiation is not…

• Tracking or grouping students into classes by ‘ability’.
• Bluebirds, buzzards and wombats (ability grouping within a classroom).
• Dumbing down teaching for some students.
• Mostly for students identified as gifted.
• Mostly for students with identified learning challenges.
• Individualised instruction.

Source: Tomlinson, C.A. (2015). Infographic supporting The Differentiated Classroom, 2nd Ed.

Define

Reflecting on your own teaching experience so far, begin to formulate your own working definition of differentiation, both what you think it is and what it isn’t. You could use some of the ideas in the infographics if you choose, or perhaps you disagree with them?

In the comments below, define:

a. What differentiation is.
b. What differentiation is not.

Review some of the definitions by other learners on the course and ‘like’ or comment on any that particularly catch your eye, or that lead you to change your own definition.

A note about ‘learning styles’: Another common myth is that differentiation means teaching students in their preferred ‘learning style’. However, there is no evidence to suggest that teaching to match students’ visual, auditory or kinaesthetic preferences improves learning and the concept has been widely discredited (Coffield et al., 2004). Psychological research using controlled experiments has concluded that teaching student in their VAK learning styles is “wasted effort” (Kratzig and Arbuthnott, 2006).