Written by Dr. Alan Spurgin

Differentiation components are content, process, and product. The fourth component is environment and how differentiation looks in the classroom. How does your classroom stack up to differentiation of content, process, product, and environment? Maybe taking a look at differentiation and implementing the components would give your teaching a boost. Read on to find out how your classroom can look using differentiation.

Differentiation contains new academic language. As you read, connect with the links to learn more about the vocabulary of differentiation, such as tiered assignments, curriculum compacting, contracting, choice boards, and continuous progress monitoring.

To begin differentiation, start low and go slow. Implement one concept or strategy at a time. Start with one or two students and grow. The goal is to make a change in your teaching to help the child whom God has wonderfully gifted.

The look in the classroom may be different when using differentiated instruction. Tiered assignments, compacting, interest centers, grouping, and learning contracts may be utilized to differentiate (Hall, Strangman, & Meyers, 2003). Tiered assignments are utilized to provide a variety of product for the same objective.  The tiered assignments may be of different levels of complexity as well as being open ended. Compacting is adjusting instruction to accommodate the student based on past experience and assessment.  Interest centers are similar to learning centers in that they usually focus on one topic with a variety of activities connected to the topic. Flexible grouping allows for students to work in a variety of groups based on readiness, interests, or ability. Flexibility is the operant word when it comes to grouping. Student choice or teacher choice is also recommended. Learning contracts are agreements between the teacher and students concerning a body of work or skills the students will complete on their own. The learning contract allows students to work at their own pace, accommodates the students’ learning style, and helps the students learn to work independently (Hall, Strangman, & Meyers, 2003).  Learning contracts may be highly motivational for select students in the classroom. Finally, choice boards are organizers that contain a number of activities. Individuals or cohorts of students may choose an activity, interact with the content, and produce a product. Again, choice boards may be motivational and allow for creativity in both process and product.

To provide for the differentiation in the classroom, the lesson plan needs to take on a different look. When planning, the teacher should be cognizant of the different children’s needs and plan carefully to meet those needs. Even the lesson plan protocol taught at Martin Luther College (MLC) has taken on a little different look with the addition of differentiation. A new piece included in the revised lesson plan states: Differentiated Instructional Strategies: Differentiate WHAT and Differentiate HOW (ie: content/topic, materials, pacing, process/activities, product, environmental manipulation, accommodating learning styles, grouping, and scaffolding.) The MLC student, when learning how to lesson plan, needs to become proficient so the differentiation piece becomes automatic. Actually planning for differentiated instruction should result in meeting the individual differences of each child in the classroom. Differentiating may appear to be a daunting task; yet, with practice, differentiation becomes part of the paradigm of lesson planning.

All Children Can Learn

One major assumption connected with differentiated instruction presupposes that all children are capable of learning. For a child to learn, a high-quality curriculum is essential (Tomlinson, 2008). Tomlinson (2008) indicates that children will succeed in their education when there is a high-quality curriculum, when their readiness needs met, when their interests are kept in mind, and when their preferred way of learning is addressed. Closely connected to high- quality curriculum are “respectful tasks” (Tomlinson, 2008). What is meant by “respectful tasks” is that the students’ work needs to be engaging, appealing, and important.

As indicated above, children learn utilizing different learning styles. VKAT is an acronym associated with learning styles. Visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and tactile fit the concept of learning styles. Teachers must teach to the learning styles of the individual students and make learning meaningful by meeting the specific learning needs of all children in their care. In addition, teachers need to come up with creative, practical, and analytic ways to make learning interesting, memorable, transferable, useful, and retainable (Tomlinson, 2008). Other variables under the umbrella of “all children capable of learning” include culture, language proficiency, motivation, socio-emotional issues, disabilities, and sensory need. Whew! The teacher must take into account many factors to help all children learn and reach their highest educational potential.   Interestingly, the name Carol Ann Tomlinson often comes up in the literature concerning differentiated instruction. Ms. Tomlinson’s research and practical application would be a very good resource for teachers and administrators to seek information on the topic of differentiating.

Assessment

Another factor in differentiating is the importance of ongoing assessment. Assessment includes anything the teacher uses to monitor the progress of the student and helps track how children respond over time to interventions, special education, and related services (Bowe, 2007). Not to be confused with evaluation, which is a formal process through which a child’s initial and continuing eligibility for services is established, assessment is the process of collecting data to determine how a student is developing academically, socio-emotionally, physically, and cognitively. In addition, the use of diagnostic assessment determines the child’s readiness to learn. The assessments may be done formally or informally and may be formative or summative. With ongoing assessment (continuous progress monitoring), the teacher is able to make educational decisions to meet the individual differences of children and differentiate the instruction to accommodate the children’s learning needs.

If differentiating instruction works well to meet the individual needs of the students, what are the barriers to implementing differentiation? Change can be quite daunting for teachers, and differentiating instruction requires a change process for teachers (Tomlinson, 2008).  In addition, differentiated instruction is not a cookbook approach to teaching. No simple recipe for differentiating will be successful. It takes professional development to make implementation possible, and the school leaders must be on board. These school leaders need to know about and promote differentiated instruction to make productive changes in the way instruction is carried out in their individual school settings.

Dr. Alan Spurgin is a professor at Martin Luther College in New Ulm MN. He has been a member of the (D)MLC undergraduate and graduate faculty for 22 years serving a variety of functions; currently he is a Professor of Education.

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References

Bowe, F. (2007). Early childhood special education birth to eight (4^th ed). Clifton Park, New York, Delmar Learning.

Hall, T., Strangman, N., & Meyer, A. (2003). Differentiated instruction and implications for UDL implementation. National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. Retrieved October 26, 2008 from: http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/udl/DifferentiatedInstructionHTML.asp

Tomlinson, C. (2008). The goals of differentiation. Educational Leadership. 66,26-30.