The magical ways of doing differentiation

Working as an educator provides us immense scopes to make our lessons effective and fruitful. There are different learners who need us in different ways. Doing differentiation is essential in a classroom if we ask for a successful learning environment.

Now, the question is how to do and what to do?

In my recent PD with Moreland University, I have gone through the differentiation strategies which can provide a plethora of scopes for the teachers and learners in the classroom.

Differenciate can be done in the process, in the product, and in the content.

Let's see some of the ideas which we can apply in the classroom.

Differentiation in the process:

1. Developing personal agendas (task lists written by the teacher and containing both in-common work for the whole class and work that addresses individual needs of learners) to be completed either during specified agenda time or as students complete other work early.

2. Varying the length of time a student may take to complete a task in order to provide additional support for a struggling learner or to encourage an advanced learner to pursue a topic in greater depth.

3. Offering manipulatives or other hands-on supports for students who need them

4. Providing interest centers that encourage students to explore subsets of the class topic of particular interest to them

5. Using tiered activities through which all learners work with the same important understandings and skills, but proceed with different levels of support, challenge, or complexity

Differentiation in the product:

1. Giving students options of how to express required learning (e.g., create a puppet show, write a letter, or develop a model, etc)

2. Using rubrics that match and extend students' varied skills levels;

3. Allowing students to work alone or in small groups on their products; and

4. Encouraging students to create their own product assignments as long as the assignments contain required elements.

Differentiation in content:

1. Using reading materials at varying readability levels;

2. Putting text materials audio/visual

3. Using spelling or vocabulary lists at readiness levels of students;

4. Presenting ideas through both auditory and visual means;

5. Using reading buddies; and

6. Meeting with small groups to re-teach an idea or skill for struggling learners, or to extend the thinking or skills of advanced learners.

It's also important to have differentiated instructions in the classroom. In my next post, I will be sharing some of my ideas and applications in practices for different instructions in a class.