Differentiating Instruction in the Classroom
Denise Burson
Apr 18, 2011
How can I differentiate learning efficiently and effectively in my classroom?
Differentiating instruction is recognized to be an important tool for engaging students and addressing the individual needs of all students. Differentiating instruction means creating multiple paths and opportunities so that students of different abilities, interest or learning needs experience equally appropriate ways to understand, use, develop and present concepts as a part of the daily learning process. The following are some ways to consider differentiating in your classroom:
Vary the learning process: Provide appropriate methods for students to explore the concepts. It is important to give students alternative ways to manipulate the ideas embedded within the lesson. For example, students may use graphic organizers, maps, diagrams or charts to display their understanding of the content learned. Varying the complexity of the graphic organizer can effectively facilitate differing levels of cognitive processing for students of differing ability.
Differentiated by complexity: A rubric is an easy way to differentiate complexity. The assignments should be based on the essential questions, which come from your standards/indicators/objectives you want all of your students to learn. The first step in developing a rubric is to list what content students need to have included when they complete the assignment. Look at your K-U-D Organizer and pull from the list of "knows" on the K-U-D Organizer. Once you have a list of what students must show you they know through their completion of the assignment then you can group any of the items together, and these will become categories that will be assigned points on a rubric. These categories are usually listed on the left vertical column of the rubric. Next decide on the point values for the rubric. These are listed horizontally across the top of the rubric. Most teachers use three or four columns for assigning points. The last column of point values is the lowest score you will accept on the assignment. Ask yourself these questions: Will this show evidence of learning? Is there room for improvement? Is this mastery of the standard? This will make it easier for you to define the points for the other column or two on the rubric.
Adjust Questions: During the lesson direct the higher level questions to the students who can handle them and adjust questions accordingly for student with greater needs. All students are answering important questions that require them to think but the questions are targeted towards the student’s ability or readiness level. An easy tool for accomplishing this is to put posters on the classroom walls with key words that identify the varying levels of thinking.
Tiered Assignments: Tiered activities are a series of related tasks of varying complexity. All of these activities relate to essential understanding and key skills that students need to acquire. Assign the activities as alternative ways of reaching the same goals taking into account individual student needs.
In Leadership for Differentiating Schools and Classrooms, Tomlinson and Allan explain that differentiating instruction is an approach to teaching that advocates active planning for student differences in classrooms. The idea of differentiating instruction is to accommodate the different ways that students learn, as well as a sturdy support in the theory and research of education. Based on theory and research, classrooms using differentiated instruction can meet the needs of most students.
References:
Laurence-Brown, D. (2004) Differentiated instruction: Inclusive strategies for standards-based learning that benefit the whole class. American Secondary Education 32(3), 34-62.
Gregory, G., & Chapman, C. (2002) Differentiated instructional strategies: One size doesn't fit all.
Tomlinson, C. A. & Allan, S. D. (2000) Leadership for Differentiating Schools and Classrooms
