Differentiation for ALL

Differentiation is meeting students where they are and altering the lesson to meet the needs of each student. The end goal for students is the same; however, some students may need more support along the way. That is why teachers should provide equity over equality education. Teachers may need to differentiate for students with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities.

                                            

When differentiating for low-performing students, the teacher may need to provide more one-on-one instruction time or meet with the student prior to the lesson in order to build schema and understanding. Low performing students may benefit from teacher think alouds, anchor charts, and explicit instruction. It is important to keep the individual student’s learning style into consideration. The teacher may allow the student to use their desired learning style to showcase their understanding of the lesson. For example, if the student has trouble putting their thoughts on paper, they may benefit from verbally explaining their answer with the use of Flipgrid, or illustrating their response through art.

When providing differentiated instruction for middle-performing students, the teacher may need to work diligently to close learning gaps or clear up and misconceptions. The teacher should give opportunities for middle performing students to share their voice in the classroom and encourage them to present their work in a way that shows ownership. It is important that teachers keep these students in mind during instruction because they are often overlooked due to their idle progression.

                                                         

High-performing students need to be challenged. It is important to remember that a “challenge” is not “more work.” A challenge is rewarding and pushing students to dig deeper in their thinking and learning. It is providing them with the opportunity to think critically to solve problems and situations. This could be done by asking the students to come up with their own strategy to use when solving math problems. Other challenges to use for high-performing students is involving them in open-ended activities such as passion projects, classroom newspapers, or independent studies. These strategies encourage students to express themselves through creativity.

Unmotivated students can sometimes be challenging. As teachers, it is our job to make our lessons fun, engaging, and interesting to our students. We need to promote a growth mindset over a fixed mindset, meaning we should praise students for their efforts, rather their abilities. By providing feedback to students, we are giving them the proper guidance on how to grow in their learning and become better learners. We should also make an effort to form meaningful relationships with our students. Unmotivated students are more likely to perform for you if they know you care about them. Forming a community in the classroom encourages students to step out of their comfort zones and participate in a risk-free environment. We as teachers should also make sure that we make our expectations for our students high and clear. We should avoid vague instructions and be transparent. Lastly, we should be inspirational. We should be a light to our students and make them aware of our own successes and failures. Let them know that it is okay to fail, but when this happens, you must get up and try again.               

                                            

All of the differentiation strategies listed above are essential and crucial for teaching English Language Learners. Teachers should make learning visual by providing diagrams, charts, and modeling explicit step by step instruction. ELL students learn best when they are working in groups because they are being exposed to the language and interacting with peers in order to learn social cues and slang words. ELL students also benefit from extended wait time. Teachers should make sure to provide enough time for ELL students to formulate their answers to difficult questions. Another differentiation strategy that ELL students learn from is pre-teaching. Students make deeper and stronger connections to the lesson the more times they are exposed to it. Hence, we should pull these students back and build their schema of particular topics before expecting them to complete the lesson independently.

In my classroom, I wish to incorporate the above differentiation strategies for my students. One way that I could use these strategies is by incorporating the multiple styles of learning. It is important that I provide learning opportunities that fit the needs of each student. Apps and other online tools can play a major role in the different learning styles. For instance, students could create, build, and compose responses to essential questions instead of giving an oral response. I will work diligently to make sure that all of my students are receiving the best education possible by giving them a chance to express themselves in a positive, risk free environment.