Teaching Methods: Differentiating Instruction
Customized Teaching Provides Different Assessments and Content
Apr 9, 2008
The assembly line model of the teacher handing out identical tests to all students has faded away with the twentieth century. Differentiation of instruction is what this shift away from giving all students the same assessments or materials despite their diverse learning styles, capabilities, and needs.
The teacher using differentiated instruction offers choices to students, where the students choose from a list of assessments and/or course materials. Teaching with more alternatives given to students reaches the varied learning styles of a typical class. Teachers can also steer students to a fuller range of different assignments and assessments so that the overall learning experience is well-rounded.
Customized Teaching to All Student Learning Styles
Teachers of all ages continue to be asked to customize class materials, assignments, and assessments to diverse students in each classroom. Differentiation of instruction is the official name of this multi-faceted customization done by the teacher. Differentiation is about being flexible and resourceful enough to adapt and customize methods, activities, student products, and learning experiences to the needs of both individual students and the whole class when appropriate and applicable.
Three Reasons to Use Differentiated Instruction
- Each child is unique.
- Learning is a bumpy, unpredictable process.
- A classroom full of students is as varied as a handful of wildflowers.
Differentiated instruction provides all types of learners with opportunities to both use innate strengths and to shore up weaknesses in a variety of experiences, activities, and assessments.
Much like a household that prides itself on providing and consuming only organic food, a completely differentiated class is a rarity and not realistically achieved. It's far better that a family eat a few organic apples a week than no organic food at all. Similarly, it is in all students' best interests that a class offer a couple of differentiated assessments or content reading selections than none at all.
Offering and Using Differentiated Techniques
The beginning of differentiating a class is about choosing a few areas where the teacher is comfortable with offering choices and alternatives to students, or where the teacher can evaluate student work using individual criteria.
Student Choices
- creating an illustrated, labeled map of the Spanish explorers trail in America with descriptive bullet points
- writing a letter home to Spain about the same journey
- recording a radio broadcast of the same journey
Examples of Differentiated Content
- The social studies text book readings
- Internet articles that are age appropriate
Meeting Diverse Educational Needs
- Cultivate an open mind, flexible to change--midstream sometimes.
- Have the necessary support for differentiating teachers- training, administrative support, and parental awareness and buy-in, assistance from colleagues inside and outside of the classroom.
- Develop activities and materials of differentiation in a natural, non-stressful way; a little bit of differentiation is better than no differentiation.
- Have instructional and evaluative systems in place for differentiation.
- Take one student at a time.
The inspiration and challenge to differentiate a class can be daunting at first. Creating and offering choices does mean extra effort on the teacher's part. A fully differentiated class doesn't happen in one semester or even a year; it is usually achieved when a teacher starts with offering alternative assessments for one project, and then maybe two, and over time a unit becomes differentiated. Project by project or reading choice by reading choice steadily builds upon itself.
Student and Teacher Gains in a Balanced, Differentiated Class
After putting some choices into place and tailoring some assessments to better suit more learning styles, both the students and the teacher take away more from the full classroom experience:
- recognition, validation, and inspiration of a student's talents & strengths
- a challenged or concerned student knows that there are a variety of ways to show knowledge and alternative assessments are available
- a well-rounded, balanced experience where the students not only showcase their talents, but also strengthen their innate weaknesses
Memorable learning experiences take the place of rote, forgettable stacks of quizzes and homework handouts in a differentiated classroom. When a teacher offers a few variations of an assessment, or a couple of choices of course materials, students connect more clearly with what and how they learn in a class. They retain the targeted skills and the content longer, and on a deeper level.
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