Adaptation/differentiation in teaching means that teachers recognize the characteristics of their students they teach and understand that different students have learning needs in order to progress in learning. Subsequently, teachers need to adapt and adjust their teaching to the learning needs of their students. Teachers should emphasize the needs of each individual student when displaying instructional methods. In the literature of differentiation, the term “differentiated instruction” is recognized. This term refers to “a philosophy of teaching purporting that students learn best when their teachers effectively address variance in students’ readiness levels, interests, and learning profile preferences” (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 263). The main goal of differentiated instruction is to maximize the learning potential of each student (Tomlinson, 2003). Research showed that differentiated instruction leads to better learning performance (Koeze, 2007; Reis, McCoach, Little, Muller, & Kaniskan, 2011). Several indicators of teachers’ teaching behaviour associated with differentiation in teaching include devoting extra time and additional instructions, pre-teaching and re-teaching, and implementing various effective teaching methods (Houtveen et al., 1999; Kindsvatter et al., 1988; Lundberg & Linnakylä, 1992; Pearson & Fielding, 1991; Sijtstra, 1997).
A methodical response to differences characterizes the teacher in this domain. Systematic monitoring of the progress in the learning process helps teachers set individual goals and expediently deploy different modes of instruction and/or processing assignments.
This domain consists of four items. The attuning of instructions and processing to differences is characterized by:
- checking whether the goals of a lesson are being achieved
- offering weak students extra study and instruction time
- adjusting the instruction to differences between students
- adjusting the processing of study material to the differences between students
Differentiation is a teachers’ proactive response to the different learning needs of students in the classroom. Teachers who differentiate, adapt their teaching according to students’ abilities, interests or learning preferences with the aim of maximizing learning and performance.
In differentiated classrooms, there are typically a number of different preplanned “routes” towards learning students can take. Hence, differentiation is not so much about the small modifications teachers make on a daily basis (such as providing more information in response to a question or giving feedback), but it is about planning adaptations to a lesson with the aim of better meeting students’ diverse learning needs.
In order to differentiate in the lessons, teachers should plan their differentiated instruction in advance, assess students learning needs frequently, embed the differentiation in a context of other high quality teaching behaviors (such as making sure the learning climate is safe and welcoming and giving high quality instruction) and evaluate whether learning goals are met.
Differentiation and assessment
In differentiated classrooms, teachers use the information from some type of assessment (e.g. pretest, group discussion, survey, observation, homework assignment) to determine which adaptations are needed. Differentiation is thus a cyclical process of finding out about the learner and responding by differentiating.
How do teachers differentiate?
Organization of differentiated instruction
When teachers want to offer students adapted content, processes, products or environment, they will have to think about how they want to organize this. Teachers may use homogeneous groups (for
instance by grouping students by ability or interest), heterogeneous groups (for instance by letting students work on a task together and providing different levels of support relative to students’ abilities), or they may let students work on their individual level and pace.
Differentiation in ICALT
In the ICALT domain ’adjusting instructions and learner processing to inter-learner differences’ consists of some exemplary items which may represent the quality of differentiated instruction in the lessons.
The first item in this domain is on evaluation, which is in line with the idea that assessment and differentiated instruction should be linked. Furthermore, there is an item about adjusting instructions to accommodate the learning needs of weak learners (so called convergent differentiation). Then, there are two items on adjusting the instructions and processing of subject matter. These items refer
to differentiation of process and content (for all learners). Differentiation of product and environment are not measured in the ICALT instrument.
Examples
Examples of differentiating content:
- A mathematics teacher adds complexity to certain tasks from the general textbook for his academically talented students and simplifies the tasks for students needing more support (offering variations of tasks on different levels is also known as tiering).
- A language teacher uses an informative text on two levels of difficulty in her reading class.
- A science teacher lets high ability students who easily master the basis content skip parts of the basic content and move along further to enrichment activities (this is also known as compacting).
Examples of differentiating process:
- A mathematics teacher divides her class into three flexible groups according to students’ readiness. After the core instruction for all students, she provides further instruction and guidance to the low ability group, while the rest of the students have already started with the assignments.
- An English teacher has a cue card available for students to use during a verbal communication task. For struggling students, the cues are more specific than for the other students in her class as to give them more guidance.
- A history teacher gives certain students who struggle with the topic at hand more time to complete their assignment than others.
- Students in biology work in pairs to learn more about insects. The high achieving students use assignments from the purple folders and the average students use the yellow folders.
- A teacher uses concrete materials to reteach the mathematics content to her low ability group.
Examples of differentiating product:
- A social sciences teacher offers students five choices about how they want to present their project on discrimination: by giving an oral presentation, by means of a video clip, by writing a report, by making a poster or by creating a website about the topic.
- A language teacher askes students varying in ability for different types of written reports about the book varying in complexity.
- A science teacher offers students a learning menu from which students can choose from different types of end products.
- A geography teacher gives students the opportunity to choose whether they would like to complete the assignment in collaboration with a group of peers of alone.
Examples of differentiating learning environment:
- A language teacher makes sure that there are places where students can collaborate as well as places where students can work in silence in her classroom.
- A mathematics teacher develops routines that allow students to get help when he is busy with other students and cannot help them immediately
Best practices
In the near future, a video will be displayed here to explain adaption/differentiation.
Further reading/illustrations:
https://uen.instructure.com/courses/314069/pages/4d-tier-1-differentiated-instruction-and-scaffolding
http://differentiationcentral.com/what-is-differentiated-instruction/
https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/di/#content
Video’s: http://differentiationcentral.com/videos/
http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/di/index.html
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