STRATEGIES FOR DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING

Some ideas to organise activities taking into account differentiated learning:

1. KUDo’S

KUDo’S are a useful way of breaking down learning objectives into what the teacher wants the students to Know, Understand and Do by the end of a unit.

How does it support differentiation? ➡️ curriculum objectives can sometimes be very broad and open to interpretation. By considering them in terms of the three KUD outcomes, an objective can be simplified and made more explicit. This makes it easier to plan and decide on differentiated activities and also facilitates the assessment process.

• KNOW: facts, definitions, dates and other key information to be memorised.
• UNDERSTAND: concepts, principles or general “big ideas” learned by the students.
• DO: skills and processes and how children independently apply their KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING in follow up activities or in other contexts outside the lesson. Often written as verbs.  

2. BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

Bloom’s taxonomy is a model for examining and differentiating the challenge levels of  learning tasks and discussions questions in all subjects. It enables the teacher to look at instruction through the lens of challenge. It includes six levels:

 

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How does it support differentiation? - It enables teachers to categorise activities and questions by level of complexity, thereby ensuring that a wider range of higher order thinking challenges are provided to children. In addition, the higher levels of thinking reinforce basic content, thus ensuring children that need more time than others to  develop their content knowledge are provided such time. 

   

3. TIERED ASSIGNMENTS

Tiered activities are a series of related tasks of varying complexity. The teacher assigns the activities as alternative ways for children to access the learning according to their individual needs. Tiered assignments involve all children being focused on the same content or objective, but the process and/or product will vary according to the child’s readiness or ability.

When is best to use them? - At some point, all students will need differentiated instruction based on their particular learning needs. Tiered assignments are not typically a daily activity and are best used as necessary and appropriate. For instance, there are days when everyone in the class will need the same introduction to or explicit teaching of a concept because it is new to all. It is when children are asked to practice and complete follow-up tasks that the activities may have to tiered.

Use a tiered assignment when:

• Students show different stages of understanding after a core concept is taught.
• Students indicate differing stages of readiness to tackle an activity.
• Students’ learning preferences are varied. 
• Some students need more support or scaffolding than others.
• Some students need more time to complete a task and others need an additional challenge.
• Students need to use different resources related to their learning needs.

A good way to visualise the tired activity is the image of a ladder where the core task appears on the middle rung, the advanced version of the core task on the top wrong and  the modified version of the core task on the bottom rung. The core task applies to most of the students and will generally be yardstick used to design the advanced and modified tasks. The extension task is pitched at those pupils who need a greater challenge than what’s offered to them in the core task, like the early finishers. The modified task is designed for those who need extra support or guidance with the core activity. It may not be necessary to change the core activity for these children, just additional resources, scaffolding or one-to-one assistance.

4. KWL CHART (in terms of content objective)

 

5. IDEAS FOR DIVERSITY (in terms of skills)

Reading comprehension

• Bring two similar texts instead of one, so that they can choose. That little decision, although a small one, will give them the possibility of choice and a sense of control.
• Include different types of questions. Instead of just having typical multiple choice questions, offer other options, such as true or false, multiple choice with more or fewer items, short answers and so on. Don’t give them the same activity, take into account the level or let them choose the one they want to complete.
• If some of the students finish before the rest, you could ask them to explain their answers or to find some work classes in the text (nouns, adjectives, verbs…). Ask them to write the text in another tense or to look for synonyms or antonyms. You could even ask them to prepare more questions for the classmates, individually or in groups.

Listening comprehension

• Many audios also have videos along them, but visual aid is an extra help not all of them may need. Divide the class into groups, some having access to audio and video and the others just listening to the audio. You could make the decision or perhaps they could, giving them extra autonomy and self-awareness of their own learning needs.
• Thanks to new technologies, you can give some students the opportunity to hear an audio as many times as they may need, individually, and at their own pace. 
• You could even consider translation and transcription in your activities.
• As with reading, the activities offered could differ from each other, trying to meet the individual needs of each of the student, regarding their English knowledge.
• You could also bring more than one audio to let them choose, or some related audios or readings to delve deeper into a subject, either by listening or reading for further information about an issue.

Writing

• They don’t have to write the texts of the same length.
• Give them different options to write about.
• Show them some examples.
• Avoid the blank sheet syndrome by brainstorming and debating before actually writing. Tell them to re-write a story, give them the first lines of a text in order to continue it or let them write about something that they really like a TV series or an artist.
• Try collective or group writing.
• Create a classroom blog, and newspaper or a magazine. They can have different roles and they can write about different issues.
• Let them write songs, stories or poems if they want to.
• Describe images. Let them choose their theme among different titles or photos. This will give sense of control.

Speaking

• Debate, make a controversial statements and let them contradict.
• Don’t correct their mistakes, put fluency first. Make notes and talk about them later, on the blackboard, altogether, let them correct their own mistakes.
• Record them. Give them the chance to record themselves at home, they could choose to use either audio and video or audio only, depending on their own preferences. 
• Use new technologies, free digital tools such as Flipgrid are a must.
• Remember that, many times, speaking happens when you don’t expect it. Let it flow, don’t change the subject because you have to continue with the lesson plan, English happens like that.

REMEMBER: if some students finish before your classmates, you can always make them help other students, correct each other or compare their answers in groups or pairs. Peer correction is strongly recommend.

The key point is understanding the differentiation occurs mainly in the activities, rather than in the text itself. It all depends on what you ask them to do with it.

Our activity for differentiated learning can be see at the end of this entry. Please check said activity first, before reading the terminology modifications below.

In terms of core, extended and modified tasks…

• EXTENDED TASK - GROUP 3. The cartoon is empty but they are not given any sentences, just connectors, and they are expected to come up with their own descriptions. This task is aimed at the children who have mastered their expected level of reading comprehension and would benefit more from guided writing than filling the blanks with strict options.
• CORE TASK - GROUP 2. The cartoon is empty save from the first description, and they have a variety of narrations to choose from and fill the blanks.
• MODIFIED TASK - GROUP 1. Because group 1 will be focused on sequencing the pictures correctly and will directly have images and descriptions linked, it is expected to ease the task and support those students who still need reinforcement in ordering.

REFLECTION

Among all the activities we saw in this unit, I find the tiered assignments the most interesting once, because while I had received training in the "multi-level methodology", I had never had actual examples of it. 

When I learned about tiered assignments, my mind did not just stay in one specific task, and I started to visualize whole units with this type of activity that could also be helpful in terms of appreciating evolution. The groups core, modified and extended task groups could change depending on the activity, and that way differentiation can be supported in every subject. Maybe a student who does extended tasks in Maths has to do modified tasks in English and viceversa, since potentialities vary. I found it is a deeply interesting method to apply when building lesson plans and school year class curriculums.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the previous entry, my only doubt is how to implement this method in a safe and comfortable way so no one feels "dumb" or "superior" because of their group placement.