Key Takeaways

1. Work smarter, not harder: Differentiation should not lead to teacher burnout
2. Content: Do your students need to learn different things?
3. Process: Do you need to modify how you teach different students or groups?
4. Product: Would it benefit your students to present information in different formats?
5. Learning Environment: How can you modify your classroom to cater for individual needs?
   
   

Four ways to think about differentiation

“Start where your students are at” or “build on what they understand” is advice often given to early career teachers. Such words are given with good reason; students have different experiences and prior knowledge to build from even if they have been in the same class, learning the same content. Moreover, recent Australian research suggests that for an average high school class, students are likely to have a five to eight year spread of ability. This may be even more expansive in schools that experience very high levels of socio-economic disadvantage. Therefore, differentiation is central to delivering on community expectations that all students are catered for at school. Indeed, this is reflected in The Australian Professional Standards for Teaching, in which teachers are expected to “understand principles of inclusion and strategies for differentiating teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities”.

However, differentiation is not without its critics. James R. Delise, a US educational consultant, published this controversial article which suggested that differentiation is ineffective. Similarly, Greg Ashman suggests differentiation is poorly defined and has a limited academic base. Whilst in the UK, the Department for Education has suggested that differentiation has added to teacher workload. Possibly addressing Ashman’s concerns, the professional practice notes from the Victorian Department of Education offers some clarity of purpose and concepts through which differentiation can occur.

Work smarter, not harder – Differentiation should not lead to teacher burnout

As we have discussed before, most things that occur in schools positively impact student learning, but schools need to prioritise the most effective of these possibilities. This particularly applies to differentiation, as when taken out of context or used as a compliance tool, differentiation can reduce teacher wellbeing and lead to teacher burnout. Differentiation should not be an overwhelming workload for staff but rather a lens to clarify the most effective curriculum and pedagogy for a specific group of students. A starting point for this is defining differentiation:

From Professional Practice Note 16:

“Differentiated teaching refers to methods teachers use to extend the knowledge and skills of every student in every classroom, regardless of their starting point. The objective is to lift the performance of all students, including those who are falling behind and those ahead of year level expectations.“

However, where to start on the journey toward a differentiated classroom may still seem daunting. Professional Practice Note 16 suggests that to be most effective, teachers should consider four concepts to differentiate: content, process, product and learning environment. However, it may be an effective distinction to see that two of these concepts, content and product, are more curriculum-related, while the other two, processes and learning environment, are more closely related to pedagogy. To reduce teacher workload, schools might consider differentiating content and product within Domain or factuality teams, whilst process and learning environment would be best dealt with in a Professional Learning Team or a coaching / mentoring scenario. This matrix may help to further understand these distinctions.

Content – Do your students need to learn different things?

Content is your curriculum. Therefore, how you differentiate content will be highly dependent on the area of the curriculum you teach. For instance, in Maths, there may be a gateway concept a student needs to master before moving on to a more advanced concept. Hence this class may be divided between students that can apply this concept by completing different tasks whilst others work on the gateway concept. However, in an English class, due to the extended response nature of the work, two students maybe be working at different levels but still addressing the same text. Understanding when it is appropriate or not to differentiate content requires a teacher to know what a student can achieve and what they need to learn next. Teachers gain an understanding of this through things like standardised assessment data, formative assessment collected in class or knowledge of the student’s health, wellbeing and learning preferences.

The individual teacher should participate in an ongoing process of collecting data and making adjustments.

From Professional Practice Note 16:

“Check-in regularly and make the learning visible by gathering data with formative assessments and instructional practices such as questioning techniques and exit tickets (formative activities at the end of the lesson to evaluate the learning progress). Adjust your teaching plan in response to formative feedback, for example adjust the lesson pace or re-teach certain concepts.“

However, Differentiation of content takes teacher time and is best considered as a Domain or facility. Whilst there are always exceptional circumstances, on a cohort level (e.g. Year 9 music), we can predict the likely levels of what students know and collectively develop resources to respond to these needs. In addition to the specific curriculum elements, Your Domain/ Facility may wish to consider:

• Worked examples across a range of different achievement levels
• Differentiating handover based on students reading ability
• Example sentence starters/ language examples for quality written work that also included embedded Tier 3 language/ metalanguage
• How to check students’ prior knowledge and learning on a lesson-by-lesson basis
• How the curriculum is structured for students to both give and receive feedback on the work they are completing
• Purpose, relevance and success criteria of lessons are planned and, if needed, differentiated for student ability
  
  

Product – Would it benefit to your students to present information in different formats?

Product is the work students present (both high and low stakes) to be assessed. Differentiation of product offers the possibility of student choice and agency in the way they present their work. However, there is a danger of product differentiation doing more harm than good. This is a red/socks blue socks situation; when dressing a two-year-old, you may wish to give them agency over the colour of the socks they wear for the day. In offering the red or blue socks, it is hoped that the child feels a sense of control and agency in their life, but what is not on the table is not wearing socks, as the parent doesn’t want the child to have blisters from their new shoes. Similarly, if you know that writing an essay is important to a student in Year 12, you don’t give a Year 10 student the opportunity to present their learning through interruptive dance for your History class.

 

Again, this is work that should be considered at a Domain/ faculity level. With the following concept being a consideration:

• Does this common assessment tasks cater for all the abilities in my class? If not, develop a range of levelled tasks.
• Are students placed into collaborative learning groups via interests or abilities, and these groups are used in creating differentiated products?
• Where appropriate are students’ homework, study and revision routines differentiated to produce or practice personalised elements of the curriculum?
  
  

Process – Do you need you modify how you teach different students or groups?

Differentiation of process is teacher-led and requires the pedagogical expertise of a teacher to make constant modifications both through spilt second decisions, e.g. how to respond to student data such as the answers questions through to long adjustments in teaching strategies to tailor teaching and learning to the student of that particular class.

From Professional Practice Note 16:

“Check-in regularly and make the learning visible by gathering data with formative assessments and instructional practices such as questioning techniques and exit tickets (formative activities at the end of the lesson to evaluate the learning progress). Adjust your teaching plan in response to formative feedback, for example adjust the lesson pace or re-teach certain concepts.“

Ultimately, a broader view of differentiation of process could include all choices made in class by a teacher for a given cohort. This can easily seem overwhelming for a teacher. Our advice is to focus on one area or technique and seek ongoing coaching or mentoring until you are satisfied with your improvement, rather than trying to change all the variables at once.

Possible areas of focus for differentiating process include but are not limited to:

• Using formative assessment to monitor student learning progress toward and beyond learning goals
• Using group and targeted interventions to remediate learning difficulties and enhance high achievers
• Giving feedback on student work against prior achievements rather than against other students’ work.
• Using formative assessment regularly, and this information is used to indicate what information students should study and revise.
• Revision practices and study skills are explicitly modelled, taught, and used in the classroom, as well as developing the ability for students to use these practices outside of class time
• Model appropriate metacognitive strategies to students depending on their range of ability. 
• Model how to discuss learning and self-reflection with a focus on developing students’ ability to articulate their strengths and areas of improvement
  
  

Learning Environment – How can you modify your classroom to cater for individual needs?

Considering the learning environment is a chance to focus on the individual students in your class, their learning preferences, as well as how positive collaborative groups may be used to enhance learning culture. Choices around the learning environment can vary from simply the physical layout of the classroom, for example, which table setup will most enhance student learning( rows, groups, U-shape), through to negotiating detailed individualised learning goals for students. Again, this is an opportunity to enact student voice and agency in the classroom but remember it should be red or blue socks.

Some things to consider when differentiating the classroom environment:

• Student learning goals are negotiated with them and have clear habits-based steps to achieve on a regular basis to progress toward the goal.
• How and when are opportunities are created for students to participate in formative assessment and reflect on their learning
• Students are given the opportunity to articulate if work is too hard or too easy for them
• Where appropriate, students are placed into collaborative learning groups via interests or abilities, and this improves learning

However, while working away to individualise student learning, it is essential to remember not to differentiate many aspects of our learning environment. Here are some common expectations that all can meet:

• The classroom environment has shared high expectations, which are focused on growth (not achievement) for all students. Effort should be of primary importance.
• Students have realistic, challenging goals, and recognise effort is vital to reach their learning potential
• Students are given opportunities to give feedback on how the learning environment can be improved
• Students can articulate and reflect on their current learning goals
• Students can articulate their progress in relation to the purpose, relevance and success criteria of lessons
• Students can voice the learning expectations of the classroom

In summary, to maximise your and your students’ effectiveness at differentiation consider how you manage the breadth and pacing of differentiation efforts. For Content and Product, plan and collaborate with your peers to develop a range of curriculum and assessment options for the range of students you have across an entire cohort. For improvement in Process and Learning environment, take it slowly, change one thing at a time, get coaching/ mentoring and feedback from valued colleagues and reflect on your practice whilst also allowing students to be active agents in their own learning. 

Key takeaways

1. Work smarter, not harder: Differentiation should not lead to teacher burnout
2. Content: Do your students need to learn different things?
3. Process: Do you need to modify how you teach different students or groups?
4. Product: Would it benefit your students to present information in different formats?
5. Learning Environment: How can you modify your classroom to cater for individual needs?