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Differentiation in Lessons / teaching

Pat Johnson (Skills for Working Life Course Leader) recommends the following techniques and strategies for Differentiation (allowing progress for all regardless of ability…the high ability students are challenged as are the low ability and vice versa!)…

A range of questions designed to allow all students the opportunity to contribute to revision, development and evaluation sections of the lesson.

Colour coding of vocabulary / key terminology used in tasks to enable students to organise their responses more appropriately.

Visual prompts for less fluent students where text only is offered to more advanced language learners.

Limited time allowances for more advanced students, to enable them to develop their thinking skills in stages that build gradually on demonstrated performance.

Requirements for students to re-work tasks in different order / tenses / person / mood as extension task.

Close procedure worksheets with varying degrees of support according to known ability of students.

Writing frames with varying degrees of support according to known ability of students. One to one teacher support for less confident students and for those needing further challenge. Extension activities that use the same material but demand higher order thinking skills to solve

more complex problems / questions. Built-in learning skill tips to guide less confident students towards learning goal / objective: look

for patterns, use a dictionary, categorise before you answer, re-orientate your approach to the problem, expect implications and look to draw inferences, work the problem backwards, refer to models and pre-worked tasks compare etc.

Information gap exercises in pairs / groups of mixed ability to enable less confident students to give and elicit information from more advanced learners. Information held centrally, or in a partner’s keeping, is given out in response to questioning and recorded to demonstrate understanding.

Tasks designed to allow passive responses rather than 100% active demonstration of understanding

‘Structural Differentiation’

An increasingly prevalent element of our courses is the concept of ‘structural differentiation’ whereby differentiation is a built in feature of the course itself. At the moment this can be best exemplified by coursework assignments (especially on BTEC courses in KS4 and KS5 with the completion of Pass, Merit and Distinction level work) and lesson worksheets (especially on exam ‘heavy’ courses like GCSE Business & Economics and GCSE Business Studies). The main benefit of this is to allow progress of individual students at a pace that best suits themselves. Check out examples of these worksheets at..

http://www.ebitnow.com/oxford_school_business_ec/2009/07/gcse-business-studies-year-10-worksheets-for-0910-academic-year.html

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On the next two pages is an example of a worksheet designed for GCSE Business Studies featuring ‘structural differentiation’ (because students work at their own pace, perform self assessment, use AFL and can be given extension tasks if necessary as they progress through all 39 topics over two years).

Note the following –

Burgundy Box – Textbook page references and unit title (this is number 16 of 47)

Main Yellow Box – Exam style questions…some lower order and others higher.

Green Box – Key Terms…for revision notes and helpful feature for lower ability in particular. Written in ‘student speak’.

Orange Box – What went well and improvements to be made teacher assessment box (incorporating positive marking feedback / AFL)

Red Box – Interesting fact!

Please turn over for second side of worksheet…

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Yellow Box – Extra Questions OR Homework Activity OR extension / research task..it is completely optional / flexible what goes here!

Green Box – More useful revision notes / learning theory for the exam.

Orange Box – Opportunity for student to self or peer assess. Grade can be given according to ‘key’ given by Teacher. Student must also fill in last exam grade and target grade. Student always knows how he / she is performing. Also student fills in score from mini-test that follows worksheet (allows teacher to measure progress also) and puts in own suggestions for how to improve.

Green Star – Fun ‘handy hint’ often linked to enterprise or personal

finance / contribution to community etc.

Red Circle – Where to find extra help and extension activities. Usually via after school club or website or extra worksheets in classroom.

Yellow Bar – Information or message bar for students.