The Complexities of Differentiation

When you read Carol Tomlinson's work she makes it all sound so easy, that it becomes almost overwhelming. I arrived at my class and a quick glance around told me I had a number of characters who were going to test my skills as a teacher. I had received in the mail the latest Tomlinson and Imbeau offering and keen to try this new approach, began, as suggested, with exploring with my students - who they were as students. This would help me to learn more about them, but also maybe help them to understand who they are as learners. Invite them to participate in the vision of running a differentiated classroom.

We began with a discussion of who we were as people, they created bio poems (from the Teacher toolkit in Tomlinson and Imbeau) - utilising a nearby computing lab, and completed an identikit of themselves. Graphing me (again from the book) gave me a sense of their own view of their strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. Then I asked them to complete a learning styles test (based on the work of Howard Gardner) - introducing this with a short activity on background, what we did in the summer, that had them moving around the classroom, who was born here, who was born not in this town, not in this state and so on. The link, even as we have different backgrounds and things we like to do, so we learn differently. Then we looked at the results - and that was when I began to get very worried. The extensive learning styles test showed that more than 50% of my students tested themselves as being bodily-kinaesthetic and interpersonal learners. And only two were linguistic! Oh help.

We talked about the results and what it meant for them. And then using all that information they now had about themselves we looked at what they wanted to achieve for the year. And I asked them to write this in a letter addressed to myself. 

Armed with all this information it was time for me to sit down and re-plan my year.

And this is the problem, this is where it can get very difficult. You see when you know your students, who can do what, what they like; when they have shared themselves with you, then they can hold you accountable. No longer are you able to hide behind a 'one-size-fits-all' approach. Especially as I now knew that I had 30 different 'sizes' in that classroom. And I hadn't even got to those who were ESL, a highly able student, the student with learning difficulties, the behavioural issues. How do you support the learning of 30 very individual learners in a classroom, get through the curriculum, help them to progress, knowing that many of them don't like sitting still for too long!

You see student differences do matter, and a class will be a better one for them and the teacher if that teacher teaches them with those differences in mind.  That is the essence of differentiation. But it involves a significant layer of complexity. And the ability to reflect on your practice.

Creating the Opportunity to Learn

So I have a new book, by the above title, just in from the ASCD. And it has given me pause to reflect once again. Their emphasis in the title is on 'the' and the authors, A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera, explore the possibility of closing the achievement gap and doing so by addressing the contexts in which the learning take place.

It was with the intention of addressing the learning context of my middle school class that I read with interest earlier this year Carol Ann Tomlinson and Marcia B. Imbeau's book Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom. I have tried to recall what we called differentiation when I was going through my initial teacher training. I remember a unit, which failed to engage most of us, called Diagnostic Teaching. The idea being that we would use our teaching to diagnose where students were at and so be able to direct their learning better, creating programs that would meet their learning needs. And all that within the context of the curriculum. So we learned to accommodate and make adaptations to enable our students to be part of the classroom. The focus was not on inclusion per se, more on ensuring their educational progress. Teacher aides were vital for the success of this approach, they would implement what we would write, the worksheets we created for our 'disabled' students, and often mark and assess the students on our behalf. But the reality was that on the whole, we ignored students with differences, those at the top end were often given an extra worksheet to do, those at the bottom were removed for remedial classes. And if we were lucky to be working in a bigger school, then classes were streamed. Either way as teachers we taught a 'homogenised' group in the middle.

Differentiation  has changed our focus. I suspect in response to the inclusive education movement that has permeated the educational landscape in the last 20 years. Differentiation focuses our attention back onto all our students - helping us to understand that differences in our students do matter and that quality teaching makes room for these differences. The one-size-fits-all approach fails significantly for many of the students in our very diverse classrooms. So how is differentiation different?

Tomlinson and Imbeau describe differentiation as a philosophy, a way of thinking about teaching and  learning, a set of principles if you will. And it requires rethinking your classroom practice through an ongoing process of trial, reflection and adjustment. Actually reminds a little bit of action research. The approach brings together Lorna Earl's Assessment as learning approach, the creation of a positive learning environment, a well thought out curriculum (perhaps using McTighe and Wiggins Understanding by Design approach) and of course flexible classroom delivery.

Sounds complex? That is because it is - and one more reason why new teachers truly need a good mentor and extra time to embed good practices in their classroom. Let me explain ...