Differentiation In The Learning Environment Of Children

MANILA, Philippines – In a recent workshop I attended, teacher-participants were asked to describe what they see in front of a mirror as they wake up in the morning.

Brilliant answers were dished out by participants. But what caught my attention was a response which sounded a bit off but nonetheless sensible and real. The person who answered said he saw, not himself, but a huge mirror fronting him.

Although, the response drew a lot of laughter from the audience, it somehow allowed an ample room for circumspection among us.

For one, the anecdote suggested that teachers, in front of their students, should be mindful of the fact that they are not their students and should not expect their students to think, learn and perform the way they do.

Every student who enters a classroom brings with her/ him a different set of expectations, learning experience, learning style, cultural background, goals and perceptions which are completely different , from those of the teacher who also has her own set of expectations, teaching style, learning experience, and perception of what works. Howard Gardner once said, “The biggest mistake we have made in past centuries in teaching has been to treat all children as if they were variants of the same individual and thus to feel justified in teaching them the same subjects in the same ways.”

ALL CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT

In his book, “Young Gifted and Bored,” David George (2011) emphasized that differentiation is not a way of helping slow learners or dissatisfied pupils, but it is about all children because all children are different.

Differentiation has become a common concern not just for teachers but also for schools that find difficulty in coping effectively with the wide range of students who come to their school.

Interestingly, classrooms have become more diverse and the tendency of teachers to cover as much materials, regardless of the background, interest, disability, learning style and experience of students, has become obviously a futile exercise.

Carol Ann Tomlinson, the leading researcher on differentiation, says, “Differentiation is simply a teacher attending to the learning needs of a particular student or small group of students, rather than teaching a class as though all individuals in it were basically alike” (Tomlinson, 2000).

EFFECTIVE DIFFERENTIATION PRACTICES

Advocates for differentiation like John Dewey, Piaget, Jerome Bruner and Erickson (2001), Wiggins & McTighe (1998) also underscored basic educational principles, e.g., student-centered, meaning making, and active approaches to learning.

However, effective differentiation practices according to Parke (1989) should meet the following guidelines:

1. The program should be characterized by a flexibility to respond to the individual needs of students;

2. Program options should be in place so that the varying skills, abilities, and interests of the students can be accommodated;

3. Patterns of grouping students should be based on the unique needs of the students and should allow students to progress at their own pace; and

4. Decision making should be based on students’ needs. differentiated instructional style

The individual needs of students can be readily captured in the student’s learning profile, which refers to ways in which he/she best processes information and ideas, and ways in which learning style, gender, culture and intelligence preference influence the student (Tomlinson, 2000). Brimijoin (2005) identified a set of principles that would lead to a successful differentiated instructional style:

1. Clarity of learning goals - Using the process of backwards designs, teachers who differentiate well always define learning goals and outcomes first, while also considering data about students’ prior knowledge, performance, interests, learning preferences, and misconceptions;

2. Ongoing assessment - When designing learning experiences, assessment data help teachers assure that every student has equal and adequate access to content, increasing the chance that high-stakes testing support equity (Darling- Hammond, 2003);

3. Informing instruction - Responsive teachers use data about diverse thinking styles to adjust assignments and design assessments that maximize student performance (Sternberg and Grigorenko 1997);

4. Respectful tasks - Ensuring the respectfulness of each task requires careful analysis of the link between assessment data and learning goals, reflection about students’ developmental levels, and constant monitoring of student response to a variety of classroom contexts (Tomlinson, 1999);

5. Appropriate Strategies - Research shows that instructional strategies influence student learning almost as much as aptitude, with data indicating achievement is higher when students focus on concepts and relevant tasks (Stronge 2002);

6. Flexible grouping - When differentiation is working well, specific task assignments, the placement of students in learning groups, the use of materials, the pacing of instruction, and the social context of learning are all modified in a variety of ways to meet student needs (Tomlinson, 1999); and

7. Classroom community – Differentiated classrooms are a community founded on trust, shared management, self-governance, a balance of teacher-directed and student-centered learning, and high expectations (Connell & Wellborn, 1991).

By addressing the individual students’ school readiness, interest, and profile the differentiations of content, instructional process, and learning environment; students’ performance and achievement significantly improve.

Howard Gardner mentioned once, “The biggest mistake we have made in past centuries in teaching has been to treat all children as if they were variants of the same individual and thus to feel justified in teaching them the same subjects in the same ways.” This was propounded further by a distinguished educator Theodore Sizer, who said, “Adapting to that diversity is the inevitable price of productivity, high standards, and fairness to the students.”

The author is an advisory board member and former president of the AD/HD Society of the Philippines. He served as a college president, school director, mobile school head and faculty member of graduate programs for years.

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