DIFFERENTIATION 0R

PERSONALIZED LEARNING

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF 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
ALL THE SAME SUBJECTS IN THE SAME WAY.

-HOWARD GARDNER
Session plan
What the session hopes to achieve
Change a challenge for everyone
Why differentiate? a major exponent gives her views
Three areas where we can differentiate
Seeing differentiated teaching in action
Focus on most effective teaching strategies
Focus on a tool to help us set tasks and ask questions
differing in difficulty level
Subject groups share some strategies they can use



DISCLAIMER!
I DID NOT INTRODUCE CO-ED SCHOOLS
I DID NOT TURN YOUR SCHOOL FROM A JUNIOR LYCEUM TO A
COMPREHENSIVE
I DID NOT INTRODUCE SETTING AND TRACKING ..


..ALSO..
I HAVE NO IDEA OF YOUR PRIOR KNOWLEDGE.
I MIGHT SAY THINGS YOU ARE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH.
I COULD VERY WELL SUGGEST THINGS YOU ARE ALREADY
DOING.

HOWEVER, ITS UNLIKELY THAT ALL OF YOU SHARE
EXACTLY THE SAME KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
PURPOSE OF THIS SESSION FOR THE WHOLE TEACHING
COMMUNITY TO HAVE A COMMON BASELINE ON A FEW
ISSUES SURROUNDING DIFFERENTIATION.

Change or,
Will someone stop the world spinning
I want to get off
Change creates disequilibrium, which can be
uncomfortable. People have to make sense of the process
for themselves.
Fullan believes that to begin the change process you must
first have a moral purpose.
Moral Purpose means acting with the intention of making
a positive difference in the lives of the people it affects.
Moral purpose is difficult because you have to contend
with the different ideas and cultures that people in an
organization bring to the community.


.how to cope?
Understand as well as possible why changes have been proposed its
not useful to look only at the consequences of change in policy (for
example, co-eds or setting) familiarize yourselves with the rationale
that prompted all this.
Being critical in a useful way can actually help in making new policies
better.
Keep an open mind. Dont decide too quickly if the change is for the
better or the worse there will probably be an element of both
whatever we do in schools!
Be gentle to yourselves: trying something new is difficult. Manage
change by setting achievable goals.
Relationships are essential team work within and even across
subjects is indispensable.

What is differentiated teaching?

Lets look at the three areas in a little more detail
content
What to
teach
process
How to
teach
product
How to
assess if
Ls have
learnt
Lets look at some lessons where differentiated
teaching is happening




Geography
Maths
History
Chemistry
English/Languages
How to pitch tasks and Ts questions and exam
questions at the right level of difficulty
Bloom and the taxonomy.
Analysing Remembering Applying
Creating Evaluating Understanding
The cognitive domain
CREATING
EVALUATING
ANALYSING
APPLYING
UNDERSTANDING
REMEMBERING
a) Do you think
this really
happened to
Goldilocks or
not?
b) Describe
where
Goldilocks
lived.
c) Write a story
about a child
who had a
similar
experience
d) What the
Goldilocks story
was about?
e) How did each
bear react to
what Goldilocks
did?
f) construct a
theory as to
why Goldilocks
went into the
house.
Create: Write a story about a child
who had a similar experience
Evaluate: Do you think this really
happened to Goldilocks or not?
Analyse: How did each bear react to
what Goldilocks did?
Apply: Construct a theory as to why
Goldilocks went into the house.
Understand: What was the
Goldilocks story about?
Remember: Describe where
Goldilocks lived.
The following are all modes of teaching, ways in which we
can present the knowledge that students need to take on
board.
DISCUSSION
PRACTICE
DOING
READING
TEACH
OTHERS
AUDIO
VISUAL
LECTURE
DEMONSTRATING
5%
Lecture
10%
Reading
20%
Audiovisual
30%
Demonstrating
50%
Discussion
75%
Practise doing
90%
Teach others
Form groups as shown below and think about which
aspects of your teaching whether content, process,
and product, you will adjust in such a way that you
reach more of your learners in class.
Russian, Spanish,
French, German
English Maltese
Home
Economics, PE
Physics,
Chemistry
Biology &
Science
Italian
Maths, Business
studies &
Accounts
PSD
Religion & Social
studies, History,
European studies
Design & Tech,
Textiles, Art,
Graphical
Computer
studies, ICT
Lets look at the three areas again
Content: what to teach
Can ever a whole syllabus be within every students reach?
Can all students learn a topic to the same depth and detail?
Can I find simpler, more accessible material?
Which learning outcomes will be reached by which group in the
class? this is the decision the teacher will have to make based
on an assessment of where the students are at in their learning
progression

Process: how to teach
Do all sts have to read the same input on the topic?
Can I include a video on the topic?
Can they also listen to somebody explaining the topic?
Have I adopted an enquiry or discovery approach?
Have I adopted a hands-on approach wherever
possible?
Lets look at the three areas in a little more detail
Product: how to assess if Ls have learnt
Do all sts have to produce the same piece? Same
complexity? Same length?
Do they all have to write? Can they show /
demonstrate / draw / model / speak about what
they have learnt?