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Curriculum Differentiation - Coggle Diagram
Curriculum Differentiation
Making decisions in the moment
It's not necessarily about planning ahead for what might come but rather amending certain tasks for certain student if and when the issue may arise.
This entails having an open mindset and being willing to make changes to the original lesson in order to accomodate certain learners and their individual needs at the time.
Remember that fair doesn't always mean treating everyone equally.
The differentiation must consider the following:
Readiness - What would they need to do in order to achieve the goal? Are they ready to take these steps and how?
Interests - understanding what my students' interests are will assist me with differentiation much like it assisted Ferlazzo (2018) when he knew a student had an interest in football and allowed him to write his argumentative essay on that topic instead of hurricanes.
Learning profile - by understanding if the student is a kinaesthetic learner or maybe a visual learner - this information will help you in deciding how you can adapt certain tasks to accomoadte that student best.
I could create a survey/activity and ask my students how they would prefer to learn.
Differentiate in three areas based on recommendations by Carol Tomlinson
Content
Affording students choice - giving them options and then allowing them to choose what they would like to do.
We can do this through
Finding entry points - is it narrative, experiential etc.?
Complex instruction
Tasks don't have one correct answer.
Compacting the curriculum
Basic skills compacting
Content compacting
Flexible grouping
Pairs, collaborative? etc.
Cubing
A cube with Blooms taxonomy instructions
Process
Allow students to choose how they want to take the information in.
This could also mean staggering activities over a few days for one learner due to anxiety while the rest of the class completes them all in one day.
We can do this through:
Scaffolding - assisting students at first and slowly allowing them to be more independent.
Aided language stimulation - assisting with assigning a communication partner.
Product
Allowing students to show their understanding in a way that suits them. For example, Ferlazzo (2018) talks about how he allowed a student to write an argumentative essay on something that interested him because he was demotivated to write about the given topic. At the end he still produced an
argumentative essay
which was the task and he understood what it entailed - therefore the topic was irrelevant.
We can do this through:
Learning contracts
Agreement between teacher and student
Alternative forms of assessment
Homework
Never be too hard or too difficult.
Environment
Creating an environment that is conducive to all types of learning. Ensuring that it's adaptable for all students and there is no one size fits all structure.
The tone must also be a positive one that allows students to be themselves.
Differentiate assessment. If all students don't learn the same then they shouldn't be assessed in the same way.
To create a relationship with students to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Only by doing this will I be able to understand how I can amend the curriculum to best assist with their learning.
Building a strong class culture. By doing this and explaining to the other students how they can best assist a student who is different, the more comfortable both parties will be.