General Introduction

This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.

I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.

For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.

For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.

This blog falls into the category of activities.

Giving Learners Freedom Through Open Activities

In many tasks, what it is that learners are being asked to do is circumscribed and specific.

This is because the teacher is usually working from the premise that all learners need to do whatever there is to be done, so that the learning outcomes can be met successfully.

This is a fair premise, but not one that leads by necessity to the conclusion – namely, that all learners should do the same thing in the same way.

An alternative is to make activities more open.

Open activities are those in which the teacher sets the guidelines but then leaves it for learners to decide how to go about meeting them.

Here are some examples:

• ‘Here is a list of the things you must do. It is up to you how you go about doing them. The only rule is that you must be able to demonstrate your work to me.’
• Provide learners with a question or statement and ask them to respond in whatever way they see fit (you might like to provide some ideas in case they get stuck).
• Tell learners where they should be at the end of the lesson and then invite them to work out their own way of getting there (you will need to provide support materials and, potentially, a degree of scaffolding for less-able learners).

Clearly, such activities will not always be appropriate.

It is undoubtedly the case that there are many times when closed activities are either preferable or necessary.

However, building a range of open activities into a programme of study can have a positive effect on learner engagement and, by extension, progress.

How does using open activities differentiate?

Learners can decide for themselves how to complete the task.

This means they can play to their own strengths – particularly if you have spent time getting them to think about how they learn best (which means they will be primed with the knowledge to make good choices).

If an activity is left open, then there are many ways in which a learner might engage with it.

If there are many options available, it means there is a higher likelihood that learners will find an approach that suits them.

The method encourages learners to work independently and to have confidence in their own abilities.

This is because the teacher is making it clear that they believe their learners can work successfully within a set of general guidelines.

If learners have confidence in themselves, they are more likely to make progress regardless of their starting points.

Confidence is closely tied to motivation and helps learners make positive predictions about the future. In the classroom, these often become self-fulfilling.

Using Stepped Activities to give Learners Freedom

Let us imagine that you are planning a lesson.

How are you going to ensure that all learners are stretched and challenged throughout the session?

One easy way in which to do this is through stepped activities.

These are tasks that contain a series of separate elements, the difficulty level of which gradually increases.

Here is an example.

Topic: Rainforests

• Part 1: Write a letter to a friend explaining what rainforests are and where they are found.
• Part 2: Draw a diagram showing how rainforests develop. Label your diagram and write an explanation next to it.
• Part 3: Analyse Source B. How does the source relate to what you know about rainforests? What is the purpose of the source? What does the source not tell you?
• Part 4: Create a table outlining three arguments in favour of deforestation and three arguments against deforestation.
• Part 5: How might you create and police a successful system of regulation for protection of the rainforest in Brazil, given the limited resources available to the government (listed in Source C) and the previous attempts that have failed (explained in Source D)?

Each part of the activity is a little harder than that which came before.

This means that all learners are challenged throughout the task (and will, in turn, make progress).

Those who are most skilled should reach and complete parts four and five.

Those who are less able may instead get to part three, but find this highly challenging, at this point in time.

Both sets of learners will be stretched by the task, and neither will suffer the frustrations associated with finding the work too easy or too difficult to access.

An added benefit is that the task remains open, giving learners freedom to access as much of it as they can.

While we are planning pragmatically and anticipate some of our less-able learners finding a high level of challenge at part three, we are not being dogmatic.

All the steps are shared and available to every learner.

If learners go beyond what we predict they might find challenging, fantastic!

That possibility is always open – to every learner – in tasks of this type.

Equally, we have constructed our task in such a way as to ensure, based on our prior knowledge of our learners, that everyone will be able to find a personalised level of challenge within the same activity.

How do stepped activities differentiate?

The method leads to activities that gradually increase in difficulty.

This means that all ability levels in a class are catered for.

All learners are challenged, and all learners can experience success.

This is because the various ‘steps’ in the activity correlate to different levels of difficulty.

The various steps can involve a variety of activity types.

This means that the teacher can cater to different strengths possessed by their learners.

It may be that Learners A finds part two challenging because it involves a certain skill with which they have difficulty, but that part three then plays to one of their strengths (while stretching their thinking because of the increased sophistication of the content).

Using Options to Give Learners the Freedom to Choose

Here, we give learners a range of options about how to complete a task.

They then choose whichever they like best.

For example, the teacher might provide a question and a statement, along with a range of response options:

• Statement: ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade is more about brutality than nobility’
• Question: How does the poem make use of repetition?

Respond to the question and the statement using any two of the following options:

• Write an essay
• Create an extended cartoon strip
• Make a poster advertising your answer
• Write a poem
• Come up with a short drama piece
• Draft a speech in which you put forward your point of view
• Create a radio interview focussing on either the question or the statement

You will note that learners are provided with a range of options from which they can choose.

The teacher is giving them the opportunity to decide how they will go about answering.

There are three ways through which you can vary this approach.

First, you might like to divide the list of options into two categories and ask learners to select one option from each to complete the task.

By doing this, you can ensure that learners produce responses that are suitably varied, or which are based on certain skills or ways of thinking.

Second, you might like to provide two questions, two statements, or a question and a statement, and ask learners to select one of these to which they then respond using two different methods.

The advantage of this approach is that learners must think about the same thing from alternative perspectives.

This helps them to develop a broader understanding of that which is in question.

Third, ask your class to come up with what they think is a suitable range of options by which one might respond to the questions or statements.

You can do this through a swift discussion, with options being collated on the board, and then whittled down if there are too many.

How does providing options differentiate?

The approach presents learners with a range of options from which they may choose.

This means that the way in which the task is completed is up to them.

As such, they can opt for methods with which they feel comfortable and that play to their strengths.

There is thus less likelihood that there will be a learner for whom no option provides a viable method.

You can take things further by developing a list of options that vary in difficulty.

This means that learners can self-select to challenge themselves (perhaps with a little prompting from the teacher, or through splitting the options into ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ categories – with learners having to pick one from each).

Giving Choices – A Close Relative of Options

Give learners a range of questions or tasks and ask them to pick which ones they will deal with and in which order.

The questions and tasks should be of varying levels of difficulty.

You might want to present them in an order reflecting their difficulty levels, or you might prefer to jumble them up.

The advantage of the latter approach is that learners are less likely to go for the level they think they are at and more likely to choose questions or tasks that interest them.

With that said, there will always be the possibility that some learners will analyse any list with the aim of identifying the items that appear to be the simplest or most straightforward.

In this situation, you may need to step in and steer their choices to some extent.

Here is an example of the activity in practice.

Topic: Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths

Choose and complete two of the following:

• Draw a cartoon strip showing each of the four noble truths.
• Retell the story of how the Buddha came to understand the four noble truths.
• What are the similarities between Buddhism and two other religions?
• How might a Buddhist try to live according to the four noble truths in modern society?
• In what ways might the world be different if all of us lived our lives according to the four noble truths?

As you will note, the choices all connect to the topic, yet they all make differing demands of learners.

Two variations of the activity are as follows.

First, have two categories (for example: tasks and questions; easy and hard; knowledge and understanding) and ask learners to choose one item from each.

Second, invite learners to work in pairs and ask each member to make one choice.

The pair then works together to complete the questions or tasks they have chosen.

How does offering choices differentiate?

The method allows learners freedom and independence to make choices in accordance with what they feel they can do and where they feel they are at.

It lessens the likelihood of learners struggling to engage with the task (the range of choices means there are more chances that learners will see something that they can access).

The range of choices means learners can identify the possibilities they believe will best help them to make progress.

By offering a variety of challenge within the set of choices, you ensure every learner in the class can find something that marries up with their current level of knowledge and skill.

All of which helps make learning personalised.