The Power and Passion of True Differentiation - One Teacher's Experiences

Day 8 of the giftEDnz October Blog Challenge and it's all about differentiation...

From the Edweek article by Peter DeWitt

There's Something Missing From This Chart

For me, differentiation is not just about content, process and product, it's about relationships and connections.  It's about people.  I think you have to really know your students well - not just academically but most importantly as people.  What makes them tick?  What are their passions? What concerns them? Where do they feel their strengths are at the moment? What do they know they need to work on in their learning at this point in time? How do they like to learn?  If you have this knowledge then you can truly work alongside them to differentiate their needs - socially, emotionally and academically.

So where do you start with this?

Get to Know Your Students as People

At the beginning of every year, I always got my students and their parents/whānau to complete information fact sheets.  For the students, the questions included items such as "What I need you to know about me - as a person, as a learner," "Ways I currently learn best," etc.  There was always room for growth - we would revisit these during the year and there were always questions about their passions, usually framed with a question like "If you could spend a whole day learning about anything, what would it be?" The parents' information was similar with regard to items such as "What I need you to know about my child," "Their passions are," etc.

Past Experiences With Differentiation...

... and what's possible (a few examples)

Collaborative Planning - With Students
When I began teaching we were still using the separate curriculum documents.  I had an absolute belief that students needed to own and create their learning with support from me - Vygotsky, Piaget, Dewey, etc strike again and were my early influencers.  I had also been fascinated by A.S. Neill's Summerhill when I was studying to become a teacher and wondered about the possibilities for our own learning environments here in Aotearoa.

7 Year-Olds Can Plan Their Own Learning

Fresh out of university I decided that there was no reason why we couldn't use the documents to plan our own learning while at the same time following the requirements of the school.  So we did - with 7 year-olds.  Did they manage it? With support, of course they did and we created some fantastic learning experiences together, including running workshops for parents.  We were still a bit constrained by the requirements of the school but it was the beginning of learning about differentiation for me.  We still had a long way to go, however, as there was still a long-term plan to be followed and it was frustrating for the students - and for me - if your passions and interests weren't in line with what the school had decided you needed to learn.  I was heavily influenced by Bloom, Multiple Intelligences and Habits of Mind and these also helped form a foundation for differentiating learning.

Year 7 and 8s Are Inspirational

In 2003 I moved to an Intermediate and the environment was less prescriptive.  There is often the belief that differentiation can't happen in this environment which can be true if you don't have the support of the leadership team.  Fortunately, this school was driving toward enabling students to find their passions.  Bliss!! Long story short, my Year 8s brainstormed all their interests and passions and then formed groups - or not (some wanted to learn on their own) and together we created learning plans for them and their own timetables to fit in around the requirements of the main timetable at the school.  This was differentiating the learning, the environment, content, process and product.

During this time, we had learning experiences in so many diverse areas. There was a group who were interested in the work of the SPCA so one part of their learning involved working there for a day and interviewing staff.  When they returned they ran a food drive for the SPCA and presented a learning session for their peers.  Another group contacted Auckland Airport to find out what changes had been made since 9/11 - they were interested in international security.  This caused a little bit of an 'incident' but they ended up communicating with the then Minister of Internal Affairs and had a Customs Officer and his dog come to the school as part of their presentation of their learning.  Yet another group created a scale model of the Colosseum - their passion was ancient history.  Part of this process saw them emailing experts in this field from all over the world.  Another group was interested in design.  They ended up communicating with Trelise Cooper who sent them photos, earlier designs showing the design process and swatches of fabric etc.  There were many more incredible learning experiences.  The learning was so diverse and exciting and it was incredibly heartwarming to see these groups able to follow their passions and interests while still learning what they needed to know across the curriculum.  That's where the teacher fits into the differentiation process.  You are there to scaffold and guide the students, help them learn the skills they need in order to be successful in their learning and teaching.  Yes, it's exhausting at times but the benefits are immeasurable.

Two years later we had an odd number of Year 7 classes when I became Head of Year 7.  What did this mean? It meant that we could run our own timetable! This was incredibly exciting and only supported the differentiated learning even more.

Since Then...

I've continued to work hard to learn more about differentiation and what it looks like for every individual student.  There are many misconceptions out there about what it is...and is not.
After moving back to a Primary School in 2007, I found myself with several gifted and talented students who were attending the local one-day school.  I wanted to be able to constantly connect and value their learning between both environments so I asked them how they thought we should go about this.  Their answer was to connect their blogs from both learning environments and also to run workshops to showcase their learning...across the school.  They were also running workshops that teachers and parents could join in.  This class was the one who created one of my favourite quotes that I stick with even today...

"We are all teachers and we are all learners in our learning environments." 

They particularly wanted the word environments in there as "learning doesn't just happen in the classroom."  Very wise.  These students were Years 5/6.

I've since learned and taught in a school that was largely Pasifika and Māori and had to learn so much more about the particular cultural needs of these groups in terms of being able to differentiate the learning and teaching. This was such an amazing time and we did what I had encouraged in the past but this time through a different lens.  These students taught me so much.

At my last school, I had Year 6-8 and was completing a postgrad certificate through The MindLab where we were learning a lot about Design Thinking.  That got me thinking about how powerful it could be as a catalyst for differentiated learning and teaching.  I always shared my learning with my students so we started talking about what we could do...

They decided we could build our own Makerspace...in an unused classroom...from the ground up.

Well, why not? So we did and it became The Creator Ops STEAM - named by them.

How did differentiation work in this instance?  We learned about Design Thinking and then brainstormed what we needed to do.  From this, the students chose their areas of interest and began to form groups.  A few chose to work on their own which was always accepted in our learning environment.  As we worked through the process, skills were taught including writing reports, measurement (of the room), interview techniques, design skills, planning, budgeting and so much more.

They rebuilt the classroom from the ground up - new kitchen, carpet, paint, huge wall-sized whiteboard for planning and sharing ideas, created a budget and sourced furniture and equipment and so much more.  Everything they did had to be able to meet the needs of the whole school - from the 5 year-olds up.  I could write forever on this but they've already done it through a blog of their journey.  I would really recommend that you read this - and particularly have a look at their PHOTO GALLERY. They inspired me and showed me that you can always differentiate learning and teaching.

Yes, differentiation can be hard but it's essential if we are going to meet the individual learning, social and emotional needs of our students.  Plus...it's incredibly exciting, stimulating and a whole lot of fun!  You get a chance to help students push themselves to the optimal level of learning. You get a chance to really know your students.