In a single school day, teachers make approximately 1,500 decisions. If, in one 45-minute class period, a high school teacher makes roughly 218 decisions as they teach, then they have only a short window of time to create lesson plans, update grades, upload assignments, write emails, and perform other tasks that can distract attention from our most critical role as educators: differentiated instruction. But differentiation is more achievable than it often feels! In fact, many teachers can overlook how they’re already differentiating in the classroom. Keep reading for new ways to scaffold and lift your curriculum to support each of your students and watch them flourish.
What is Differentiated Instruction?
Differentiated instruction is when a teacher adapts the content, process, product, and learning environment in order to support students’ personalized academic goals. Commonly associated with accommodations or modifications for students with learning exceptionalities, differentiation actually supports the entire spectrum of learners in your classroom.
Differentiation depends on a unit planned backward. “Start[ing] with the end in mind,” according to Edutopia, allows you to “identify core skills and concepts that make up the learning outcomes.” This allows teachers to create a pre-assessment to identify learning gaps and strengths related to the learning outcomes, which will define the formative tasks and differentiation. This ensures that differentiation supports all learners in meeting the same high-order learning objective, which they will showcase in the summative post-assessment, and prevents some learners who struggle from completing entirely different, often less engaging, classwork.
Agendas and checklists, flexible grouping, offering choice, access to technology, modified texts, multiple forms of assessment, or extended deadlines are all examples of differentiated instruction that create a more equitable learning environment because they enable all students to focus on a primary learning objective while removing barriers that, for some, would prevent success.
For example, in my freshman English class, when asking students to interpret figurative language from a text, I might offer a list of quotes to those who read below grade level to choose from. My goal for students is not that they can hunt down figurative language in lengthy text. For many, that skill is accessible; for others, this step creates such a barrier that they may not have the chance to show their interpretation skills. The learning objective is that students interpret figurative language, and they still are able to accomplish this when I provide them with a scaffold of quotes for added support!
What is a Learning Scaffold?
Scaffolds are techniques and tools that help students learn a new concept in stages. Like a painter’s scaffold, students climb from one learning target to the next, building on prior knowledge and as they work toward new skills. According to experts at Structural Learning, “Students grasp and retain new information more easily when they can relate it to something they already know.”
But like a painter’s scaffold, learning scaffolds are meant to be removed over a period of gradual release. The goal is to encourage self-efficacy in the learning process, where students either adopt new strategies, or no longer need the extra support.
Scaffolding breaks down big ideas into manageable chunks, linked together by mini-lessons and learning targets. Outlines, charts or mind-maps, step-by-step instructions, discussion or sentence stems, and rubrics are examples of scaffolds in learning material. Teaching methods also provide scaffolding, like vocabulary acquisiton, guiding questions, and collaboration between students as they problem-solve together.
There is a balancing act with scaffolding, otherwise a learning aid can become a barrier. Issues occur when a teacher over-scaffolds for the whole class and turns learning into tasks, or continues to provide the same scaffolds throughout the school year. This actually diminishes self-efficacy and makes success dependent upon your methods, your material, your way. While some students flourish with learning scaffolds, others actually need few, if any.
What is The Lift?
When we differentiate, we not only consider students who struggle but also the students eagerly awaiting opportunities to excel. These students start a new concept at the top of the scaffold, and without an increase in challenge, “students are bored and under-challenged in school—we’re not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive,” as reported by The Fordham Institute. This is where a teacher must “lift” instruction and activities to accelerate their learning.
When adding a lift to the curriculum, I focus on connection and choice. “Connection” refers to layering concepts and skills that students have already mastered into the new learning. And “choice” refers to opening the scaffolds–or removing them entirely–so that students can create their own divergent pathways to achieving success.
But, be careful! A lift does not mean more work, it means more depth to the work. When a student finishes an assignment quickly, I don’t hand her another handout. Instead, I anticipate and plan for this when differentiating instruction.
A Lift in Action
For example, my sophomore English had a large group enrolled in the state’s Highly Capable program for academic high-achievers. As we began writing argument essays in response to a collection of short stories, I offered a lift to the class: write your own prompt and incorporate research into your argument.
Some students were ready for the lift, while others chose to tackle the essay as it was. By encouraging students to write their own prompt, I increased their engagement and curiosity, while the research element incorporated their unique perspective of issues occurring in the world that thematically linked to the stories while leaning on research skills from a previous unit. This lift also allowed students to use scaffolds that helped them–organizational tools such as outlines or graphic organizers–and removed the scaffolds that would have held them back.
No student finished early and was ready for something else, felt bogged down by “busy work,” or was bored from lack of challenge. Not only did they thrive, but their essay became akin to an art project–each student was proud of the work that they had accomplished and enjoyed the vast exploration of ideas across their peers.
Keep in mind, no student will always need a scaffold, or always need a lift. In fact, the same student may need scaffolds while learning one concept, and a lift while learning another.
Differentiation is the Key to Student Success
Since differentiation bolsters student engagement, it tends to “fix” student challenges: apathy, lack of focus, missing assignments, behavior issues, skipping class, cheating. American University’s School of Education reports, “Because it appeals to their own interests and background, the approach often builds greater student interest in the subject matter.”
When students are challenged at an appropriate level, they know that they can accomplish this task and can see how they will meet future goals. Now, the “student talk” in your classroom is the good kind. Differentiation gives students a “why” to their learning because they see the connection between daily learning targets and the big picture.
Teacher Next Steps
If you are interested in providing more personalized differentiation to your students, a great first step would be to plan backward, starting with the summative assessment. Determine what knowledge and skills students are bringing into the learning, as well as new learning, Then, begin backward-planning daily lessons, learning targets, and success criteria to break down the big concepts and scaffold the learning. Most importantly, determine which concepts will need scaffolding using a pre-assessment or other various forms of formative assessment, like a concept inventory, quiz, or even a graphic organizer to determine student strengths and challenges. These pre-assessments will give you the scope of the class as a whole, and will also reveal specific students who may need additional scaffolds or a lift for ultimate growth.
