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Differentiation Helps Students Reach Goals
How can teachers tailor product in response to readiness, learning profile and interest
by Kathy Glass

This is the 3rd segment of a three-part article on Differentiation. The first and second segment segments are also available from Whats Working in Schools.

In the first of this 3-part article series, Kathy defined differentiation and focused specifically on the key curriculum component of content. Additionally, readers learned how teachers can differentiate content in response to readiness, learning profile, and interest. In her second article, she continued the series by presenting ways in which teachers can tailor process – another curriculum component – in response to readiness, learning profile and interest.

As education-reform advocate Theodore Sizer stated : “That students may differ may be inconvenient, but it is inescapable. Adapting to that diversity is the inevitable price of productivity, high standards, and fairness to the students.” To ignore the fact that students – like all individuals – have various learning styles, interests, and levels of abilities is basically short-sighted and unfair to students. Differentiation is a call to action. It is a way that teachers can address the differences among individuals and groups of students so they get the most out of learning. Carol Tomlinson, a significant contributor to differentiation, offers this widely quoted definition: “In a differentiated classroom, the teacher proactively plans and carries out varied approaches to content, process, and product in anticipation of and response to student differences in readiness, interest, and learning needs” .

The content is the essential knowledge, understandings, and skills of a unit of study or even an individual lesson. It is the new information that teachers impart to students. To identify the content, educators would refer to district, state, or school content standards; access textbooks, curriculum, and other guides; and even defer to the expertise of colleagues or practitioners in the field. This combination of sources will most likely be needed to clearly identify the new content—what students should know, understand, and be able to do. Some refer to the content as the input since teachers are filling up students’ brains with new information. Sometimes it makes sense to differentiate content; other times it is not prudent. For instance, if teachers were to invite a guest speaker to the class to introduce or enlighten them on a concept or experience, all students would benefit from hearing this individual. Teachers might differentiate the activities that follow the talk.

After exposing students to unfamiliar information, teachers then need to devise opportunities for students to assimilate and apply the information presented in the content to make sense of this new material. This sense-making portion of the unit represents the process. It typically is the major portion of the unit as it represents all the activities students engage in, any homework and the specific lessons. Throughout the process, teachers also conduct many types of formative assessments as practice opportunities and to check for understanding.

 

 

 

 

Essentially, in a classroom teachers present new information and create a multitude of opportunities for students to work with these new ideas so they can learn them . After students grapple with this new information for a period of time that represents the length of the unit of study, students are then asked to demonstrate that they have indeed mastered the content presented. This is what the product is: evidence of learning after a considerable unit of study. Product is the culminating product or summative assessment that teachers issue for students to demonstrate understanding of a unit’s content and process.  Since content is what students should know, understand, and be able to do, the product should be designed in a way that allows students to demonstrate this learning and do so with a clear and appropriate criteria for success.  Some teachers issue a test after a given segment of learning, which signifies just one type of product.  But products also come in other forms. Teachers might consider issuing both a final exam and a different type of product for a comprehensive assessment of what students have come to know, understand, and be able to do.

In a language arts classroom, products can include a performance, poster project, interview, or formal writing assignment . In a science class, a summative assessment could be writing a lab report or building a kite in a physics unit. In math, students can respond to various math prompts and even create and solve their own based on criteria. Differentiating products is a powerful and valuable means of allowing students to exhibit what they have learned. Teachers might present the summative assessment to students at or near the beginning of the unit so they are well aware of expectations and have specific goals in mind as they work to accomplish each task that leads to the final product.

Teachers can differentiate content, process, and product in response to readiness, interest and/or learning profile.

 

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