Differentiating for and Anticipating Student Needs

Differentiation

What is Differentiation?

The basic idea of differentiation is that while learning objectives don’t change, instruction can be tailored to meet individual needs.  Differentiation can take place in four areas: content, process, product, and learning environment.  To differentiate in content, teachers can manipulate what students need to learn and how they access the information.  When differentiating by process, teachers can manipulate activities students engage in to obtain mastery.  To differentiate by product, teachers can manipulate the projects they ask students to create to show their mastery.  Finally, teachers can manipulate the way the classroom looks and feels to differentiate the learning environment.

Differentiating for a Student with ADHD and Dyslexia

One of my 6th grade students has ADHD and dyslexia.  I work closely with our resource teacher and school psychologist to execute his IEP.  In fact, I have sat in on two of his annual IEP reviews and have contributed to the plan.  For this student, I have several environmental modifications in place.  I have a rubber chair cushion he uses in my room that allows him to wiggle without making too much noise and disrupting other students.  He also has a variety of soundless squeeze balls (that don't bounce!) in my room to keep his hands busy to avoid pencil tapping and drum playing on the desk during lecture.  This allows him the movement he needs to concentrate without compromising the rest of the class's ability to focus.  I differentiate his content by giving him step-by-step instructions with check-off boxes for every writing assignment. To help him with his dyslexia, I differentiate process for this student by giving him to opportunity to utilize a text-to-speech device when appropriate.  He also is able to type every assignment on a word processor to take advantage of grammar and spell check.  Because he is more than capable and well supported in class and through our resource teacher, I do not vary the product for this student.

Differentiating for Low Readiness Students

In every classroom, there will be students who are not quite performing up to grade level.  These students are usually identified during formative assessments.  They struggle to understand or need more time to process or manipulate the concept.  For these students, differentiation for content might be to chunk the assignment into at least three pieces so that we can thoroughly move through the concepts. I can also provide them additional resources from the website Writing A-Z and provide accompanying texts at appropriate reading levels. I can differentiate for process with these students by one-on-one conferencing or providing small-group instruction while the other students in class are individually working on projects. I often will try to engage additional learning modalities by creating rhymes or creating ways to manipulatives.  If a student is still struggling, I will recommend a tutoring session outside of class. While most writing standards to not allow for other products to fulfill those standards, I can reduce (but not eliminate) a paper's word count, supporting details, or other required elements.

Differentiating for High Readiness Students

As there are always low readiness students in every classroom, there are high readiness students in every classroom.  The struggle with gifted students is the first go to is to simply give them more work.  This is a mistake. If they master a certain skill set, don't give them more of the same type of work. Do not penalize them for being bright with 30 more of the same type of questions. These
kids are smart. They'll just slow down to keep from being punished with busy work. The trick is to give them additional tasks that will engage critical thinking.  If we are working on a narrative project, I would challenge an early (and competent) finisher to choose a scene and then rewrite it from another character's perspective, or the student could choose to build a diorama of his story's setting.  If we were working on an informative piece, I could have the student create a presentation on the three most interesting things he or she learned from his or her research.

References

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2017, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/index.shtml

Concepts, L. (2013, November 07). Differentiation Definition. Retrieved August 30, 2017,
from http://edglossary.org/differentiation/

Koenig, K. (2017, December 7). ADHD Differentiation [Personal interview].

Tomlinson, C. A. (2015, December 31). What Is Differentiated Instruction? Retrieved August
30, 2017, from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction