Differentiation

A particularly long post this time around looking at differentiation. I have included some headings so you can skip ahead as you like. There are a couple of hyperlinks embedded and the thrown together references at the bottom. Please feel free to comment.

Upon my pulpit

There is much to consider in this week’s topic, so please bear with me. Rather than focus too much on a particular model of differentiation for giftedness here, I will concentrate on differentiation more broadly. This is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I do not feel I have come to terms with the varying models sufficiently at this point, although Handa’s Learner-centred differentiation model does strike a chord. Secondly, as I have done throughout these posts, my focus is on the class as a whole and how I might better serve them all. Which is the reason that Handa strikes a chord, but more on that at a later date.

I will begin with a quote I have saved as a sticky note for just such an occasion. “Differentiation is something we in the teaching profession have put out there to placate parents [and] on a good day you can do it if you’ve given up your weekend to plan a lesson, but when push comes to shove you teach to the middle and that’s the reality” (McGowan, 2018). At the time I saved this, I believed it wholeheartedly. I have watched fellow teachers struggle to find the time to prepare, feeling that they are failing their students if they have not provided a variety of scaffolds for each lesson. In some ways this is a worthy goal. In a very real way, it leads to frustration, burn-out and hating the job. I have felt for a while that differentiation need not be that way; it could be much simpler. This week’s readings have confirmed – confirmation bias perhaps – just that.

Just a quick aside before coming back to that.

There are two common approaches/scaffolds/myths dragged out whenever we start talking about differentiation: Bloom’s Taxonomy and Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences. Dealing with Gardener first, while we all have differences, the idea that parts of the brain work in isolation from others is a myth. Geake (2007) outlines that increased intelligence requires increased levels of interconnectivity across the whole brain and includes all senses. He goes on to state that neuroimaging does “not support multiple intelligences; in fact, the opposite is true”. The kind of thinking that unreservedly embraces multiple intelligences, is the same kind that also says ‘you can’t do this because this is the way you think. The same is true with the polarised brain, left vs right thinking. Intelligence is dynamic.

We recently had an excellent example of the dangers of this with one of our Aspies at home. My wife mentioned that an activity – a slackline – would be good for my son to help with his spatial awareness. While I was setting it up for him a few days later he told me that he would struggle with it due to his lack of spatial awareness. This sort of negative self-prophesy highlights the importance of both words and how easy it is for kids to put themselves into a labelled box. Even if they have to build it themselves.

Bloom's taxonomy is upside down

It was very interesting to learn that there is a more updated and detailed version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This detail, discussed by Krathwohl (2002), offers detail missing from the original that I look forward to coming to grips with as I plan for this year. Even more exciting was the idea of flipping the table upside down. Shelley Wright (2012) detailed the concept in her response to the revised taxonomy and I feel there is much to offer. Simply put, putting creativity first is a win. So often we associate the synthesis of ideas with our high flyers. In the final weeks of last term I was provided with an example, by my students, of how this is not necessarily true.

To prepare my year 9’s for the first unit of year 10, we began to look at poetry. On the final day of that class, I gave them a range of poems including this one by Ezra Pound.

In a station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Their task was simply to gather meaning from the poem without any external help. The focus was totally on their own interpretations. None of them knew what a bough was, but, once this was out of the way, it was the students that had struggled for C’s all year who provided the most insight. Allowed to be creative and being assured that whatever meaning they made from the poems would be “right” in my eyes, the so called strugglers flew past my A and B students.

Creating the meaning then learning how to justify it, even if their creation turns out to be off the mark, teaches creativity, content and an attitude that is more likely to take an academic risk. In this case, simply because there was no risk at all, students stuck their necks out and had a go. I know that I struggled to get started back at studying this trimester because the risk is there, particularly in this format, that my response might be wrong. Allowing, as much as possible, for the content to be built on top of the creativity – the risky part – provides a scaffold for greater success when the time for summative assessment comes around.

Differentiation

Returning, at last, to differentiation it needs to be stated again that “it is physically impossible for any teacher to differentiate every activity, or every lesson every day” (Bannister-Tyrrell, Merrotsy, Jones, & Gunn, 2016). There must be a clear understanding of learning needs, best practice, and what good and effective differentiation actually looks like. A lack of understanding leads to the issues that I described earlier on the teacher side and ineffective learning on the that of the student. Differentiation should be providing a match between student needs and curriculum requirements. It can be as simple as providing as providing a sentence starter to get a student writing or more scaffolding for those that need it at assessment time. It is not meant to become burdensome. That does not help anybody.

Is differentiation a load of rubbish?

The misapplication of differentiation leads to response like that of James Delisle (2015). While I disagree with his position, many of his points are valid. Differentiation can be difficult at times and does add, some, work. Likewise, it is hard not to agree that the provisions for “kids on the edge” have disappeared and they should make a comeback – of sorts. His mistake is to place differentiation up against streaming or focused classes. Teachers can, and should, differentiate. With a class of B students there will be a need to address different areas of struggle and ready success. Delisle is heading towards a dichotomous argument that does not need to be has and that does not help his, or the student’s case.

In his response to Delisle, Grant Wiggins (2015) states much that I agree with, though I feel he misses something as well. Dismissing Delisle’s writing as a rant is unhelpful as well. We continually, as teachers, call for effective strategy and implementation from above, whether it be from the department we work under or school admin, while knowing that the real change we seek is unlikely to be forthcoming. Therefore it is up to us. Rather than looking at the limitations of our situations, teachers who want to see change, to implement effective strategies, need to be looking at what they can do. Prove it works. Change what you can. Once that classroom door shuts, the class is ours.

Heading away from the sermon and back to differentiation in the classroom.

Joyce VanTassel-Baska (2011) highlights that design for gifted students should be standards and discipline based, offering “advanced challenge, in depth thinking and doing, and abstract conceptualization”. Upon reading this, I came back to the thoughts of an earlier post considering students as being on a continuum. As such, so should the curriculum be. If these are the goals for the gifted, should they not be the goals for the rest of the cohort? Of course, student responses will be different and the scaffolding will change, but should we not be aspirational on our students’ behalf? Especially for those who cannot or will not be so for themselves, I think the answer needs to be yes.

References

Bloom’s flipped https://plpnetwork.com/2012/05/15/flipping-blooms-taxonomy/

Bloom’s revised https://www.depauw.edu/files/resources/krathwohl.pdf

Geake 2008 Brain myths http://amyalexander.wiki.westga.edu/file/view/neuromythologies-p.pdf

Delisle J 2015 Differentiation does not work https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/01/07/differentiation-doesnt-work.html

VanTassel-Baska, J., & Brown, E. F. (2007). Toward best practice: An analysis of the efficacy of curriculum models in gifted education.  Gifted Child Quarterly, 51,  342-358.

Handa, Manoj Chandra. Learner-centred differentiation model : a new framework. [online]. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education; v.18 n.2 p.55-66; December 2009.

McGowan, M. 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/01/kids-arent-widgets-the-radical-thinking-that-offers-a-way-forward-after-gonski

Bannister-Tyrrell, M., Merrotsy, P., Jones, M., & Gunn, I. (2016)