Differentiating Instruction

Differentiating instruction is essentially modifying teaching so students can learn better.  There are many things involved in differentiating instruction, and it goes hand-in-hand with differentiating assessment.  It is a very student-centred, progressivist way of teaching, and is generally quite effective in the classroom.

Because differentiating instruction has its roots in progressivism, it is very important to understand progressivism compared to traditionalism.  Progressivism involves teaching students practical things, things that they will need to know for their future.  John Dewey was one of the first people to reccommend this type of teaching, because he felt students needed to learn things in school that would be more suitable and relevant to their future careers.  Traditionalism is the idea that students are empty vessels to be filled by the teacher, and are "filled" with whatever the teacher should deem important to learn.  This often included things such as speaking Latin or being able to solve difficult math equations.

There are three things that are modified in a classroom that uses differentiating instruction, the content, the process, and the product.  Differentiating the content involves changing what the students are going to learn and the materials they are going to use to learn it.  This includes such things as the curriculum of what students are expected to learn, and any means they're going to learn through such as novels, poems, and movies, and any other resources they are going to use to learn from.  The process includes differentiating the activities the students are going to be engaging in in order to learn.  This includes reading books, any review activities, and many other things in which the students are learning.  And finally, the product is what it is the student creates that demonstrates their learning.  This can be most types of assesments such as tests or essays, or it could also be diagrams, artistic works, or many other unconventional things.

There are three means through which the teacher can maximize students' learning.  There is students' readiness to learn, students' interests, and students' learning profiles.  A student's readiness to learn includes where they are currently at, and how ready they are to move forward in their learning.  Scaffolding is a large part of readiness in differentiating instruction, as the teacher should always be teaching one step above where the student is currently at so they can build on their current knowledge and strive to achieve more.  A student's interests is also very important to use in differentiating instruction.  Students should be taught about things they are passionate about or that intrigue them.  A teacher can use a student's natural interests to get them to learn new things.  Lastly, teaching to students' individual learning profiles can be very useful to a teacher.  Each child learns differently and the teacher should try to teach according to a student's best way of learning as much as possible.  This may be learning kinesthetically, socially, logically, deductively, or many other ways.

By using these ways of differentiating instruction it is very possible to create an effective classroom in which students not only learn well, but they learn well because they want to.  They will be interested in the subject matter and will be able to see how it pertains to their future.  They will be able to use what they have learned in school in their adult life and are not forced to learn material that they have absolutely no interest in.  Differentiating instruction for students is a very good method of teaching, and I personally hope it will become more popular and will be included in schooling more often in the near future.