Differentiation In Education Essay

“The concept of differentiation is itself differentiated and refracted through a host of different lenses – intrapersonal, interpersonal, cognitive, affective, behavioural, cultural, and so on” (Cohen et al. 2004, p. 137). This vast range of factors inherent of how teachers plan to support their pupils’ individual needs was also observed in the school where this writer works. However, with it being an educational institution where all pupils are Chinese nationals and English is their second language, it is not always easy to identify each pupil’s individual education needs. This can be explained by the stereotype of “Chinese learners being passive, lacking independence, and accepting, largely unquestioningly, the knowledge and authority of

130-131) mentions several approaches to differentiation: by task, by outcome, by resource, by support, by response, by teacher language, by rotation, by multiple access and by choice. An English teacher was observed differentiating by outcome, “where the same relatively open-ended task is set with the expectation that children of differing abilities will produce differentially successful outcomes”(Cohen et al., 2004, p. 137), when he gave the same essay topic to all students. The teacher then differentiated by response when he marked and wrote comments on the pupils’ work. Wright (2007, p. 130) argues that differentiation by outcome is “a passive and inadequate approach”. Instead, Wright (2007, p. 130) suggests that “a range of tasks where pupils choose or are directed to appropriate levels is more robust”. That is what an observed Physics teacher does. When setting up the lab activities, different learners (selected based on the teachers’ assessment of the pupils strengths, preferences and capabilities) are given the choice of different tasks to perform in student centered labs. By catering individualized needs, the teacher maximizes the number of learners who are highly engaged in performing the tasks, making sure that learning is taking

This is supported by Cohen et al who state that “the characteristics of children go beyond simply their preferences for learning and include, for example, their interests, self-concept, motivation, degree of autonomy” (2004, p. 137). Additionally, O’Brien and Guiney (2001 p. 11) argue that the diagnostic of learners’ performance come from very complex interactions and defines differentiation (p. 10) as concept that has to be seen in an inclusive way and applied to everyone. With this in mind, a Math teacher, who was observed teaching the top and the bottom groups (best English and weakest English), designed her lessons. Despite the fact that each group was relatively homogeneous in terms of English language ability, both were mixed ability groups in the characteristics described by Cohen et al (2004, p. 136). In both classes, the teacher was observed using a variety of differentiation strategies such as pair work, group work and peer evaluation. After setting tasks, the teacher was also observed to give more individualized attention to the weaker learners and more independency to the stronger ones. Additionally, when a student needed help at time that the teacher was busy helping another student, the teacher often assigned a stronger learner to help his/her peer. By having a stronger to help a