As education moved online earlier this year without much warning, teachers adapted to digital learning quickly. What else could they do with so little turnaround time? Not to mention a pandemic racing around the world? On reflection, I think most teachers would say that in those early days of teaching online, some lessons went surprisingly well. And others flopped miserably. Digital classroom learning requires different planning. The endgame is the same – engage the students and develop subject matter knowledge. To do so effectively, teachers learned to differentiate learning for secondary students in a virtual setting.
In a classroom setting, teachers spend class time getting to know who is grasping the concepts. They discover who needs to be stretched, and who needs more support. But prior to starting new units, it’s important to identify the student’s prior knowledge of the topic. This is even more important in virtual classes where teachers are one step removed.
According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, students should be assessed on the following elements to help you in the design of the lesson:
Readiness – skill level and relevant prior knowledge
Interests – student choices, passions, and backgrounds
Learning Profile – learning styles
It’s All in The Preparation
Before starting each unit, take time to gather information about the student’s current level of understanding of the topic, any prior knowledge they have, and how they feel about the unit – does it scare them, excite them for example. You can use informal pre-tests, ask them to write a journal entry about how they’d like to learn the topic or ask questions about related topics to get an idea of the examples you might use to deliver the concept or knowledge.
This information should feed into the design of your lesson plan along with your existing knowledge of their learning styles and academic levels, where you have this. This then helps you decide on your delivery materials and methodologies to make sure it engages, educates, and meets the needs of all your students.
Let’s face it, normality isn’t coming back around right away, so it’s time to invest in switching up those digital lessons to get the same engagement and success you get in the bricks and mortar classroom.
The Four Pillars of Differentiation
Let’s start by taking a brief look at the four pillars of differentiation to help set the scene for how we can go about delivering differentiation in our online classrooms:
Content: What they are learning
Process: How they are learning
Product: Demonstrating comprehension or mastery of content
Learning Environment: Where they are learning
So, I’m going to start at the end here, pillar number four, because this is the pillar we have the least flexibility with right now…not no flexibility, but the least!
Learning Environment
Well, this is a little limited I will concede, particularly for those whose schools are still fully closed. However, what is important is making use of what we do have to provide a productive and welcoming learning environment.
Think about the different ways you can communicate with the students. Your learning environment is online – but for each lesson, you can decide whether to deliver instruction to the group as a whole, or use virtual break out rooms, will the students be using discussion forums perhaps? Mixing up the lessons using breakout rooms, discussion forums, and different learning platforms where possible can keep the learning environment interesting. It’s tough sitting at a computer all day, but a change of scenery always helps!
Content
Carol Ann Tomlinson defines differentiation as giving students multiple options for taking in information by understanding the differences and similarities among students and how they learn.
In this instance, the content is the information that needs to be taken in. The topic which the teacher is instructing on. But with each student sitting in front of a computer or device, this opens up great opportunities for delivering content in lots of different ways, even more than you often have in a traditional classroom.
Look at the content you are trying to teach, and think about what ways you can communicate this information so the students are engaged and grasp it….who is likely to pick it up quickly and who will need a bit more support.
Let’s take math, delivering simultaneous equations to grade 9 students for example. You can use instructional scaffolding to deliver this, looking at four stages with varying levels of input from the teacher and student
- Modeling – All Teacher input
- Guiding – Mostly teacher input
- Gradual Release – Mostly student input
- Independent – All student input
Students can be split into groups based on which stage of the learning process they are in. Following the modeling stage, you can use virtual breakout rooms for your content delivery, spending more time in the room where individuals need guiding and strong teacher input, dipping into the group who are at the ‘gradual release stage’ and checking in on those completing tasks independently.
Across other subject areas, you may think about incorporating video clips, podcasts, texts, visual guides, lectures. Not every delivery method is going to suit every student so you can steer certain groups towards the materials and methods that are best for them.
Process
Next up, we take a look at how students are learning online. Now, this is where I think it gets really exciting. The initial thoughts of teaching online were terrifying, daunting and filled with fear, but now that logging on and wearing a smart shirt and hidden slouchy pants (come on, you know you did it at least once!) is normal, you can start taking advantage of the perks of online learning.
Jigsaw activities are great for digital learning. You can use the breakout rooms to split your class into different groups for them to complete their own challenges and group projects.
As an example, let’s take Grade 6 Science with a class studying living cells. One group could be asked to learn about the nucleus, one the mitochondria, one the cell wall and so it goes on. Some elements are a little more complex than others. You should think about this in your group allocations. Each group will then feedback to the class on their specialist area to teach about their particular topic. Virtual breakout rooms offer great places to work together on creating presentations, graphics, worksheets – so each group can detail their knowledge on a shared presentation, or they can use some graphics to illustrate elements they want to discuss. This supports students who learn in different ways, helps keep everyone in the breakout rooms engaged if each has a responsibility, and encourages respect and collaboration in completing the tasks and listening to the others during the feedback.
Product
Tomlinson is clear that this doesn’t always have to be about tests. Some areas require tests, that’s for sure. But where it doesn’t have to be that route, why not think creatively about how you test and evaluate? Get creative to see if students have met their learning goals, assimilated the knowledge, and digested the concepts.
Differentiation offers the chance for students to show teachers their knowledge in whatever way is most appropriate to them. To a degree that is. We don’t need a papier-mâché statue as a representation of every English literature novel, for example.
Look at Grade 11 History and the topic of World War II. You could be assessing students’ understanding of how US participation shaped the role of the US in the modern world. Why not offer a selection of ways to show their knowledge? A 5-minute presentation, make a video, write a report, even write a rap. For topics that allow it, why not get creative and give the students as much freedom and creativity as possible.
