The Classroom

An age old concept – adapt lessons and teaching strategies to meet the needs of individual students. Help maximize the educational potential of each of our students. This can take many forms, from running multiple novel studies at the same time to meet different reading levels, to running a full program based on concepts like Gardner’s Multiple Inteligence Theory. We do it by creating IPPs for our higher needs students, or when we stop to help an individual student by offering a different strategy to find an answer.

There are many books and a quick search will bring up many websites on the subject. Edmonton Public Schools is running a large project to look at how teachers are using Differentiation in the Classroom, and to encourage more directed planning in this area. At my school we are using this as an opportunity to look at what we are currently doing in the classroom, and celebrate our successes.

Personally I’m a big fan of multiple intelligences. I spend the first week of every school year teaching my students of the theory, and performing personal inventories to try and discover where their individual strengths (and conversely weaknesses) may lie. I use this information to help plan activities or certain groups throughout the year. I also use open format projects to allow students to show me what they know by using their own strengths.

But differentiation doesn’t just end there. It is a large and vast concept. How do you differentiate in your instruction?