differentiation with a focus on the australian...

Differentiation with a focus on the Australian Curriculum



Diversity is in every classroom

Your class may include:

• Students operating below the expected year or band level achievement standard

• Students operating above the expected year or band level achievement standard

• Students with different learning styles and preferences

• Students for whom English is an additional language or dialect

• Students with varying backgrounds and interests

• Students with different strengths



Documenting your reality

• Identify three students in your class• One operating at the standard

• One who needs support

• One who is needs to be extended

• Select students who do not have ILPs

• Keep these students in mind as we progress through the workshop



Why differentiate?

1. Policy: The Melbourne Declaration provided the policy framework for the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Curriculum describes every student’s curriculum entitlement. Differentiated learning supports all students in being able to access their curriculum entitlement.

2. Professional standards for teachers: Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

3. Differentiation improves learning for ALL

ALL young Australians CAN and WILL learn



Flexible design of the Australian Curriculum

“Teachers use the Australian Curriculum achievement standards and content to identify current levels of learning and achievement, and then to select [age-equivalent] content …to teach individual students and/or groups of students.” (Australian Curriculum website)



Gifted and talented studentsStudents with

disability

Planning for students with ILP’s



Illustrations of personalised learning



Flexible presentation of the Australian Curriculum



Step 1 – Select age-equivalent content – Year 6 student



The same process can be used for students who are being accelerated

The non-negotiable:Age-equivalent content

Step 3: Adjust learning expectations



• An adjustment may be that a student or group of students take part in a guided investigation using electrical circuits [Year 6 Science Understanding ACSSU097] to explore and answer questions [Year 1 Science Inquiry Skills ACSIS025].

Step 2 – Vary the level of complexity

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Curriculum/ContentDescription/ACSSU097

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Curriculum/ContentDescription/ACSIS025



Differentiation strategies

What and how do I differentiate instruction for ALL students?



The framework for differentiation

Adapted from Carol Ann Tomlinson, 1999 The Differentiated Classroom



The differentiation process

Know your

students

Content

ProductProcess



Know your students

• Learning readiness

• Interests

• Learning profiles (gender, culture, backgrounds,

learning styles)

Guiding principle:

• Pre-testing, ongoing assessment

• and adjustments



• If you prefer to work alone on project , put on stripes. • If you prefer to work in groups, draw polka dots on your shirts.• If you like to be challenged and learn new and difficult things, design

a hat for yourself.

From Mr. Wasserman’s 5th grade classroom Henrico County Schools, VA

Learner profile – Pre-assessment



Colour key

Differentiation in backwards design



Process

Product

Content

Planning for differentiation



Begin with expected achievement



Content or desired results

1. What you expect students to learn (achievement standards)

2. What you teach in order for students to learn (content descriptions)



Cognitive

process

Object (Content) Modifier

(Qualities,

levelness)

Object (Content) Cognitive

process

Object (Content) Modifier

(Qualities

levelness)

Level 1 describe how people, places, communities and environments are diverse and

locally and globally

interconnected and identify the causes and effects of these interconnections

over time

Level 2 describe how people, places, communities, and environments are diverse and

globally interconnected and identify the effects of these interconnections

over time

Level 3 identify how environments are diverse and

interconnected

Providing more content to keep high performing students ‘busy’

Expecting students facing difficulties to learn less

Altering the intention of the standard, or ‘dumbing down’ expectations is not ensuring equity of access

Differentiation of learning expectations is not …



Considering:

• What ALL students will understand and be able to do

• What MOST students will understand and be able to do

• What SOME students might understand and be able to do

Differentiating learning expectations is …



The standard – What MOST students will understand and be able to do



What ALL students are expected to understand and do

Ask the questions:

• What are students expected to be able to do? (cognitive process)

• What content are they being asked to deploy this process on? (content)



What SOME students might understand and be able to do

What “some might do” needs to include:

• students facing difficulties

• students who might go beyond expectations.

Goal:

• acknowledge expectations and develop the best

opportunities for all students.



Varying the modifiers

Identify the negotiables – complexity, depth, breadth, quality



Adjust the negotiables to match a student’s level of readiness

By the end of Year 4, students:Level of readiness Quality of the

processCognitive process

Breadth and depth

Object of action (content)

Complexity of content

Level 1

(Some students)

fluently read texts that include short sentences, high-frequency words

and some multisyllabic words

Level 2

(Most students –the standard)

fluently read texts that include varied sentence structures,

unfamiliar vocabulary

including multisyllabic words

Level 3 (Some students)

fluently and accurately

read a range of texts that include a range of different sentence structures, including complex sentences,

unfamiliar vocabulary

and several multisyllabic words

Grey = ALL students



Adjust the ‘negotiables’

By the end of Year 8, students:Level of readiness Cognitive process Complexity of content Object of action

(content)Depth and breadth

Level 1 (some students)

recognise and explain observable examples of change and continuity during an historical event or development (eg the industrial revolution)

Level 2

(Most students -the standard)

recognise and explain patterns of change and continuity over time

Level 3

(Some students)

recognise and explain intangible patterns of change and continuity in developments across time and space



Adjusting what you teach

Guiding principle 1:

Pre-testing, ongoing assessment and adjustment

Essential questions:

What do students already understand?

What can students already do?

What are the gaps in their learning, if any?

What are the next steps in their learning?



Adjusting what you teach so all students reach their potential

Students who already know and can do what they are expected to learn

Students with gaps in their learning and need support so that they they can achieve the standard

Co

mp

acti

ng

Filli

ng

gap

s in

lear

nin

g

Goal: Moving each student as far as possible




Process

Product

Content



Differentiating product

• The means by which students will communicate learning and understanding

Product



•Reflective of student learning styles and abilities

• Enables students to demonstrate expected understanding and skills, ie provides evidence of the learning expected and not something else, such as literacy

•Differentiates by providing challenge, variety, and choice

Product – Evidence of student learning



How will I know?



Differentiating products based on levels of readiness

Participate in an interview to reveal your understanding about the

changes that occur to the feature of places

over the course of a year

Draw and annotate a diagram of how the features of places

change over the course of a year

Write a report showing the changes that occur

to the features of places over time

They identify and describe the features of places and their location at a local scale and identify changes to the features of places.

Guiding principle 2:Respectful tasks



Differentiating by learning profile (Tic-tac-toe)

They develop and justify their own interpretations of texts (Year 10)

Students complete one activity from each row



Differentiating products based on student interests

Create an article for a sci-fi magazine that is designed

to influence readers to accept a new technology that may threaten their

unanimity

Students create texts for different purposes, selecting language to influence audience response




Process

Product

Content



Differentiating process – teach and reach all students

• How students learn and how you teach (and pace) what students are expected to learn

Process



Differentiate process by providing a variety of materials that match students’ levels of readiness and interests such as:

• Varying depth, complexity, and readability of material

• Varied texts

• Varied support materials

• Varied scaffolding

• Varied graphic organisers

• Independent study

• Interest centres

• Variety of reading-buddy arrangements to support and challenge students when working with different texts

Not different content – teaching content differently



ALL students versus SOME students

ALL students will: SOME students will: SOME students will

read a variety of texts

across a range of

cultures and in a wide

selection of modes

work individually, in

small groups and as a

class.

read more widely, looking at

more complex texts

question accepted

assumptions about cultures

undertake more work as

individuals

initiate their own direction for

study

experiment with text

composition.

focus on shorter texts or

read extracts which they

will explore in depth with

more guided teaching

work more in small groups

than as individuals or as a

whole class

Be supported by the

teacher



Flexible grouping as a strategy to differentiate process

Guiding principle 3: Flexible grouping

• Mixed groups

• Student interests

• Learning profile

• Readiness



Tiering activities to differentiate process

Make a chart of significant individuals from that past that

have significance in the present and list their significant actions or

achievements

Choose two or three significant individuals from

that past that have significance in the present and

compare their actions and achievements in a Venn

diagram

List the actions and achievements of two or three individuals from the past who

have significance in the present then rank them from the most to least important

Why are some individuals historically significant?

Guiding principle 2: Respectful tasks

Guided principle 2:Respectful tasks



Respectful tasks/activities say to students:

• "We’re all studying the most important ideas—everyone of us should master those: you’re a part of our group."

• "You can’t master important things without using your brain, so everyone in this class will be thinking and problem solving at a high level."

• "I want this task to be so interesting to you that it’s hard for you to disregard it—even if you didn't think you wanted to learn today."



The Equalizer – Adjusting process and product

Activity 3: Quiz, quiz, trade



• Think of a task/activity you gave your students recently.

• Identify the intended learning, or what you wanted to elicit evidence of by referring to the stage statements and/or outcomes

• Reflect on the adequacy of the task in achieving its learning intention or in eliciting evidence of the standard.

• Given what you have learnt in this workshop, how would you change the task/activity to be more inclusive of all students?

• Discuss your findings with a partner.

• 3-2-1

Your turn



Differentiation is not…

Asking students who are facing difficulties to do lessLess

Providing more content to keep high performing students ‘busy’More

Altering the intention of the standard and expecting less than what the standard describes for ALL students

Dumbing down

Using the next stage achievement standard to provide extension for students without ILPs Accelerating

Teaching content that is not age-appropriate or equivalentDifferent year level content



Differentiation is:

Adapted from Carol Ann Tomlinson, 1999 The Differentiated Classroom



Windscreen check

• CLEAR – “I get it!”

• BUGS – “I get it for the most part, but I still have a few questions.”

• MUD – “I still don’t get it.”

OR

(3-2-1)



Final word- Stick to these four questions

1• What should students know, understand and do as a

result of this learning segment?

2• How are we going to know who’s learning what we

intend, who already knows it?

3• What are we going to do now that we know who’s

where relative to the standard?

4• What do we need to do to ensure that the environment

here actively supports the success of each student?

Final word – Stick to these four questions



The last word

“Teachers use the Australian Curriculum achievement standards and content to identify current levels of learning and achievement, and then to select [age-equivalent] content …to teach individual students and/or groups of students.

• Teachers can select content (content descriptions) that best support their context and student interests

• There is no requirement to study certain texts or use textbooks

• The only requirement is that ALL students are expected to achieve the standard (to varying levels of complexity)

This affords considerable flexibility to enable proactive differentiation.



Your task

• Complete or amend the Frayer model to show what you now know about differentiation



Where to next? Make a start!

differentiation with a focus on the australian...

Documents