Differentiation from the Perspective of a Teacher

The other day, I had a fabulous idea! That idea was to interview friends of mine via social media to ask them a few different questions about differentiation in their classroom. Below is a compound summary of my results:

Question 1
What does differentiation mean to you?

Differentiation is pre-assessment, post-assessment, and re-assessment. It is meeting kids where they are. It takes a lot of planning, planning, planning! Delivering instruction through different mediums and different ways so it is assessable and engaging to each student. Differentiation is hard, and takes serious commitment. It is taking your good, Tier 1 or whole group teaching and adjusting it for a small group or individual.

Question 2
What does differentiation look like in your classroom?

Differentiation looks like seating charts, and then adjusted seating charts, and then re-adjusted seating charts. Students are given different spelling lists or reading books. Tests and assignments are adapted by length to accommodate both the high and low students. It looks like behavior contracts. It looks like private conversations between teacher and student to settle a classroom dispute. It looks like spending extra time in small group, or one-on-one to ensure a student grasps a concept.

Question 3
What is the hardest part about differentiation?

Every teacher replied that the hardest part about differentiation is the TIME it takes. Along with that, the creativity to come up with activities that will engage the students.

Question 4
How have you seen differentiated instruction change the life of a student?

"The most profound change I saw was for a fourth grader a couple of years ago who has severe dyslexia. She started the year on a beginning of first grade reading level. I tutored her 4 days a week for about 20 minutes the whole year and coordinated with her teacher so we were doing the same thing for her. She made a whole year progress after not progressing for 3 years. It was a great testimony for teaching the child not the curriculum. Differentiation is challenging, but so worth it."

"A few years back I had the opportunity to teach a very small class of ELL students. All I had to focus on was reading & language arts. I was able to differentiate each and every activity. Although the students came to me with limited English skills, by the end of the year many of them were able to read many basic sight words and successfully segment and blend phonemes. Many were able to write complete sentences and read pre-primer / primer level books. Some were even able to rhyme (a very difficult skill for ELLs) When they went to First Grade they were confident in their skills and many have progressed out of ELL since then."

"I have seen students work their way out of special ed. classes via co-taught classes. I have seen students feel successful. I have seen students gain self-confidence."

A BIG thank you to Nadine Heifert, Hayley Fugal, and RaeAnn Hurst for their thoughts, and allowing me to use them for this post.