Students: Differentiation

"Good learning resources or activities allow the individual learner to connect with them at a level that builds on what they already know and can do." ( SeaBritain 2005 Website)

Is there a wide ability range among the students that you will be teaching? If yes, how will you accommodate both the more able and the less able? For example, do you need to:

• Specify different learning outcomes?
• Design different versions of the same learning activity (on the Main Activity Sequence page)?
• Include extension activities for faster/more able learners (on the Extension & reinforcement activities page)?
• Include reinforcement activities for slower learners (on the Extension & reinforcement activities page)?

(See also the Typical misconceptions page, where you should record problems that the students in general encounter with the skills and concepts to be covered in the session.)

A number of teachers have discovered the value of online tutorials and learning activity management systems such as LAMS in supporting students of differing abilities:

"[An online tutorial] allows the learner to feel they’ve achieved something without necessarily completing the package. Everyone uses the same package and goes as far as they want to, and does it in their own time. In a traditional classroom you just give them the exercise you feel matches their level, but in the online course they can go a bit further. It affords a measure of self-assessment and experimentation — can embolden them to go to the next stage/level." (Teacher in adult and work-based learning)

"And [LAMS] really was good for differentiation, and without showing up any student as well — nobody really knew where anybody else was, which was fine. If in class I gave the better ones another worksheet, the other ones would feel either inadequate or that they should have the other worksheet as well; and this was the way that it sort of seamlessly worked, and I think that’s a big plus." (Teacher in adult learning)

PhoebePh2Contents Contents page?