Differentiation - Geoff PettyGeoff Petty. Differentiation is the process by which differences between learners are accommodated so that all students in a group have the best possible chance of learning. We used to teach subjects and classes – now we teach students. In the Third Edition of ‘Teaching Today’ Geoff Petty (2004) there is an appendix which summarises differentiation strategies, each of which is explained in detail in the book. The downloads on the Active Learning Page of this website are also very relevant.
The materials that can be downloaded from this page are principally for teacher trainers and staff trainers. Diff making it happen is for managers of teaching teams or senior managers. These materials are in draft form, and were used for an LSDA Train Trainers project on differentiation involving 75 UK colleges that I delivered with Carole Mitchel. There is a lot of material here, consider the poor trees! Building challenge: differentiation that’s quick and works. Since having a good long think about differentiation some while back it doesn’t keep me up at nights nearly as much as it used to.
But this is still one of my most visited posts so clearly other folks continue to be troubled. I want to set out my stall early by saying that this is yet another of those troublesome topics which is far simpler than most teachers imagine. My bottom line is that mucking about with the ‘All Most Some’ approach to differentiation by outcome is the work of the Devil of Low Expectations, and is to be shunned. Another question which I’ve been kicking around for a while is the difference between ‘task’ and ‘outcome’. The truth (certainly the truth as I see it) is elsewhere altogether. You will, no doubt, be delighted to hear that there are alternatives to much of the nonsense insisted on by poorly informed school leaders: the two ways I avocate approaching differentiation are: Marking & feedbackTask design The first is fairly straight forward. Here’s another one: Building challenge: differentiation that’s quick and works.