How you have differentiated in your class in the past?

Basically the differentiation was done according to the different ability groups: children with higher ability, middle ability and lower ability were made to sit in groups and activities given to them were differentiated.

We basically differentiated as follows:

  1. Differentiation by task

  2. Differentiation by resources

3. Differentiation by support

4. Help of ICT

5. Help of buddies

 That is, for a lesson like news report the activities were differentiated i.e.; one group would make a news report and do podcasting, other would read the report in front of the class and another group would record the news as a live coverage, so here it is differentiated by task. 

For a guided reading session normally we give them differentiated text which varies from simple to difficult and the simple one given to the lower group, here we focus on the differentiation by resource. Moreover differentiation is also done with the help of support were the lower group is given some help tools like word bank for writing, clues to attempt answers, prompts cards etc.

At times differentiation by resources is also done with the help of ICT, normally during story writing, after giving the stimulus for the entire class, the lower ability would be given a part of the story in the form of video which they will continue and write in their own words. The middle ability would be given a part of the story in the written form which they will continue and the higher ability was given only situations about which they need to make a story.

In addition to this resources were used in the form of ICT, were instead of writing in the paper, the lower group were given Laptops and IPADs whereas other groups were given task like recording the story in the form of role-play and for the next group to present the role-play in the class.

Moreover differentiation by support was also done with the higher group working independently, middle group with the help of pair work and the lower group with the help of support from the teacher and their buddies from the higher group.

Eventually this was how we mainly did differentiation in our class. Apart from this we tried to give better platform and enough opportunities for all the types of learners to express their ideas which also initiated to develop their confidence.