Differentiation: using Lyfta to challenge all students

Differentiation works best when teachers know their students and their learning needs so that they can anticipate students' responses and work, to adapt their lesson plans accordingly. As Jayne Bartlett suggests, we need to have a 'strong awareness of an individual pupil's learning context…' taking into account 'how we design the lesson, the resources we use, how we group pupils…'. There is work to be done before the lesson starts to ensure that students' needs are taken into account in the lesson plan.

But differentiation is also responsive; after all, students often surprise us. You might have prepared a lesson, differentiating activities based on what you know about your students. But when that lesson comes around, you'll discover that the student you thought would struggle the most is completing every activity with ease, while the student who you've set the most challenging work for is struggling. That's why differentiation has to be supported by assessment for learning opportunities. As Ross McGill suggests, embedding multiple opportunities for AfL 'allows the teacher to design and adapt lessons that make the most of every student's potential and attend to weaknesses as they arise.'

Ultimately, differentiation is an important factor for all students in your class. Differentiation is a term we usually associate most with ensuring students with additional educational needs access learning. However, as Sue Cowley rightly points out differentiation 'allows every individual to learn'

Differentiating learning for the most able students is something that is often overlooked. But differentiating for the most able needn't be time consuming, it can be achieved simply by considering a couple of factors.

First of all, allowing students the opportunity to work independently is the first crucial aspect of ensuring there is stretch and challenge for all. In John Hattie's work on identifying the factors that contribute most to student progress, he found that teacher as activator - allowing students to work towards mastery learning and monitoring their own progress through metacognitive processes - had a much greater impact than other forms of teaching instruction.

Simply amending and extending your questions can go a long way in challenging the most able in your classroom. As Debbie Light suggests, teachers should try to 'set up a series of structured questions that require students to think hard and ensure students have enough time to grapple with the difficult concepts. Also make time for students to construct their own questions and pose them to their peers. Explicitly teach students how to construct different types of questions to generate engaging discussion.'

Bartlett. J (2016) Outstanding Differentiation for Learning in the Classroom, London: Routledge (Page 5)

Cowley. S (2018) The Ultimate Guide to Differentiation: Achieving Excellence for All, London: Bloomsbury (Page ix)

Hattie and Yates (2014) Visible Learning and the Science of how we Learn, Routledge: New York (Page 72-73)