Teaching Approaches/Differentiation

Differentiation, Group Work and Assessment

Most teachers should be familiar with Black and Wiliam’s work on Assessment for Learning (AfL) and their oft-cited paper, Inside the Black Box (2001). However, it may not be apparent how assessment relates to differentiation, and in particular inclusive differentiation (that is differentiation that brings students together on tasks as opposed to segregating learners). Given the benefits of Collaboration and Group Talk for all abilities, it is not clear that the 'let them get on with it' approach to differentiation is satisfactory. This is particularly the case given that it has been pointed out (e.g. by Bob Slavin) that effective group work should be orchestrated in such a way that its objectives stretch all pupils, through ensuring the key objective is group learning, as opposed to simply 'coming up with' or being able to parrot a correct

Gifted and Talented Provision

However, as Bates and Munday (2005, p.39) point out, ‘In order to achieve a curriculum that is truly inclusive, and that motivates and stimulates our most able pupils, extension through challenge should be fully integrated into lesson planning.’. This is a view supported by Tomlinson et al. who highlight the potential whole-class benefits of provision for the gifted and talented; "What benefits the health of the regular classroom contributes to the robustness of learning for all students, including the gifted. Therefore, rich content, regular expectations for critical and creative thinking, development of meaningful products, establishing expectations for high quality and hard work are goals shared by both sets of educations." Tomlinson et al. (2004, p.5)

Differentiation and Questioning

How do questions engage pupils and promote responses?
Using questioning effectively involves planning in two ways, first, in terms of thinking about the sorts of questions you might ask, and any Differentiation which might go into those. Second, in terms of building a classroom environment which is conducive to effective Questioning and high quality Dialogue. ^{(Adapted from Teaching Approaches/Learning Objectives, section PlanningQuestioning).}

Effective questioning
Research evidence suggests that effective teachers use a greater number of open questions than less effective teachers. The mix of open and closed questions will, of course, depend on what is being taught and the objectives of the lesson. However, teachers who ask no open questions in a lesson may be providing insufficient cognitive challenges for pupils. ^{(Adapted from Questioning Research Summary, section Intro).}

References

Bates, J. and Munday, S. (2005). Able, gifted and talented. London, UK: Continuum International Publishing Group. Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (2001). ‘Inside the black box’. BERA, Final Draft. Available at: http://www.collegenet.co.uk/admin/download/inside%20the%20black%20box_23_doc.pdf [accessed 18 October 2010]. Blanchard, J. (2008). ‘Learning awareness: constructing formative assessment in the classroom, in the school and across schools’. Curriculum Journal, 19, 3, 137. Tomlinson, C. A., Reis, S. M., & National Association for Gifted Children, U.S., (2004). Differentiation for Gifted and Talented Students. London, UK: Corwin Press.