As differentiation expert Carol Ann Tomlinson explains, "[i]n a differentiated classroom, the teacher proactively plans and carries out varied approaches to content, process, and product in anticipation of and response to student differences in readiness, interest, and learning needs."1
Although offering varied approaches for schoolwork helps students in the long run, for some students, a differentiated classroom will be the first classroom where a teacher has recognized their interests or learning preferences. They may feel uncomfortable trying something new. Other students may not be ready for a modified curriculum for fear of being different from their friends.
Keeping these emotional needs in mind, teachers need to proactively plan how to make students feel comfortable. Teachers should create activities and structures that help students feel safe accepting challenges, learning in ways that match their preferences, and confidently expressing their knowledge. The physical environment must provide all students with access to materials that will enhance the learning process and develop their talents and interests.
Setting the stage during the first few weeks of school is especially beneficial for several reasons. For one, the beginning of the school year is a great time to get to know students. Second, focusing on creating a differentiation-friendly classroom early on enables me to communicate to parents and students what it means to learn in a differentiated setting. By communicating my expectations, routines, and philosophy of teaching, I waste less time reteaching or responding to behavior issues. Third, students are more engaged and eager to come to school because they know I have a sincere interest in them as individual learners.
Here are some practical ways I set the stage to help elementary students feel comfortable and thrive in a differentiated classroom.
Set the Stage—Physically
A differentiated classroom is a student-centered classroom. With this belief in mind, I have put my clunky standard teacher desk in storage. I use a three-tiered plastic storage container on wheels; this makes me more mobile and creates additional room for student work areas. Three tables in my room serve as centers, workstations, lab stations, exploratory areas, and other resources students might need for the day's learning experiences.
In one section of my room is a classroom library filled with a variety of leveled books that reflect the diverse abilities and interests of my students. Resources for learning—such as a classroom computer, phonics phones, dictionaries, thesauruses, and flash cards—sit in easy-to-reach locations, and students know they are free to use these items any time they need them. Student work covers the walls along with class-created posters.
To set the stage in your classroom, ask yourself before beginning each school year, How will I use my layout and resources to help students feel comfortable sharing interests, talents, and learning in different ways? The classroom should communicate that you respect individuality.
Know Your Actors and Actresses
Differentiating means more than implementing a set of instructional strategies; it is a continuous process of responding to important questions that guide instructional decision. The instructional strategies that work best with one group of students may not work for the next group. I ask myself these questions at the start of each year and new instructional unit:
- What do my students already know about this unit of study?
- How might students best learn the concepts and skills of this unit?
- How can I provide each learner with appropriately challenging opportunities?
- How can I incorporate students' interests and spark new ones?
- How might I provide students with meaningful choices of different ways to demonstrate mastery of the learning objectives?
Collecting data about my students throughout the school year—through preassessments that uncover each student's interests, readiness levels, and learning preferences—is vital to answering these questions. During the initial "getting to know you" stage, I try to make the data collection process fun and purposeful. For students who are shy at first, I gently prod them to share and allow them more time to open up. Nonverbal ways to share are beneficial for reticent students; for example, if I ask the group, "Who here loves math?" Students can wiggle in their seats, tap their noses, or stomp their feet if they do, instead of speaking in front of peers. I give my pre-tests clever names, such as Mrs. Massicotte's Curious Questions, so students won't be nervous.
Because time and the pressure to get through the required curriculum are always considerations, I've learned to collect data about students while meeting curriculum standards. One lesson helps me gain insights about students' writing skills, creativity, and knowledge of shapes while also teaching math content and proper use of math manipulatives. Each student receives a labeled bag of manipulatives. We discuss the names of each object in the bag and how we will use them during math work. Students then take from their bags a smaller bag of geometric shapes; I hold each shape up and ask students to answer if they know its name; this gives me a sense of who knows more challenging shapes like a quadrilateral.
I pass out colored pencils and crayons, and we discuss interesting ways to use them, such as shading, stippling, or cross-hatching. Students then independently use the shapes to create a figure, scene, object, or abstract picture that will become the seed for a short story. They use colored pencils and crayons to add shading, stippling, or cross-hatching. The names of the shapes we've discussed remain on the board so they have a reference to use. With music playing in the background, I watch students work on this assignment, noting who works quietly and with intense concentration, who keeps changing his or her mind, and who chats with a neighbor while working.
After students finish, they each have an opportunity to share their picture and story. It's interesting to observe who is willing to share first, who begs to go last, who speaks with confidence, and who frequently asks questions or gives compliments. Later, after analyzing their stories, I group students on the basis of their common writing needs or strengths.
Set the Stage for Varied Content
Before I adjust curricular content of a class or unit to students' interests, learning preferences, and abilities, I consider how each student will likely respond if groups of them—or just a few individuals—learn different content. Will these students respond negatively or positively? Will they be motivated, or might they need encouragement to be open to individualization?
Taking time to teach students that diversity and unique preferences will be celebrated in your classroom is extremely valuable. During classroom reading time, I use books about diversity to teach students about different ways to respond to and discuss literature. Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! (by Dr. Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, and Lane Smith), for example, shows students that the classroom experience can be rich and colorful if we choose to not be clones—like the children in Drearyville where everyone dresses the same and marches to school single file.
While encouraging diversity and risk taking, I keep in mind that some of my students find safety in being just like their friends. These students may need more support and gentle encouragement to try new things. Over time, and with several successful learning experiences, they develop confidence in their own skin.
Set the Stage to Explore Learning Preferences
It's essential to communicate to students the knowledge that not everyone learns in the same way. I give students learning-preferences surveys, sets of reflective questions such as, "Do you prefer to work independently or with a partner?" "When you write, do you like to have music playing or silence in the room?" and "Do you prefer to work on the floor or at your desk?" If students administer surveys to one another, they get to know their classmates as well as themselves. It is helpful to allow them to do so in their location of choice in the classroom. Giving interviewers a clipboard makes the process fun and tends to make them feel official and important.
Using student-conducted interviews to get to know students' learning preferences has potential benefits. If students interview one another in the book corner or the science lab, they see that learning can occur anywhere in the classroom, which might reassure students who learn best out of their seats. Students gain a sense of how researchers use interviews to collect data, and this opens up the opportunity to conduct lessons on working cooperatively with a partner or responding appropriately when asked a question. As students share their interview results with the class, they understand that their voice, personal learning preferences, and differences matter.
During each unit of study, I offer opportunities for students to use the information that they gleaned from these interviews to select how they work. For example, in a lesson on making text-to-self connections while reading a biography within reading groups, I tell students to think about what they'd learned about themselves based on our surveys. Then students can choose whether they want to write their connections, talk about their connections with their group, or hold up one of four signs, each with a picture of an emotional reaction—sad, happy, mad, or confused—to indicate to fellow group members that they'd like to contribute to the conversation. After the lesson, students share how they felt about their learning preference selections.
Set the Stage for Varied Challenge
Students need to become comfortable with the fact that in a differentiated classroom, not all of them will be working at the same ability level in a given subject area. Children's literature can handily set the stage for this acceptance. Princesses Are Not Quitters by Kate Lum is a wonderful story to make this point with younger students. My 3rd graders modified the title to become our theme for the year: Third Graders Are Not Quitters! The story's emphasis on perseverance helped them understand that all students, regardless of ability level, would be challenged in my classroom and expected to persevere when challenged.
Another great story to share is the Caldecott Honor book Crow Boy by Taro Yashima, which powerfully communicates that each child has a special interest or talent, even if the child is different or not popular. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes and The Chalkbox Kid by Clyde Robert Bulla provide springboards for discussing what it means to have empathy for others who are different.
Since I've learned to proactively set the stage for a physical and emotional climate that is conducive to the tenets of a differentiated classroom culture, my students learn more efficiently, are more willing to accept challenge, and express themselves more creatively. Now more of my energy and time go where they should go—to teaching!