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Assignment 3:
Diversity and Inclusion Portfolio

Louis De Michele
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Differentiation for Diverse Learners

Flinders University
EDUC 4720
2017

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1. Definitions of differentiation and inclusion

In todays society student diversity has become an ever-present aspect as issues of student diversity
have become more prominent over the past few decades (Jarvis, 2013). As a result, teachers are
faced with students who are diverse in a variety of ways including culture, values, beliefs, maturity,
mindsets, past experiences, home life, age, sex, interest, academic ability, and disability. To address
these differences in student diversity it is essential that teachers implement and embrace the
concepts of differentiation and inclusion.

What is Inclusion?

Inclusion is a practice that values student differences and aims for teachers to identify and remove
any obstacles to student learning. It involves and promotes meaningful participation, achievement
and a sense of belonging amongst all students within the school community (Ainscow & Miles, 2009).

Ainscow (2005) identifies four key elements that are required when attempting to define inclusion.
The four elements are as follows:

Inclusion is a process: Where inclusion is about learning how to live with difference, and,
learning how to learn from difference.

The identification and removal of barriers: Which involves collecting, collating and evaluating
information to stimulate creativity and problem-solving.

The presence, participation and achievement of all students: Here presence is concerned
with where children are educated, and how reliably and punctually they attend;
participation relates to the quality of their experiences and achievement is about
meaningful outcomes of learning across the curriculum.

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An emphasis on learners who may be at risk of marginalisation, exclusion or

underachievement: This indicates the moral responsibility to ensure that steps are taken to
ensure student presence, participation and achievement is addressed in the education
system.

What is Differentiation?

Differentiation is based upon an inclusive philosophy in which teachers embrace the responsibility of
every individuals progress, as well as recognising and removing barriers of marginalised or excluded
students to create inclusion for every learner (Jarvis, 2015). Differentiation is shaped by teacher
mindset and creates meaningful and diverse opportunities for students to learn in different ways,
whilst still meeting the same learning outcomes as other students (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013).
Differentiation is guided by a set of principles which are essential to all differentiated classrooms.
Sousa and Tomlinson (2011) state that a positive learning environment, high quality curriculum,
ongoing assessment, flexible grouping and tasks set at the appropriate level of challenge are non-
negotiables which are integral to an inclusive learning environment.

Figure 1- Elements of Differentiation

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As educators, it is our professional responsibility to implement differentiation within our learning

areas by differentiating elements within our classroom. As seen in Figure 1, Teachers can
differentiate content, process, product and learning environment according to student readiness,
interest and learning preferences through a range of instructional and management strategies
(Tomlinson, 2004).

2. School Diversity and Inclusion Profile

The types of student differences teachers commonly address in the classroom.

Unity College is a Lutheran private school located within the rural city of Murray Bridge. Unity College
has over 90 students with Individual Learning Plans (ILP) enrolled from years 6 to 12. This number is
approximately 30% of the school population which means that teachers need to address student
differences in almost every classroom (Barlow, 2017).

Unity College have a range of learning differences and disabilities at the school including:

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Intellectual disability Language Disorders

Autism Spectrum Disorder Attention Deficient Hyperactivity
Dyslexia Disorder (ADHD)
Dysgraphia Hearing Disability
Auditory Processing Disorder Alcohol Foetal Syndrome
Low Cognitive ability Visual Impairment
Low Working memory and
Processing speed.

The school also houses a small proportion of students identified as gifted. This can in some
cases be accompanied by learning disabilities, such as Autism. In addition to these learning
difficulties and disabilities, staff need to consider the social/emotional differences students
have as the school also has quite a few students from traumatic backgrounds. These students
have significant difficulties with the social, emotional and behavioural aspects of their lives,
which impacts their learning in various ways (Barlow,2017). As the school is located within a
low-socio economic area there are many students who are impacted by lower family incomes,
single parent families and unemployment.

Unity College has a number of students with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural
backgrounds. The school works with families from Central Australia developing educational
partnerships where students, mainly from the Areyonga community, attend Unity College and
receive instruction in literacy, numeracy and Christian Studies.

How common student differences in this setting might impact on learning

and the classroom environment.

Commonly, the student differences at Unity College impacts the teacher in terms of the
content they teach, the level they teach and the differentiation strategies they use to account
for the wide range of difference in their class (Barlow, 2017). At Unity College, there is a
significant number of students who require ILPs. As a result, teachers at the school are
encouraged to plan a 3-tiered approach, meeting the needs of low, middle and high achievers.

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Tomlinson (2003) states that tiering learning activities allows students to work at an
appropriate level of challenge or zone of proximal development, which suits their current
level of readiness (Vygotsky, 1980). However, it is important that teachers do not pigeon hole
students into these groups as they need to be flexible and fluid (Barlow, 2017).

Student differences at Unity College can often led to behavioural concerns. These students
have had to learn to be more resilient than others as they experience failure (in their minds)
to a higher degree (Barlow, 2017). Thus, often behaviour can be an easy way out which can
lead to classroom disruptions that have the potential to impact student learning. In addition,
Unity have difficulties with students diagnosed with Autism regarding behaviour. These
students stereotypically have trouble learning if there is changes to routine, teacher and
subject (Barlow, 2017). This can affect the teacher as they may find it difficult to motivate the
student if the subject cannot be moulded to their interests. In addition, students with ASD
also have difficulties with social communication, meaning that group work can be difficult; a
lot of teaching needs to occur to explicitly teach team skills.

How teachers and other staff typically respond to these differences.

Teachers and other staff members of Unity College have access to information on the schools
online system known as Ulink which outlines each student with an ILP. At the beginning of
the year or change of subject and class, they consult this list and then review the ILPs available
on Ulink. The ILP has in-depth information about the students needs and importantly the
strategies suggested to support the student, as well as the goals they have set for the year.
This information is best used in the planning process for the unit and lesson plans, but also
should be referred to throughout the teaching process (Barlow, 2017).

Through my own observations on placement I have seen teachers assist students with
differences and disabilities by implementing teaching strategies for assessment pieces. For
example, multiple teachers broke down their assessments into small steps and set mini due
dates to assist students with learning disabilities.

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Programs:

Learning Support (Unity College, 2017)

Unity College strives to provide all students with the opportunity to achieve to their personal
best in all areas of education including: academic, emotional, physical, sensory, social,
behaviour, spiritual and cultural. They also cater for a wide range of students with learning
difficulties, disabilities as well as those who are gifted.

All staff, with the assistance of the Learning Support Department, help students become
independent learners who are confident, resilient and motivated. Learning Support at Unity
College takes on many forms including:
Support provided by learning support staff within the classroom
Small group and 1:1 support both within the classroom and the Learning Support
rooms on each Campus.

Gifted Education
Specialist support programs are offered to students who have been identified as gifted. These
support programs include:
Enrichment programs
Stretch Academy
Australian Maths Trust Challenge
University of NSW Competitions

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What philosophy and approach to student diversity and inclusion is reflected

in the schools mission or vision statement, policies, or other published
information.

Mission Statement- (Unity College, 2017)

Unity College: In the heart of the Murraylands striving for excellence in education and spiritual
growth in a safe, caring, forgiving Christian environment.

Philosophy- (Unity College, 2017)

Students come first in an exceptionally caring Christian environment where opportunities and
diversity result in inspired learning and development.

The school shows evidence of directly addressing Ainscow and Miles (2009) four elements of
inclusion, in their mission statement, philosophy and school policy documents. Process and
participation are addressed in the philosophy statement as the school provides inspired
learning and development as a result of opportunities and diversity (Unity College, 2017).
Whereas the elements of progress and sense of belonging are embedded within the school
mission statement as the Unity College are striving for excellence in education and spiritual
growth in a safe, caring, forgiving Christian environment (Unity College, 2017).

Unity Colleges philosophy statement also has a direct focus on diversity as it encourages
understanding and acceptance of all students with diversities, to enable inspired learning
and development to be the focus of their educational experience. This positive approach to
student diversity is an example of effective differentiation as teachers must embrace student
differences to create inclusion for every learner (Jarvis, 2015).

Your observations and impressions of how the philosophy embodied in the mission and
vision statement is specifically enacted in practice at this school, and the extent to which
the classroom and other school practices you observed throughout your professional
experience align with the philosophy, principles and practices of differentiation and
inclusion we have studied this semester.

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Throughout my time at Unity I have witnessed the philosophy embedded within the schools
mission and philosophy statements being enacted into practice on numerous occasions. For
example, my Humanities mentor specifically addressed inspired learning and development
by implementing a flipped classroom strategy, paired with flexible grouping based on
readiness levels. The flipped classroom approach allowed students to learn the content at
home in a format that best reflected their learning preferences, and then expand on this
material in class time. Students then had the option to assign themselves to one of three
groups that best represented their current level of understanding of the material. For
example, students who feel that they grasped the content well would work collaboratively on
inquiry based learning tasks, whereas the students who require additional learning time could
work with the teacher to revisit areas of confusion or misconception.

Through his flipped classroom teaching approach my mentor aligned his classroom practices
with the principles and practices of differentiation. Teachers can create different learning
pathways for each learner by differentiating the classroom content, process, product and
learning environment according to each students readiness, interest and learning profiles
(Tomlinson, 2004). My mentor effectively achieved this through his flipped classroom where
he could address the different learning preferences by providing multiple modalities in which
content was presented. Likewise, he was successful in addressing differences in readiness
levels within his classroom through flexible grouping that ensured that students were working
in their zone of proximal development.

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3. Professional Reflections

What differentiated strategies did you try to implement during your

professional teaching experience?

Whilst on my placement I was able to implement a variety of differentiation strategies into

my teaching experience.

Some of the strategies that I incorporated in my teaching included:

RAFT Tasks Collaborative learning tasks
Tiering Choice Tasks
Flexible Grouping by readiness
levels

Did you have a chance to implement one or more of your assignments?

One strategy that I implemented into one of my assignments was a RAFT task that I personally
created, the task was designed to be used as a summative assessment piece in my year 10
Humanities class. This RAFT task was created to specifically cater for differences in student
readiness, interest and learning preferences. The RAFT addressed student readiness levels by
providing colour coded guidelines that were tiered in three levels. Student interests were
catered to by providing a choice chart that enabled students to create their own version of
the assignment that focusses on a topic that that best aligns with their outside interests.
Lastly, differences in student learning preferences were addressed by providing multiple
presentation formats including auditory, visual and kinaesthetic. The assessment task
essentially provided students with the opportunity to create a custom task that best reflects
their learning profile preferences and interests, which Tomlinson (2004) identifies as enabling
each student to learn effectively. Although this assessment piece provided students with
different avenues to the intended learning goal, it still ensured all students to meet the same

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learning objectives, and was still assessed against the same marking criteria and standards
(Tomlinson & Moon, 2013).

What worked well? What factors (personal or environmental) helped you to

differentiate effectively?

I feel that differentiating by interest and readiness worked well within my classroom.
Likewise, I believe that the RAFT task that I designed worked effectively as the students
seemed to have high motivation levels for the task which reflected their grades in a positive
way.

A personal factor which enabled me to differentiate effectively was my ability to form

relationships with my students. This enabled me to learn their interests and learning
preferences. An example of this is taking advantage of my year 10 students interests in
Kahoot! Quizzes to assess their learning after each topic studied. I was then able to utilise the
results from the quizzes to form ability groups for the next lesson.

An Environmental factor which helped me to differentiate effectively was the entire schools
positive approach to student difference. The staff at Unity College have been able to create a
positive learning environment in which students are not viewed differently because of their
differences and disabilities. This made it extremely easy to differentiate within all my classes
and particularly in Physical Education where the students themselves promoted inclusion in
all activities.

What factors (personal or environmental) made it challenging to

differentiate?

Personally, I found it difficult at times to manage and support the high number of high needs
students in my year 10 Humanities class with the RAFT task. Although the guidelines for the
RAFT task were explicit for the high needs students they still sought a significant amount of
teacher assistance and approval with work. As a result, a flow on effect occurred and many

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of the other students in the class were not allocated with enough of my time for the
assignment.

Thinking critically, how can you improve your teaching practice with diverse
learners for your next experience? What goals do you still have for yourself?

In terms of my improving my teaching practice, I believe that there are two main areas that I
can focus on. These areas include:
Incorporating additional differentiation into learning tasks.
Implement ongoing assessment

On my placement I feel that I was able to incorporate differentiation into my assessments

confidently however, my ability to do this in lesson tasks was not at the same standard. I feel
that that I need to address the diverse needs within my classroom in each of my lessons as
some students at times appeared to not be working in their zone of proximal development.
To improve this, I set myself the goal of using more differentiated learning tasks in my lessons
such as RAFTs, learning menus, role cards, small group instruction, etc.

Lastly, I feel that I wasnt able to utilise ongoing assessment across all learning areas. Ongoing
assessment is a crucial element of differentiation as it can be useful to determine needs and
interests, monitor progress, provide meaningful feedback to students and inform planning of
differentiated learning experiences (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013). Throughout my placement, I
heavily focused on formative assessment which may not have always been supportive of the
intended learning outcomes of the topic. To address this and assist in my development as a
teacher I will strive to ensure that my ongoing assessment is a major focus across all learning
areas. As well as shaping assessment so all assessment pieces align with specific learning
objectives and show reflection and relevance towards the key concepts, skills and process.

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Reference List:

Ainscow, M. (2005). Developing inclusive education systems: what are the levers for
change?. Journal of educational change, 6(2), 109-124.

Ainscow, M., & Miles, S. (2009). Developing inclusive education systems: How can we move
policies forward. Manchester, UK: University of Manchester.

Barlow, S. (2017, June 1). Personal Interview. Unity College, Murray Bridge. South Australia.

Jarvis, J. M. (2013). Differentiating learning experiences for diverse students. In P. Hudson

(Ed.), Learning to teach in the primary school (pp.52-70). Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge
University Press.

Jarvis, J. M. (2015). Inclusive classrooms and differentiation. In N. WeatherbyFell (Ed.),

Learning to teach in the secondary school (pp. 154-171). Port Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge
University Press.

Tomlinson, C.A. (2003). Deciding to teach them all. Educational Leadership, 61 (2), 6-11.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2004). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2nd

ed.). Moorabbin, Vic.: Hawker-Brownlow Education.

Tomlinson, C. A. & Moon, T. R. (2013). 'Assessment, grading and differentiation', in

Tomlinson, C. A. & Moon, T. R. Assessment and student success in a differentiated
classroom, ASCD, Alexandria, Va., pp. 120-140.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1980). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Harvard university press.

Unity College. (2017). Learning Support and Gifted Education. Unity College. Retrieved from
http://www.unitycollege.sa.edu.au/learning-support-and-gifted-education/

Unity College. (2017). Mission and Philosophy. Unity College. Retrieved from
http://www.unitycollege.sa.edu.au/mission-statement-values/

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