Differentiation in ICT teaching

ICT Teacher Professional

Development Programme
Session objectives

• Understand what differentiation means

• Understand why differentiation should be
planned for
• Know about some of the approaches that may
be used in the classroom
• Begin to explore some of the theoretical
frameworks that help to shed light on
classroom practice
What is differentiation?

All children are different

– learning styles (Gardner’s multiple intelligences)
– ‘ability’
– previous knowledge and experience
– motivation

Differentiation is the educational response to the

differing needs of pupils in a classroom
Why differentiate?
Teachers and schools should help each pupil to
achieve their full potential

If we take up the challenge of Assessment for

Learning, then planning for differentiation is
unavoidable
Individual target setting is the aim
Pupils will need different and appropriate learning
experiences to maximise their progress in school
Individual learning plans for all?
How can we differentiate?
• Diagnostic/baseline assessment (very important
for ICT due to range of previous experiences)
• Formative assessment during teaching
• Self- and peer-assessment (especially significant
in ICT)
• Range of individual work, group tasks and whole
class teaching
• Identify each pupil’s potential: strengths and
interests
• Find ways to develop these
• Provide enrichment (extension) for more able
• Identify barriers to learning for those with
special needs: remove or minimise them

Remediation (corrects the problem)

Circumvention (assists learning in spite of
the problem)
• You need to analyse what is needed to
improve learning
• Formative assessment is the best way to
build a detailed picture of a child’s learning
profile
• Develop strategies to ensure that each pupil
leaves your lesson having made progress
with their learning (and preferably knowing
this!)

These skills WILL develop with experience

Practicalities
DIFFERENCES
• Educational (formal and informal)
• Cognitive ability (Feuerstein: not set at birth)
• Learning styles (link to Gardner’s MI)
• Emotional/developmental/gender
• Social and cultural
• Specific needs (SEN; G&T; OTHERS)
Characteristics of pupils with problems
• Poor memory
• Tend to be slow
• Impulsive, non-systematic, imprecise
• Cannot identify what the problem is
• Easily distracted by irrelevant information
• Tend not to generalise
• Poor problem solving strategies
• Less able to select strategies
• Poor at if-then reasoning
• Poor at monitoring their own thinking
• Know less (cause or effect?)
Whole-school issues
• Setting/streaming
• Single-gender groups
• Target setting for individual pupils
• Mentoring: individual attention/support
• Curriculum support:
LSAs / withdrawal / enrichment
• Curriculum change (topical)
PLANNING
Teaching and learning objectives. It may be
helpful to think in terms of:

• All MUST … [core objectives]

Key material

• Most SHOULD …

• Some COULD … [enrichment]

Support materials
Enrichment tasks (‘extension’)
DIFFERENTIATION BY:

• Task (similar resource + different task)

• Resource (similar task + different resource)
• Time
• Support
• Outcome

Consider how pupils are grouped

Use formative assessment with feedback to set
individual/group learning targets (video clip)
 Aptitude-Treatment Intervention (ATI)
Claims that different people respond best to
different forms of teaching ie. different teaching
styles (treatments) lead to different outcomes for pupils
with different abilities, motivation, etc (aptitudes)
• More able pupils learn best from an inductive
approach: presented with evidence from which
they derive/explore general principles.
• Less able pupils learn best if a general principle
is made explicit and they are asked to explore it
for particular cases.
Clear initial summary of main points of lesson
given as an ‘advance organiser’ is very helpful.
Remediation
Basic principle: correct the problem the child
has
• Suitable if:
– the characteristic is unstable
– AND it is within the teacher’s power to change it
– AND it is desirable to change it

• Remediation seeks to change the pupil

eg. poor reading ability
Circumvention
Basic principle: help the child to learn despite a
continuing problem
• Suitable if:
– the problem is stable
– OR it is outside the teacher’s control
– OR it is undesirable to change it

• Circumvention accepts the problem and looks

for ways round it
eg. specialist software for SEN
Instrumental enrichment
(Reuven Feuerstein)
• Pen and pencil tasks directed at very specific
thinking skills
• Restrain impulsivity
• Develop systematic ways of working
• Discussion and evaluation of strategies
• Review language of thinking
• Explicit discuss how to transfer ‘thinking skills’
to other areas

The teacher in a Vygotskyian ‘scaffolding’ role

More able pupils … G&T
• Acceleration
• Withdrawal
• Community links
• Residential courses
• Summer schools
• Enrichment in ordinary classes

No single approach will meet all needs

Learning styles

Many different classifications

• VAK: visual-auditory-kinaesthetic
• Holist-Serialist
• Reflective-Impulsive
Implications for teaching:
Pupils learn best when taught in their
preferred style
Encourage flexibility
We tend to teach in the style that we
prefer to use when learning
Holist - Serialist
Holists like to see the ‘whole picture’ and to
look for interconnections and analogies
between the various parts. They will explore
detail and bring new understanding back to
elaborate the overview. May overlook detail.

Serialists like to build things up from basic

ideas. May ‘miss the wood for the trees’.

Implications for teaching: concept mapping

may help both groups
Reflective - Impulsive

Reflective pupils like to weigh up the

alternatives and will suspend judgement
until this is complete
Impulsive pupils leap in with an idea and
if this is unproductive will try another
Implications for teaching:
• allow thinking time before expecting an
answer
• include opportunities for discussion
Motivation
Motivation = task element + personal element
The personal element can be quite hard to
change

Implication for teaching: know your pupils

Theoretical frameworks to consider:

• Maslow’s hierarchy (Keith Postlethwaitre’s lecture)
• Achievement motivation
• Attribution theory
Achievement motivation theory
Best motivation level:
When a pupil thinks that s/he has a 50%
chance of completing a set task successfully
Implications for teaching:
Match the work to the pupil (if you can gauge
their perception)
For harder tasks - find ways of giving extra
confidence
For easier tasks - find ways to help pupils to
value their work (but not ‘false praise’)
Attribution theory
Explanations offered for success or failure:
commonly - ability, task difficulty, luck or effort
There is no logical reason for pupils to try to do
the tasks they are set unless they believe in
effort-based explanations of achievement
Gender effect?
Implications for teaching:
Effort-based explanations may be more likely if
effort grades are given
Pupils’ recorded reflection can be used to judge
effort (and to inform lesson planning) TIP: this
is also useful for reports
 Mastery Learning
Define topic ( 4-10 lessons?)

Define core objectives

50% total
time Assess prior learning
Teach whole class

Core No
Yes
Objectives
met?
50%
Enrichment Remediation
total Summative assessment
time