Differentiation in Action at Swanson Middle School
“Differentiation is simply a teacher attending to the learning needs of a particular student or small groups of students, rather than teaching a class as though all individuals in it were basically alike.” – Carol Ann Tomlinson
Differentiation is the practice of learning the interests and needs of each student and then implementing strategies that help a student engage with the curriculum in an authentic way and provide a path for learning. Teachers use several differentiation strategies every day, and even the facilitation of such strategies may look different across classes due to the unique needs of each student. Many strategies revolve around providing opportunities for choice in product or response, facilitating open-ended discussion or responses, moving quickly from understanding to analysis or application, and utilizing flexible grouping during learning stations or workshop lessons.
So that you can see specific differentiation strategies being utilized in your students’ classes, I will post a Differentiation Report for each quarter. If you have any questions about specific strategies or classes, please feel free to contact me, at whitney.field@apsva.us or 703-228-5529.