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differentiation

What do teachers think differentiation is?

2017-07-15T22:11:41+01:00April 24th, 2017|research|

In Why Knowledge Matters, ED Hirsch Jr sets out the case against differentiated instruction, saying, "the attempt to individualize the content of the language arts curriculum has been a quixotic idea that has put teachers under enormous pressure to achieve the impossible." He explains further: When a teacher is attending to the individual needs of one student  in a class of twenty, nineteen are not receiving the teacher's attention. all sorts of techniques conspire to obscure that fact - group work, isolated seatwork on boring work sheets, and "independent study' with choice of books from the leveled-reader bin.(p. 72) In What If [...]

Is education a zero-sum game?

2017-01-18T18:29:48+00:00April 18th, 2015|Featured|

Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and a loser; if you haven't won, you've lost. The term derives from game theory and economics and describes a situation in which one person's gain utility (the ability to satisfy his or wants) is exactly balanced by another's loss of utility. In The Uses of Pessimism, Scruton points out that much wrong-heading thinking and behaviour derives from what he calls the 'zero-sum fallacy' where all gains are paid for by the losers. Society therefore is a zero-sum game, in which costs and benefits balance out, and [...]

Why do we overestimate the importance of differences?

2014-11-05T17:48:31+00:00November 5th, 2014|learning|

"For a difference to be a difference, it must make a difference." William James We're all different. Obviously. Just like snowflakes, human beings are all special, unique and entirely individual. But like snowflakes, maybe those differences aren't as important as we might sometimes like to think. When it snows the difference between individual flakes is irrelevant. For all we have our very own permutations of DNA, the fact our physiognomies are broadly similar means we behave in broadly similar ways. Of course we have an infinite variety of differences in ability, but the way we learn is surprisingly similar. You doubt me? Well, you're not [...]

Differentiation: Are high expectations enough?

2015-01-02T14:57:48+00:00June 12th, 2014|learning|

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation. Charles F. Kettering Last night someone retweeted a tagline from a post I wrote earlier this year: "Teach to the top, support at the bottom". Inevitably perhaps, someone else took great exception to the word 'support' and asked why those at the bottom shouldn't be taught. Why should they have to suffer support while everyone else got taught? This isn't an unreasonable position and begs the question, what do we mean by 'teaching' and 'support'? If it means the most able are given explicit instruction whilst the least able are consigned [...]

Practical differentiation: high expectations and the art of making mistakes

2014-02-03T20:18:38+00:00February 1st, 2014|Featured, learning|

Differentiation? I hate the word as I hate Hell, all ludicrous bureaucracy, and thee! Er... Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Differentiation is one of the darkest arts in teaching. The generally accepted position is that differentiation is wholly good, and this is the cause of the wracking guilt felt by harrowed teachers: it may well be good, but it's bloody hard work. My bottom line is this: any policy predicated on the idea that teachers should work harder is doomed to failure. Thankfully, teaching's enforcement arm seem, at long last, to agree: "It is unrealistic ... for inspectors to necessarily expect that [...]

Building challenge: differentiation that’s quick and works

2017-01-02T15:16:55+00:00January 19th, 2013|English, learning, planning|

UPDATE: These two posts represent my latest think on differentiation:  Is differentiation a zero-sum game? April 2015 Why do we overestimate the importance of differences? November 2014 Since having a good long think about differentiation some while back it doesn't keep me up at nights nearly as much as it used to. But this is still one of my most visited posts so clearly other folks continue to be troubled. I want to set out my stall early by saying that this is yet another of those troublesome topics which is far simpler than most teachers imagine. My bottom line is that mucking [...]

Differentiation: to do or not to do?

2013-07-20T16:27:24+01:00September 7th, 2011|assessment|

Of all the impossible tasks expected of poor, over-worked teachers, differentiation is the most troublesome. Why? Because on the one hand, if you did it properly every lesson you'd be reduced to a dribbling wreck in less than a week. T'other hand though is that it's really really important. Therein lies our dilemma: we know we should be doing (a lot) more of it but we just don't have the time or energy to do it properly. Francis Gilbert says on the subject, "The whole thing is a duplicitous gimmick...In reality schools just do not have the resources, time or space [...]

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