You know you’re in trouble when you’re reading a lesson plan and it has a section called: “Differentiation”.
This means we’re thinking about differentiation as an accessory. Something we add on after the fact. Like fries to the burger. “Would you like to add differentiation to your lesson, ma’am?”
Differentiation comes built-in to a great lesson because a great lesson naturally moves students from the low-levels of thinking towards the high-levels. The lesson ends with an open-ended task that can expand to fit students’ abilities.
Look at these two lesson objectives and tell me which one has differentiation built-in.
A. Students will explain the role of Congress in the US Government.
B. Students will write a story about what could happen if the school had a Congress that shared leadership with the principal.
Objective B has high expectations. It has room for brilliant students to demonstrate a deep and nuanced understanding. When you look at the stories, you’ll clearly see a range of responses. Differentiation is built-in.
Objective A aims so low that there’s nowhere to go. When Genius Jane finishes in 3-seconds and asks “What do I do now?” we’d have to make up an artificial, bolted-on task. Or worse, Jane gets to read a book in the corner or help another student or some other faux-differentiation.
Now, Objective B will need to be broken up into a scaffolded series of tasks. It’s probably too much for many students to get started. Heck, we might even use Objective A as our first step. But the real goal is not “explain something I already know.” It’s “think in an interesting way.”
So, when you’re looking at a lesson and you see differentiation presented as an add-on, run for the hills!