When people are not being challenged enough – or are being challenged beyond their capabilities – fear, resistance, and boredom set in.
It can sometimes be difficult to manage a classroom like this, when students fall at either end of the bell curve.
On one hand, you have your low students who struggle, need more repetition and a slower pace, and require more one-on-one support. On the other hand, you have your high students who actively participate, consistently submit quality work, and thrive in a challenging environment.
The reality is we will always have students who fall into these two groups, and everything in between, and the stress of it all can be enough to keep you up at night.
Let me help alleviate your worries with three quick tips for managing differentiation.
- Create Learning Stations
- Ensure each station appeals to a different learning style (kinesthetic, visual, tactile, auditory) I.e. watching a video, completing puzzles, listening to you teach
- Students can complete all stations, or as many as their skillset deems appropriate
- Students can be given more or less time
- Draw Instead
- Children learn to draw before reading and writing, which makes this an excellent means of communication for struggling writers. Encourage students to verbally share their work, then turn their talking story into a drawing story
- You may begin with students drawing only, then gradually introduce a small amount of writing alongside the drawing, before eliminating the drawing completely.
- Offer a variety of utensils for small hands whose muscles have yet to fully develop, like triangle markers, dry erase markers/board, jumbo pencils, or colorful pens to make writing more fun
- Provide prompts
- Prompts make it easier for students to start writing quickly. It is important to provide a variety of content to appeal to students’ interests. The student interest component is critical when it comes to beginner writing.
- Provide tiers of prompts for students to choose from, I.e. short or long answers
- Describe your outfit today.
- Describe your hair.
- Describe what you look like, from your head down to your toes.
- Include a mix of questions, statements, fact, and fiction prompts
- How do you care for a pet dragon?
- If you were stranded on an island, what three items would you bring with you?
- Describe your favorite animal.
I hope reading these tips has alleviated some stress and given you ideas for planning differentiation in your classroom!
If you’re a bit lost when it comes to finding differentiated resources, no worries. I’ve got several no-prep differentiated writing activities available in my shop, like this color-coded introduction to opinion writing.