Course 3: Learners and Learning

Associate Prof. George Oduro

Commonwealth Education Trust
Foundations of Teaching for Learning

Course 3:
Week 2: How Children Learn
Lecture 3: Differentiating learning and teaching
 Differentiation

 Is the process by which curriculum objectives, teaching methods,

forms of assessment, resources and learning activities are planned
to cater for the needs of individual pupils

 Is about making the whole curriculum accessible to the learning

needs of a range of individuals
 Children Are Individuals

 They think differently

 They behave differently
 They learn differently
 They come from different backgrounds
 They bring with them different skills, attitudes and abilities
 What Do I Know?

What do I know about:

 My students’ prior learning?
 The range of differences in my classroom?
 Students preferred modes or ‘styles’ of learning?
 Students’ differing attitudes to learning?
 Their experience of success and failure?
 Differentiating Teaching

 Developing challenging and engaging tasks for every learner

 Developing activities which address essential concepts,
processes and skills, and multiple ways of displaying learning
 Providing flexible approaches to content, teaching and
products
 Responding to students’ readiness, needs, interests, and
learning preferences
 Three Types of Differentiation

 Differentiation by task, which involves setting different tasks for students

of different abilities

 Differentiation by support, which means giving more help to certain

pupils within the group

 Differentiation by outcome, which involves setting open-ended tasks and

catering for students’ responses at different levels
 A Question of Conditions

To what extent do the conditions in which you teach

allow or constrain what you would like to do?

 Size of classroom?
 Number of students?
 Access to resources?
 Issues of discipline and control?
 Students’ expectations?
 Challenging Circumstances

“ I have nearly one hundred children in my class, all aged about

9 years of age. And in a pretty small room. There is nothing I can
do except try to teach them as a whole class. How could I
possibly differentiate?”

What would you say to this teacher?

 What Would You Say to this Teacher?

 Start to think about ways in which you could allow pupils to do

different things

 Try to find ways, however small, to identify differing needs and

ways of matching learning activities to those needs, including
those students who need challenging at the highest level
Foundations of Teaching for Learning

Copyright Notice
Week 2, Lecture 3