Differentiation Strategies that Work

This course explores highly effective differentiation strategies that teachers can incorporate into their planning to ensure that learning and assessment tasks are tailored to meet the needs of all students.

The focus of this course is to help teachers develop instructional approaches that can be seamlessly integrated throughout the entire learning process, ensuring that all students can reach their full potential.

Lesson One: Why Do We Provide Differentiation?

This introductory lesson explores why it is important that teachers provide differentiation, particularly exploring the idea of ‘student variability’ and its impact on both teaching and learning.

Lesson Two: What is Differentiation?

This lesson looks briefly at what differentiation is and what it isn’t, drawing on the work of prominent researchers in the field to explore the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of differentiation in the classroom.

Lesson Three: Common Differentiation Strategies

Lesson Three looks at some common approaches to differentiating teaching and learning in the classroom.

Lesson Four: Assumptions Underlying Common Approaches

This lesson explores two assumptions that often underpin teachers’ discourse on differentiation before examining an alternative approach to differentiation which is further explored in following Lessons.

Lesson Five: Universal Design for Learning

Lesson Five unpacks Universal Design for Learning and its use in providing differentiation in the classroom.

Lesson Six: Suggested Strategies

The purpose of Lesson Six is to deepen teachers’ understanding of each of the three core aspects of UDL with novel approaches to guiding student learning and practical resources for implementation provided.