Summer Academy 2022: What is Differentiated Instruction and How to Use it?

Each student comes to school not only with unique academic needs, but also with a unique experience, culture, language, personality, interests and attitude toward learning. Teachers recognize that all these factors influence student learning in the classroom, and adjust or differentiate instruction according to students’ needs.

During the Summer Academy of the Learning Together project, Canadian experts with extensive experience in teaching Ukrainian as a second language, Melody Kostiuk and Olena Hartsula, spoke about the subtleties of differentiated instruction.

What is differentiated instruction?

This is the process of adapting lessons to each student’s individual interests, needs and strengths. Such instruction gives students choice and flexibility in how they learn, and helps teachers personalize the results.

Differentiated instruction takes into account students’ individual learning styles and background. Research on the effectiveness of differentiation shows that this method is of benefit to both the students with learning difficulties and the ones who are better prepared to learn.

Differentiated instruction can also stand for teaching the same material to all students using different learning strategies, which may require teachers to conduct lessons of different levels of complexity depending on the abilities of each student.

Key elements of differentiated instruction

Get to know your students

Differentiated instruction begins with the true knowledge of both students and their communities. It is important to create opportunities to explore students’ strengths, needs, interests, preferences and ways of learning.

Student profiles, lists of interests and ongoing formal and informal assessments can all provide important information for planning learning tailored to students’ specific needs. It is important to study students’ characteristics throughout the year to understand their strengths and what they need to succeed.

Understand the curriculum 

Differentiated instruction is based on recognizing that students learn at a different pace and in different ways. For instruction and assessment to be useful and fair, they sometimes need to be different for different students.

At the same time, all students are expected to achieve results set forth in the curriculum. Effective differentiated instruction supports and enhances the curriculum, it does not replace it.

The first step is to fully understand the curriculum. Then you can start to identify ways to help all students achieve academic results by asking yourself the following questions:

• What are the overall objectives of the curriculum?
• What skills and processes are needed to achieve learning outcomes?
• How do these results relate to students’ different experiences and knowledge?
• At what point will students need support?
• What do you have that motivates and captivates students?

Provide instruction in different ways

Differentiated instruction depends on knowledge and use of different methods enabling students to learn and demonstrate their knowledge in different ways. For example, students learn and receive information in various ways – verbal-speech, musical, kinesthetic, etc. 

Teachers can also propose more support to some students as well as a greater variety of challenging tasks for others, thus making more students engaged. One of the easiest ways to differentiate instruction is to take into account students’ diverse interests during the studies of a unit/course and let them choose the ways to demonstrate their learning results.

Make students responsible for their learning

One of the ultimate goals of education is to gradually delegate responsibility for learning to students so that they become capable and motivated. During differentiated classroom instruction, teachers work towards this goal:

• relying on students ‘ interests and skills to motivate them,
• providing student choice and independent learning opportunities,
• involving students in setting goals and reflecting on their learning,
• helping students develop learning strategies.

Use a flexible and reflective approach

For differentiated instruction to work, teachers must plan ahead, identify different ways for students to succeed from the very beginning, instead of trying to adjust them later. Teachers should also plan flexibly in order to be able to make changes when new needs or interests of students arise.

In differentiated instruction, formative student assessment provides teachers with important and necessary information that guides learning. Along with continuous assessment, differentiated instruction also requires teachers to regularly reflect on their learning practices and use this information to improve them. It is necessary to constantly evaluate and adjust the content of the lesson in accordance with students’ needs. 

Differentiation can apply to different areas of studies

Differentiated instruction is a way of thinking, it is not a list of strategies. It is a recognition that all students have different talents and challenges, and that teachers should recognize these differences and use professional judgment to respond professionally to them in their instruction.

Differentiation can create a balance between the educational content and students’ individual needs. This can be achieved by changing four specific elements related to the curriculum:

• content – information and skills that students should acquire;
• process – how students understand the content that is taught to them;
• product – how students demonstrate what they have learned;
• effect – feelings and attitudes that influence students’ learning.

The goal of differentiated instruction is to create learning opportunities that take into account differences in how students learn to ensure equal access to important academic content. The content can be changed for students who need more time to practice basic elements before moving on. However, it is assumed that changes in other areas will eventually let all students master the same key content.

It is important to emphasize that differentiated instruction is an approach to teaching, it is not just a set of strategies or activities. Effective differentiation requires constant evaluation of students’ needs and conscious attention to planning learning activities and evaluating the results to meet these needs.

Teachers should have a set of learning strategies at hand, but they should also be able to think out-of-the box to ensure that the needs of each student are met.

So, the role of a teacher in a differentiated classroom is to constantly ask himself/herself: “What does this student need at the moment to be able to develop based on this key content, and what should I do to make this happen?”.

About experts

Melody Kostiuk has the experience of working in the Secondary School Curriculum Department of the Ministry of Education of Alberta (Canada); she is the author of study programs and manuals and the teacher with considerable experience in teaching Ukrainian as a second language.

Olena Hartsula is a teacher with extensive experience in teaching Ukrainian as a second language. She used to work as Special Adviser for Ukrainian Language and Culture at the Alberta Ministry of Education (Canada), where she supported Alberta Ukrainian teachers by providing comprehensive in-service training, finding and developing resources and materials.

The Summer Academy on the Ukrainian language as the state language for methodologists of in-service teacher training institutes and teachers who teach Ukrainian in primary schools with instruction in Romanian and Hungarian in Zakarpattia and Chernivtsi regions aims at improving pedagogical excellence in applying modern methods of teaching Ukrainian as the state language to students.

The “Summer Academy-2022” was held from 15 to 19 August 2022 in an online format. The circle of experts of the Summer Academy consisted of specialists from Ukraine and Canada. More than 60 participants took part in the training.