How to Differentiate Teaching for the advancement of learner Thinking Skills: Simplifying Approaches to Teaching &Learning Series (Part 5)

Last Updated on January 13, 2023

Venn Diagram (Differentiated Teaching) overlapping with (Thinking Skills)

This post is part of a 6-part series highlighting how we, as IB teachers, can bring Approaches to Teaching to our classroom and challenge learners to engage in Approaches to Learning.

In the previous installments of our series, we have shared ideas on instructional strategies that allow the simultaneous implementation of Approaches to Teaching and Learning (ATLs). These combine your teaching methods to learners’ skills empowerment: inquiry and research, conceptual understanding and thinking, local-global contexts and communication, and teamwork and socialization.

Connecting Approaches to Teaching with Approaches to Learning

Connecting Approaches to Teaching with Approaches to Learning

This fifth post addresses how differentiated teaching can advance learners’ thinking skills. In a previous post, we discussed a few aspects of thinking skills in the context of conceptual understanding. In the current installment, we will see how a cluster of specific thinking skills, that are put forward by both the IBO and contemporary educational research, can surface through differentiated teaching.

Acknowledge your learners as individuals through differentiated instruction

I distinctly recall my first, although remote, encounter with “differentiated instruction.” It was during a meeting with the Head of School for the discussion of my annual evaluation after he had observed one of my IB classes. I was confident that his report would be a good one until he asked me something like what measures do you take to support talented learners?

My instant thoughts were: “Should I do something special for such learners?” and “I don’t have the time for this anyway.” My actual response was about the different levels of difficulty in homework assignments, which is more than common in everyday practice, but can hardly be considered a “special measure.” I don’t know what he wrote down in my file, but at least his question was thought-provoking for me.

In general education, where the IB Diploma Programme (DP) belongs, we have to teach “students with learning difficulties, gifted students, and students with no identified exceptionality” (Altemueller & Lindquist, 2017). We can’t turn a blind eye to this learning diversity in our classroom. On the contrary, we must consider it a top priority while we do our best to meet the curriculum goals and fulfill the overall DP mission.

“Differentiated instruction” is perhaps the most prominent of those strategies we know we should use, but we are reluctant to do so. It might scare us away because we think it relates to special education for learners with particular needs and abilities, for which only a few of us have official training. And if the strategy addresses all learners individually, it seems extremely time-consuming to prepare all-embracing lessons throughout the year.

💡 “Differentiation” doesn’t refer to special education. It addresses the approach of every learner’s needs, but this doesn’t mean that we will turn our class into private tutoring lessons.

In the context of the constructivist approach, “differentiated learning” takes place beyond our control. Every learner processes the content, the skills and the concepts we teach in a personalized way, whether we like it or not. What calls for deliberate differentiation is our own teaching, in order to effectively meet all learners’ learning needs. How do we achieve this within our limited time in the classroom?

Promote an environment that welcomes all learners

If you are using a teacher-centered teaching approach, it will be markedly harder or more time-consuming for you to pursue differentiated teaching. “Differentiation puts the focus on learners, and it is a learner-centered approach that is aimed to help learners succeed regardless of the differences” (Bajrami, 2013). Any learner-centered technique will definitely give you an edge, but it’s not always clear how you can focus on every learner without neglecting the rest of the class as a whole entity.

The answer to this riddle can be the “flipped classroom”. This is an innovative teaching methodology that has drawn the educational community’s attention during the last decade. The term seems self-explanatory, but it is actually misleading. The “flipping” doesn’t refer to the exchange of roles between the teacher and the learners; it reflects a completely different instructional approach that can accommodate your plans for all-inclusive teaching.

The implementation of the flipped classroom suggests this model (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015):

The implementation of the flipped classroom suggests that (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015):
we move the traditional face-to-face lectures out of class,
we use class time for active and cooperative learning activities, and
we require students to complete pre- and post-class activities to fully benefit from in-class work.

Use this context to advance learner soft skills

To make the flipped classroom work in practice, you have to guide your learners towards valid resources that will allow them to grasp the necessary information in advance of an upcoming lesson. Although you will set the main focus, they will practice their critical thinking to go through the material effectively.

This way, when you meet with them, you can skip the traditional “one-man-show” and proceed immediately to activities that will clarify and deepen the material they covered on their own time. In other words, you can immediately put your efforts into developing their problem solving skills instead of practicing your own presentation skills (that, if I have to guess, are pretty refined after a year or two in the classroom).

As for homework, they should elaborate on the in-class assignments. This is an excellent opportunity for each learner to show what they can do in a more deliberate way. Although they all start from the same point, they can use their creativity to generate a unique end product.  Afterward, they can proceed to the next course and restart the cycle.

It may already be visible how this inquiry cycle (inquiry-action-reflection) throws the ball in the learners’ court. They now have the freedom and the responsibility to process their learning at their own pace. To them, you are no longer an instructor but a facilitator who walks them through their educational journey. 

💡 Taking the traditional time-consuming lectures during a class period off the table gives you plenty of time to focus on each learner’s needs.

At the beginning of each session, you can offer a range of tiered activities of increasing difficulty and prompt the learners to work with those that make them feel most comfortable and productive. That will give you an insight into their learning engagement and room to provide further support according to their needs.

This process can be supported by teamwork. If you have a big class, form groups with partial homogeneity in their chosen activities so you can focus on two or three learners at once, plus make use of their collaboration with their teammates productively. The weaker learners will benefit from your exclusive attention, and the more advanced group members can act as “teacher’s assistants.” Learners with sufficient understanding push themselves even further when you prompt them to share their knowledge, and afterward, you can turn your focus to them to discuss more difficult tasks.

Enable every learner to achieve personal learning goals

From the teaching point of view, the flipped classroom allows us to differentiate instruction in regard to our learners’ abilities. Meanwhile, from the learning point of view, each learner works with the pace and material most appropriate for achieving their personal learning benchmarks. This is a win-win because learners are involved in a process that actively enhances their thinking skills, along with other essential soft skills.

When you let the learners in on the upcoming topics,  you aren’t revealing your professional secrets. In fact, they are entitled to know what’s coming next and prepare for it, both mentally and psychologically. If they have access to the upcoming material, they can control their own learning: watch or read something repeatedly, form specific questions, and do their research – all the actions they need to take in order to be “ready to go.” 

Perhaps you are thinking: how is this different from any homework assignment following the traditional class? Homework is used for practicing their knowledge of the topic you have delivered. Sometimes, for reasons inexplicable to us, learners consider it as “optional.” Most of the time, it is related merely to assessment. 

In the flipped classroom, on the contrary, learners’ prior work is mandatory and strongly connected to the upcoming lesson. Either the learners do it, or they are wasting their time at school because they aren’t prepared to participate in what their teacher and classmates are talking about. It also has an immediate, self-evident, impact on their grade.

💡 We don’t use the flipped classroom to penalize our learners; we use it to pass on the torch of responsibility regarding their personal learning goals.

The time spent in the classroom will be way more meaningful for them if they have worked hard to construct a representation from scratch for the new material – on their own terms. Activating their unique prior knowledge, following their personal thinking pathways, and focusing on the things most challenging for them will completely reform the way they see your class. It will give them ownership. These elements will comprise the base on which you can build your differentiated teaching during contact hours.

You can assign homework on the covered lesson, along with preparative activities for the upcoming one. Keep an eye for the reasonable extent of each lesson, so learners have the capacity to study both the previous and the next one sufficiently. Their tasks can be closely related to the work done in the classroom: from the list of tiered activities, challenge them to uptake a task from the next difficulty level. This way, your differentiated instruction follows them home.

Make the lesson attractive, accessible and relevant to your learners

What makes the flipped classroom an attainable educational strategy is our access to technology. In fact, the initial definition of the flipped classroom specifically referred to video lectures as the learning source for the upcoming lesson (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). However, just a few years is a “long time ago” in the context of evolving educational technology.

Back in the day, educational videos were the teachers’ recordings uploaded online; now, you can find dozens of good captures that suit your specific IB topic or chapter. But now we have a variety of asynchronous tools that can work as preliminary sources – and far more interactive than videos, so you can draw your learners’ attention. 

💡 It is important to remember why we implement the flipped classroom in the first place: to create realistic conditions for differentiated instruction.

Resources can come in a diverse range of content difficulty and software formats. Interactive pdf files, simulations, and e-quizzes can begin to serve our goals. But, we also have to consider what suggests attractive hardware for our learners – and meet them there. As far as I know, in most technologically developed countries, smartphones have become an extension of their hands. With each learner’s learning needs in mind, why don’t we suggest some additional ways they can use the technology that pushes them to create rather than consume?

During their preparation for the next class or when expanding on the tasks given as homework, they can discover related content through mobile apps, thus combining relevant software with accessible hardware. Differentiated learning is seamlessly facilitated if learners find answers to their particular questions.  They can be the first who pose them or not; what matters is to receive personalized answers from valid sources that contribute to their personalized quest of learning.

Ready to get started wit ha tool that brings Approaches to Teaching & Learning to your classroom?

Sources

Abeysekera, L., & Dawson, P. (2015). Motivation and cognitive load in the flipped classroom: definition, rationale and a call for research. Higher Education Research and Development, 34(1), 1–14.

Bajrami, I. (2013). The Importance of Differentiation in Supporting Diverse Learners. Journal of Education and Practice, 4(22), 149–154.

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day. OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Pepy is a University and IB Diploma Programme Physics teacher, with an MA and Ph.D. in Science Education. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in teachers' STEM education. As the Head of Research at 100mentors, she empowers educators to turn theory into practice with educational technology solutions.

9 comments On How to Differentiate Teaching for the advancement of learner Thinking Skills: Simplifying Approaches to Teaching &Learning Series (Part 5)

  • Thank you so much for such an interesting article. I often have a feeling of guilt when I think about how I differentiate my teaching, it has almost a sacred concept in education nowadays with many teachers not sure how or where to start! But your article has made me confident that I am actually already implementing the flipped classroom without knowing it!

    Totally off topic, I am from Belgium and my sister had an Erasmus student exchange in Patras 😉 I believe I have myself some Greek blood, I lived a bit in Crete, speak a bit the language, and met my husband there!

    Thanks again for your very helpful article Pepy.

    • Dear Benedicte,

      Thank * you * so much for such a thoughtful response. Congratulations on implementing the flipped classroom – I’m delighted this blog helped you see your approach with a fresh perspective!

      What a small world it is – your heartfelt sentiments are a highlight of connecting with educators through this blog and working with 100mentors. I’m glad we had the chance to connect and am looking forward to exchanging more ideas about our IB classrooms moving forward.

      Best,
      Pepy

  • Thank you for this excellent article. I am a teacher from India teaching maths to grade 4 and 5. It would help me more if you could explain flipped classroom with a concrete example. Our student strength in a class is around 40.
    Thank you
    Regards
    Anindita

    • Dear Anindita,

      Thank you so much for your kind words on Pepy’s article! Also, thanks for telling us a little bit more about what you teach and sharing your interest in exploring the flipped classroom approach. A concrete way to try the flipped classroom approach would be to integrate an edtech tool that students can use before class and after class, to free up lecture time for active and cooperative learning activities. This is one of the ways teachers are currently using our software at 100mentors. We’d be happy to set up a call to give you some step-by-step info on how our platform can be used to create a flipped classroom for your 4th and 5th graders.

      Elina from our team will reach out to set up a time to chat!

      All best wishes,
      Malvina @ 100mentors

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  • Really a very helpful article thanks for sharing and keep on sharing!

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