Task 3.

3: Differentiation techniques

Write a short description of three differentiation techniques you have used with your
learners. 
Think-Pair-Share by readiness, interest, learning profile

Think-pair-share is a collaborative teaching strategy. It can be used to help learners form

individual ideas, discuss and share with the others in-group. It can be used before reading or
teaching a concept and works better with smaller groups.

As I teach Stage 6, I have my class complete a learning style questionnaire (visual, auditory,
kinaesthetic) at the start of each school year. My first grouping is done according to these
learning styles. As I get to know my learners (especially their behaviour) and their previous
knowledge and interests, groups are moved accordingly.

Use of collaboration, independence and cooperation

Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more learners learn or attempt to learn
something together. Unlike individual learning, learners engaged in collaborative learning
capitalise on one another's resources and skills

Some learners are less self-assured than others and need collaboration and cooperation to
start off an activity, where others can work independently throughout an activity. Activities
can be structured to include both independent work and collaboration.

Mini-workshops to reteach or extend skills

I have a set mini-workshop time once a week. Throughout the week, learners keep track of
their own learning and decide what they want me to reteach or extend for their group. They
have to inform me by Wednesday (our week runs Sunday to Thursday), to enable me to
prepare for them. I spend 10 minutes per group on Thursday morning and reteach or extend
whatever activity they have chosen.
A good example was my lower ability learners struggling to grasp active and passive voice. I
was able to give them a hands-on activity where the different parts of the sentences were cut
up and they physically moved them into place and replaced the verbs and added ‘by’. The
moving of parts of sentences instead of rewriting them, helped with better understanding.

Explain how these differentiation methods helped particular individuals or groups of

learners.

Think-Pair-Share

o What activity did you use each technique with?

Activity: Revise italics and ellipses - In pairs, learners scan the text for italicised words
and identify their purpose.

o Which skill or learning objective did it help learners with?

 Learning objective: To investigate the role of italics and ellipses in narrative.

o What problems did it help your learners overcome?

Revising the ellipses covered in Stage 5 in groups, helped students to remember that it is
a useful tool for building suspense and for allowing the reader to imagine events or
details. Some pairs even noted that over-use makes it loose its effectiveness.

Use of collaboration, independence and cooperation

o What activity did you use each technique with?

Activity: Check your understanding - In groups, learners discuss questions about a

specific text. The first two questions focus on specific evidence in the text, whereas
question 3 requires learners to identify information about characters, infer how they are
feeling and empathise with their situation.

o Which skill or learning objective did it help learners with?

Learning objective: To develop their reading understanding and scanning for detail skills.

o What problems did it help your learners overcome?

Some learners are less self-assured than others and need collaboration and cooperation to
start off an activity, where others can work independently throughout an activity.
Activities can be structured to include both independent work and collaboration.

Mini-workshops to reteach or extend skills

o What activity did you use each technique with?

Activity: Revise italics and ellipses - In pairs, learners scan the text for italicised words
and identify their purpose.

o Which skill or learning objective did it help learners with?

Learning objective: To investigate the role of italics and ellipses in narrative.

o What problems did it help your learners overcome?

I used the word ‘ellipsis’ as a spelling link to remind learners that nouns ending in ‘is’
usually take the plural form ‘es’ – ellipses/ellipses. Other examples include oasis, crisis,
hypothesis.