Differentiating correctly for each student is probably the most important thing that you will ever do as a teacher. Although new teacher worries often focus on behaviour management, most teaching horror stories and success stories can be linked to ineffective or effective differentiation. As Sue Cowley puts it, the typical teacher, pitching a lesson at the average student, ‘gets it exactly right for only one third of the class’1, which makes it hardly surprising that the other two thirds may then misbehave.
When observing lessons, I always notice how often the off-task students are those for whom the work is too easy or too difficult. It is often the first resort of students with weak literacy skills, for instance, to distract from their own difficulties by causing a distraction that will make the teacher focus on their behaviour rather than their learning. In a twisted sort of way, these students are trying to get the personal attention that they deserve, just not doing it in a very effective manner. Jeffrey and Ellen Kottler give a large number of possible reasons for difficult behaviour2. Nearly all of these (such as boredom and frustration) concern issues that
can be solved through effective differentiation.
I don’t think that I have ever seen bad behaviour in a classroom where the differentiation of the lesson is perfect. Where tasks are designed to be personalised for students, and the teacher has thought carefully about each student and their experience of learning, behaviour management generally ceases to be an issue because the reasons for bad behaviour are reduced or removed. In a well-differentiated lesson, not only are opportunities for difficult behaviour fewer, but students are simply too busy and engaged to think up avoidance strategies. So, differentiating effectively is immensely rewarding for the teacher as well as for the students.
It may seem time-consuming as a project, but taken bit by bit, each part of differentiation will add up to a whole which is sustainable and practicable, not just in individual classrooms, but for the whole school.
Creating a class profile
It may sound like a truism, but if you do not know your students, it is impossible to differentiate properly for them. Knowing students means far more than getting their names right (though that is a start!), it means having a real sense of how they work together as a group, where the pinch points lie and how the dynamics of their relationships will affect your attempts to differentiate the work.