Differentiation

"Differentiation involves modifying teaching strategies to meet the needs of diverse learners and building opportunities for each student to develop, pursue and achieve appropriate personal learning goals." - Interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the MYP

Details to remember

• Rather than identifying a list of generic types of differentiation methods, it can be more effective to identify specific differentiation strategies in terms of how specific unit content, specific learning processes and/or specific assessment task(s) can be adapted for all student, and for students needing personalized support or extension.

• The description of a unit's differentiation needs to document strategies for accommodating learning diversity noted in terms of content, process and product.

  • Definitions:

    • Differentiation of content: strategies that can provide multiple entry points and levels of access to unit content.

    • Differentiation of process: specific ways in which specific learning experiences are designed to accommodate a variety of learning needs and preferences in processing information, including learning support and extension.

    • Differentiation of product: specific ways in which the unit's assessment tasks are designed to be open-ended, so that they allow for student choice and differentiated demonstrations of learning.

Example

In this guide, a language and literature and sciences interdisciplinary unit is used to illustrate one example of what each unit plan section could look like using the provided guidance. Below is the differentiation section of that unit.

Check the differentiation through the descriptors (shown below) from the IB publication Evaluating MYP interdisciplinary unit plans.

• Are specific strategies for accommodating learning diversity noted in terms of content, process and product?

• Do the differentiation strategies allow for the potential for each student to develop, pursue and achieve appropriate learning goals?

• (If applicable) Do the differentiation methods address students' diverse language profiles and learning support requirements?

• (If applicable) Are students' diverse language profiles and learning support requirements used as a resource for all students' learning?