from thinking, “This stuff is interesting,” to “How will I ever pass this test?” When tension is high, retention of learning is low. Differentiation offers students more rewarding learning opportunities.
• Learning is as much a social process as a cognitive one: Starting from childhood, we learn by observing others, most likely through the mechanism of our mirror neurons. These clusters of neurons fire not only when we experience a task or an emotion but also when we see someone else experience the same task or emotion. Students’ learning is shaped, too, by their groups’ practices and values. How much students participate in class activities, for instance, is often driven by how they think their peers will react if they give an incorrect answer. Self-concept plays a strong role in learning because most individuals tend to avoid situations that may result in failure. Constructive social interactions generate positive emotions and develop executive functions, thereby enhancing learning and retention. Differentiation helps ensure that constructive environment.
• We are learning a lot more about our memory systems: Why do students forget so much of what they have been taught? Apparently, we can carry information in working memory (a temporary memory where we do conscious processing) for an extended period of time. However, the information will eventually fade away if there is no meaningful reason for it to be retained in long-term memory. Could this explain why students can pass a test on a topic today but barely remember it three months later? Differentiation can include instructional strategies more likely to result in students’ remembering rather than in their discarding what they learn.
• Learning for retention requires focus and extended attention: Students in the 21st century have many demands on their attention, much of them from new and exciting technology. Because the brain is constantly searching for meaning, students will give their attention to what they find personally meaningful. And the more meaningful it is, the more engaged they will become. When students perceive a learning objective as lacking meaning, for whatever reason, their attention is likely to divert to more stimulating—and off-task—activities. Differentiation can tailor activities to meet individual student needs, thereby maintaining student engagement and focus.
• Technology is rewiring the young brain: Students in grades preK–12 are spending so much time with their digital devices that their brains are being rewired. This is due to brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to continually learn and reorganize itself as a result of input from its environment. Research studies are finding that this rewiring is having an effect on attention and memory systems, thinking-skills development, and social growth (Sousa, 2016). The extent of the effects will vary among students depending mainly on the amount of time they spend on their digital devices. Differentiation can vary the amount, frequency, and type of technology use among individual students.
All these insights into the learning process reaffirm how important it is for teachers to recognize individual student needs; create a curriculum that is relevant, engaging, and focused on understanding for their students; differentiate their instructional approaches; use assessments to inform teaching and learning; and provide rich, stimulating, brain-friendly, flexible classroom routines and productive classroom environments. We know more now about how the brain learns, and we should adjust our educational practices accordingly.
Differentiation in a Nutshell
Effective differentiation does not call on a teacher to be all things to every student at all times of the day. Rather, it calls on teachers to be consistently mindful of three things: (1) how they structure their content for meaning and authenticity, (2) who their students are as individuals, and (3) how to use classroom elements flexibly to give themselves degrees of freedom in connecting content and learners. It is our belief that classroom practice and pedagogy research has long supported this approach to teaching. We also believe our new and growing understanding of how the brain develops and learns contributes to the case for quality differentiation.
A Better Scenario
Mrs. Worrell looked at the students as they left her room at the end of a reasonably typical school day at the end of the first week of school. She knew some of the students couldn’t wait to leave the room and others would happily stay on for a longer day. She knew some of the students had understood the ideas they explored that day, others had not, and some had known the content before she began teaching it to them. She knew their lives at home ran the gamut from comfortable and supportive to overly demanding to chaotic to abusive. She knew some of the students flourished when they worked with peers and others preferred working alone—or had no one they could call a friend.
In those students, she saw herself as a young learner—shy, uncertain, and eager to please. She saw her son, who often learned faster than his age-mates and who got weary of waiting for others to learn what he already knew. She saw her daughter, who often needed extra time to learn and who learned best when someone could show her how something worked rather than simply tell her. She knew she needed to create a classroom where there was room for each student to succeed. She wasn’t sure exactly how to do that, but she had some good hunches and the determination to follow them. She was excited to see a new school week begin.
CHAPTER 2
Mindset, Learning Environment, and Differentiation
If children recognize that we have seen their genius, who they really are, they will have the confidence and resilience to take risks in learning. I am convinced that many learning and social difficulties would disappear if we learned to see the genius in each child and then created a learning environment that encourages it to develop.
—Steven Levy
Hopefully, most teachers have had those days or moments of sheer professional joy when something clicks in the classroom or for a particular student and it is, at least for a time, undeniable that teaching can possess and be possessed by magic. No doubt most teachers have also had their share of moments during which the mountain that is teaching seems too high to climb. Both of these are outlier moments—the former leading us to conclude that all our students are brilliant, and the latter, that they are all beyond our reach.
In less manic or depressive moments, our attitudes (which evolve unconsciously and over time) shape our reactions to students. Some of us, for instance, are drawn to students who are quiet and compliant, while others gravitate to students who are full of surprises and challenges. Some of us may work more easily with boys, while others find it easier to work with girls. Sometimes teachers have difficulty seeing the world through the eyes of students who have economic backgrounds or cultures that differ markedly from their own. These sorts of preferences or limitations can certainly bear on teaching effectiveness. The more aware we are of such feelings, the more likely we are to deal with them in productive ways. Studies show the more positive feelings teachers have about their students and their own competence, the higher the level of student achievement (Zee & Koomen, 2016). If our attitudes, beliefs, or mindsets about teaching, learning, and our students go unexamined, the consequences can be pernicious for some or many of the young people we teach.
A Case in Point
Carlos feels invisible in class. Ms. Atcheson is polite to him, but she evidently does not expect much from him in the way of grades and achievement. When he fails to do his homework, she reminds him it will hurt his grade, but she does not seem surprised the assignment is missing. She never calls on him in class discussions, and most of the work she assigns him looks like baby work to him. Carlos has never been a good student, so her response to him is familiar. He is just as happy staying in the background.
Liza is another story. Clearly, Ms. Atcheson thinks she is smart. Ms. Atcheson often comments to the class on her work and calls on
