Differentiation, Testing, and Responsive Teaching

A large part of differentiation is being able to let go of what we want to do, and recognizing the students in front of us. The other part of differentiation is maintaining high expectations for students while recognizing that these expectations look different for each child. My experience with differentiation was a process of letting go in many ways. At times, it happened in the moment; I realized what I had planned didn’t quite work for everyone; I realized that the kid in front of me was more important than my meticulously crafted lesson plans.

An example of differentiation from this semester was our Macbeth unit test. All three classes had the “same” test, but it was delivered differently. For my two of the classes, we divided our class between two classrooms. One class the test was read aloud to them. Part of the test was quote identification. In period 1 and 4, students had a word bank and I also verbally translated each quote into more modern English. I had to let go of my initial thought of, “how do they not know Macbeth said this? We talked about this so much in class.” Instead, I realized that if by translating the quote for my students allowed them to reach greater success, why would I not translate the quotes when I had done that the whole time we read Macbeth. Differentiation is simply living, “teach kids not content.” It is being responsive to our kids in the present moment and during our planning. It's truly committing to student growth and success, and it is well worth the extra steps in planning and instruction.