Differentiated learning means every learners has some opportunities which match their interest and ability – hence inclusive classrooms. The idea is exact contrary to exclusion model in traditional teaching where learner (or learner groups) are labeled as good, average and below average learners. Whats sad about this approach is that each learner group somehow know that they are ‘something’ that their other fellows are ‘not’ i.e., average students know that they are doing this task because they cannot do something that the ‘good’ learners are doing, and vice versa.

Kalamtzis and Cope (course videos week-4) share that traditional teaching believes in ‘one size fits all’. I would rather say that traditional teaching fits only one, and that ‘one’ is the teacher.

The purpose of differentiation is to engage all learners in the classroom instead of talking to the middle of the classroom Cope (Video 7A at coursera). The same idea is also presented beautifully by Csikszentmihalyi under his idea of ‘Flow’ (Griffith and Burns, 2012). According to him flow only occurs if challenge is matched with leaners’ attitude and skills towards learning; if the challenge is low, then the learners will get into boredom; if the challenge is high, then the learner will slip into zone of anxiety and panic (See Image-1 below).

Image-1: Channel of Flow

Digital Technologies provide excellent opportunities and platforms for inclusion through differentiation. For example, one affordance is Multimodality which by default engages learners as it uses more than one sensory receptors using text, images, sound and data. Taking another affordance as described by Kalantzis and Cope (2015) recursive feedback which, again, by design engages all learners upto the level of their own skills and attitude, and helps them learn from peers without being embarrassed of labeling.

An example of differentiation using affordances of digital technologies is readily available where I shared an occasion of engaging teachers (learners on the course) in a session to learn Connectivism and Non-linear learning approach (See my Update#1). The open nature of pedagogy, which allowed all learners to ‘make some sense’ of the given random key words, allowed each of the learners to work at their own pace, make meanings of what they can understand, take help where necessary, exchange ideas, explore further if need be, and in the end present newly acquired knowledge the way they wanted. The experience, I believe, was highly differentiated in nature; and that they all learned the key concepts though to various degrees. They could make links with their own practice and raise some concerns as well – meaning making.

New educational media facilitate the management of the complexities of differentiated instruction, where students can be working on different things at the same time. (Cope and Kalantzis, 2017)

An interesting study on inclusive practices using technology is presented by Walker and Logan (2009) where important aspects of inclusion and differentiation and its impact is discussed on learners, pedagogy, and on an institution.

References

Cope, B., and Kalantzis, M. (2017). Conceptualizing e-learning. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (Eds), e-Learning Ecologies. New York: Routledge.

Griffith, A. Burns, M. (2012). Outstanding Teaching: Engaging Learners. Crown House Publishing.

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2015). Learning and new media. In D. Scott and E. Hargreaves (Eds.), The sage handbook of learning (pp. 373-387). Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

Walker, L. and Logan, A. (2009). Using Digital Technologies to Promote Inclusive Practices in Education (Futurelab Handbook) [online]. Bristol: Futurelab. Available at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/FUTL05/FUTL05.pdf [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016].