The Cogs of Differentiation

             Learning about differentiation has been an interesting journey so far. I can't say that I know exactly what it is and how I'm going to make it work in my classroom, but what I can tell you is that I hope to be a teacher that differentiates for my students. I wanted to look for a quote to really help me, my students and my class succeed together. I loved this quote and it goes right along with the three cogs of differentiation that I'm going to talk about today. 

          Students and teachers must work together in order for differentiation to work within your own classroom. Henry Ford hit this right on the head when talking about beginning to differentiate with your students. Teach them what it means to differentiate for all the students in the class and how it will help them as well. Explain to your class that when you stay together and work together you are all progressing towards a goal of making your classroom a successful one where learning takes place. The cogs of differentiation shows us that all three of these components need to work together in order to make your differentiated classroom work. 

          Tomlinson presented these in her book as another metaphor to understand differentiation. 

• The first hub of the clock work is the needs of the student in your classroom. The student seeks affirmation-which is there to help them confirm things they already know about themselves that are positive. We all seek this as human beings, that need to be needed and to have people recognize our talents and achievements. This is no different with our students; contribution-our students want to contribute to the class. They want to have boundaries and be accountable for their role within the classroom; power-when you empower your students and make them feel important they are more likely to help the class succeed; purpose- help your students realize that they do have a part within your classroom and what their purpose is within yours. Help all students realize that everyone has a purpose within your classroom; challenge-if your students are bored because things are too easy then they are not going to help your class progress or if the material is too hard then your students are going to pay attention either. This is what differentiation is all about making sure that your students progress and that their work is challenging/engaging enough for them to help them grow on THEIR OWN level. These are the things that the student wants teachers to help them with. Tomlinson said: "The premise of differentiation is that we cannot teach nearly so well when we overlook or underattend to these student needs. (Tomlinson, 2003 p. 11)"
• The second hub is more about what you do within the classroom. We as teachers need to invite students to participate in all aspects of your classroom. We must also give them opportunities to show what they know and allow them to make decisions and learn to accept either positive or negative consequences of those choices. It's also important to show our students that we are invested in not only their education, but them as a person. There can be a lot of misconceptions on how some teachers teach, which some believe it's just to improve the test scores that are given. While that is important because your students need to show what they've learned and know, it shouldn't become the main focus. There are always going to be other factors that play into how a student demonstrates his/her knowledge, but if we give our students different opportunities to show us what they know they are much more willing and less stressed out about it. We also must be persistent as a teacher and show our students that we are not going to give up on them, that we only want them to do their best and reach their potential. A big part of making all of this possible is by reflecting on what you are doing as a teacher, what is or is not working within your class. If something is not working for you or your class you need to adapt and try something different. You as a teacher need to realize as well that helping your students understand that they are all different and will need help in different ways is not a bad thing but a very good thing. If someone begins with the "that's not fair" statement always remind that fair is not always equal, but it's important to help individual students on their level. Please, please, please constantly reflect on whether what you're doing in your classroom is truly helping your students and don't be afraid to make any changes necessary. 
• The third hub is all about the curriculum. We need to make sure what we are teaching has a purpose and that we stay focused on why we are teaching it. But no matter how much we have to teach and why we have to teach it, we must make sure that they students are engaged because if they are not then they aren't going to learn anything you're trying to teach anyway. The most important part of the curriculum that relates back to differentiation is scaffolding. Scaffolding allows you more freedom to differentiate within your classroom to help you help your students on their level without individually teaching all of your students at once.  

Differentiation can be explained with a few different metaphors and that's what I found out from just reading one chapter in Tomlinson's book. The reason I wanted to share this metaphor with you is because it's a way to show how all aspects of the classroom teachers, students, and curriculum work together in order to create a differentiated classroom. What we need to realize is that as teachers we need to take into account what we are teaching, how we are teaching, why we are teaching, but most importantly WHO we are teaching. When we realize that differentiation really does come back to who the students are and where they are at in their readiness we can prepare ourselves and our curriculum to help them reach their potential and learn in the best way possible.