Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Differentiation

So, what does differentiation look like in a classroom? Our DS6's teacher recently agreed that he could do more advanced work than what is currently bring taught in his first grade class. From what I can see, he is bringing home some more advanced homework sheets (yea!), and his teacher said he could work ahead in the math. However, when I saw his in-class work, there were a significant number of errors. I asked my son, & he said he had difficulty understanding the directions on a few sheets and that the teacher told him he should figure it out on his own.
My son does test as gifted, but he's seems to be a bit of a slow processor when it comes to written directions. I usually resolve it by making him re-read the directions aloud to ensure he's not skipping words and actually "hears" the directiins.
Does differentiation mean that he no longer receives any verbal instruction or teaching in math? He just works ahead, and if he can't figure out the directions/concepts independently, he needs to stay with the rest of the class? It doesn't sound quite right that he should no longer be allowed to ask for clarification or instruction.

Of course he should be expected to need instruction at times! Hmm, I suppose I'd want to check with the teacher to see what his/her expectations really are. When he was told to figure it out on his own, the teacher could have simply said something like, "You need to go back, read through it and see if you can figure it out." At least I know often there are more nuances to the conversation than I get!

DS6 works a few grades ahead in math and has his own work, with his whole curriculum broken into assignments for him so he can go at his own pace. He is expected to move to the next section with no direction, BUT if he can't figure it out or needs clarification and the teacher is busy, he puts a little stop sign on his desk and moves on to the next section. If he can't figure that next section out, he pulls out some reading or other work. Either way, the teacher comes over when he's free (or DS approaches if he notices that), then DS gets individual assistance and moves along.

This is my fear. My first grader is supposedly doing higher level math work but I'm not sure how much the teacher is actually teaching him or helping him (or whether he is even doing it at all since nothing is coming home).

I told the teacher that I am buying DS a workbook and will assign him homework pages at home and help him with concepts he doesn't understand. This is the only way he's going to get direct instruction for more than 2 minutes a day, I think. She said she can help him with the work at school in the workbook she's giving him, but I just don't see how much time she would actually have to spend on it.

Our experience so far this year is that they will provide "harder" differentiated work covering the same topics, but they are not going to teach my sons how to do the problems. They have been give some fairly difficult word problems recently, and when one was answered incorrectly, it was just given back to be corrected by my son. I have explained to him how to do it, but I really don't know if he turns it again with an incorrect answer if the teacher will explain it. I hope so.

For example, the question type is something like this: There are 29 cars. There are 5 more orange cars than red cars and blue cars. How many of each are there?

Mind you, he doesn't know division (or algebra) so this is a really difficult problem for a first grader until someone teaches him how to do it.

I'm going to talk with DS's teacher about the working ahead- and what it actually means. If it means no instruction, then it may not be the best thing.

DS is six- he gets impatient if he doesn't understand something immediately and may work through the problems incorrectly just to get something down. He's also anxious about asking for help.

His math standardized test score were high (99th percentile) so I do feel confident that he can handle some harder math, but will need to adjust to less instruction.

Sigh. School this year has been a drag to say the least.

momoftwins- that is a hard problem for a first grader. Embarrassingly, I had to give it a bit of thought.
If you have tips on getting your child to actually read the directions and not give up at the first sign of difficulty, I could sure use some.

and

Parents may wish to request "differentiated instruction", and make this distinction clear from "differentiation in student deliverables/production/output" (differentiated task demands) when speaking with the schools.

The term "differentiation" by itself is sufficiently nebulous to warrant questions for clarification. Differentiated instruction seems to be what is needed. As much as this may be difficult for teachers to accomplish under the current model of grouping students by chronological age, differentiated instruction may become much more natural when students are in flexible cluster groups by readiness and ability, without regard to age.

Differentiation in my local PS was a pre-test (worksheets) and if the child answered all of them correctly, then the child is given the next higher grade worksheet. There is no instruction. I am talking about math and the K/1st and 2nd grades. As for language arts, only reading is differentiated and that is done using one of the graded letters (level P, Q etc - I am not sure what the system is) - the child will be grouped into a reading group based on the level and a book will be printed off a website and the child would read it and have a discussion and answer comprehension questions. My child was in a reading group of one with the teacher as his partner because he was reading well ahead of other kids.
Still, differentiation required the parents to do all the heavy lifting where teaching was concerned because the teacher did not have the time to do the needful.

I'm just struggling with all of this- if differentiating a student in aclassroom means giving them harder work without instruction, then it would be a lot cheaper and more effective to homeschool. I thought schools were supposed to teach. Feeling a bit disgruntled.

If you had the time and the ability to homeschool and feel confident that you can provide the best available education to your child, then homeschooling is the best option out there. For a lot of people, it is not possible. In that case, they afterschool and try to make up for the lack of "differentiated instruction". In my neighborhood, there are afterschool enrichment academies run by people with PhDs in math, lit, physics etc who tutor children one-on-one for higher level subject acceleration and enrichment. They also mentor and help children participate in math olympiads, science competitions etc. So, a lot of frustrated parents who cannot homeschool make use of these enrichment centers and have very good outcomes. They think of school as a place to review and drill material that the child has learnt a couple of years ago