How can technology help with Differentiated Learning instruction?
Differentiated instruction, also known as mixed-ability teaching, is a style of teaching that caters for all pupils, no matter their preferred learning style. It’s important because it is inclusive; it allows educators to motivate far more students.
It’s challenging for teachers, however, because it means deploying different styles of teaching within one lesson, without diluting the experience for others.
Why is Differentiated Learning instruction important?
Today, the average classroom will include pupils with varying levels of readiness to learn, motivation and academic capability. There may be very diverse groups of students in mainstream classes, including gifted students and others with learning difficulties or disabilities.
We know, as a teacher, you will differentiate classroom elements based on the below factors:
- Content: What the student needs to learn or how the student will get access to the information
- Process: Activities in which the student engages in order to make sense of or master the content
- Product: Culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit
- Learning environment: The way the classroom works and feels.
All of these elements can be positively affected by interactive, intuitive technologies like the ActivPanel. These interactive whiteboards give teachers the best tools to teach with enhanced learning environments for all pupils.
How does technology help with differentiation?
Through digital applications, teachers can facilitate a more flexible approach to tasks in the classroom with less advance, complex planning. Not only that, they can digitally monitor and assess pupils’ speed and ability, and provide feedback and additional tasks to faster workers without adding unnecessary pressure to slower-paced learners.
With real-time digital assessment tools, technology like ActivPanels gives pupils more transparency over their teacher’s feedback in real time. It can also foster self-management skills by giving pupils the tools to manage their work in a digital format of their choice, helping them feel recognised and accountable.
All pupils, regardless of their readiness to learn or their levels of motivation can engage with material in a way that most suits to their needs. The ultimate goal of teaching is to bring out the most potential in every student. A flexible, technology-rich approach to teaching facilitates exactly that.
