EDUC4720: Assignment 3 Cody Fitzgerald 2167369

EDUC4720 Differentiation for Diverse Learners

Assignment 3: Diversity and Inclusion Portfolio

1. Definitions of differentiation and inclusion - Suggested length: 1-2

paragraphs.
Differentiation:
Differentiation in the classroom is the proactive attempts to plan various ways for all students to
learn and demonstrate their knowledge of the curriculum. Differentiation is considered approaches
to what students learn, how they learn it, and the ways in which they will demonstrate their
knowledge. Differentiation is empowering individual students to learn in the ways best suited to
them. (Jarvis 2019) Differentiation is not about omitting items from a summative assessment or
tailoring specific tasks to make things ‘easier’ but is instead opportunities to demonstrate the same
knowledge and understanding that is on the same level as other students, but in different ways. For
example, differentiation does not mean that you simplify the curriculum to an ‘easier’ level, or that
you create individualised assignments just for the students who might need them. Instead of being a
strategy or reactive adjustment or observation, differentiation is instead something that should flow
subtly through each aspect of classroom teaching. From lesson design, to activities, to summative
assignments. (Moon 2005)

Inclusion:
As stated by Ainscow & Miles (2009), inclusion is ultimately about presence, participation, progress
of learning and achievement, and an overall sense of belonging. To have an inclusive school and
classroom, educators must be proactively working to identify and remove barriers concerning the
restriction of student access and learning both physically and mentally. Inclusion however, is more
than just differentiating student learning. Whilst differentiation is a key part of teaching inclusively,
as suggested above it goes beyond accessible curriculum and academic progress of learning and
achievement. To me, teaching inclusively encapsulates more than just how a student learns, but
rather who a student is, and how they contribute to, or are a part of, the learning environment. To
build on the key principles of presence and participation, it all comes down to healthy and respectful
relationships with students. (Jarvis 2019) Without these relationships, students may not want to
come into your classroom, or even turn up at school on that day if they have your class. This begins
to weaken their presence at school and reduces their learning opportunities in this way. The same
can be said for participation, if a student does in fact arrive at your class with the mentality of “I hate
this teacher” or “I don’t want to be here”, the student simply will not engage with the teacher, or
the content of the lesson. More than likely this will cause the student to disrupt the classroom
through externalised behaviours, weakening the relationship further. Inclusivity and relationship
building to me go hand-in-hand, as not only do healthy relationships build upon student
engagement, they also create a good sense of belonging in the classroom. Making it a space where
students can feel like they are welcomed, valued, and safe. Inclusion applies in this way to students
which require differentiation because if you know students, you know how they learn, and you know
the ways which will make them want to learn. (Hattie & Yates 2014)
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2. School Diversity and Inclusion Profile - Suggested length: 1000 words

For some brief context to the following, I completed my final year practicum at a private catholic
secondary school and worked extensively with a variety of students across Years 7, 8, and 10,
however I did have exposure to students of each year level in some capacity.

1. What are the types of student differences that teachers commonly address in the
classroom?

The student body of the school is quite large and consists of over 1,300 students. (School XX 2019) In
this large body of co-ed students, there are many learning difficulties and disabilities across the vast
array of multicultural students, including Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders. Thankfully due to
the context of the school, they had many support staff in the form of Educational Support Officers
(ESO) and teachers who did not have a full teaching load. This allowance for a large amount of
support meant that students who ultimately need support, had access to it.

From discussion with the teachers around the staffroom and my mentor I have learned that they
commonly address a variety of student differences due to the size of the cohort, including
differences such as; physical disabilities, language and auditory processing disorders, autism
spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cultural backgrounds, and
students with English as an additional language or dialect (EALD). I was fortunate to be able to be
shown student IEP’s (Individual Education Plans) through their school management program, Seqta.
During my practical the most common student differences that I encountered were students with
low level ASD, and students with dyslexia. Whilst they were common among most of my classes,
there were also some unique student differences present as well. The ASD students which I had on
practical were in the Year 7 and 8 classes, but more support was available in the Year 7 class as the
two students had funding for an ESO to work alongside them.

2. How might common student differences in this setting impact on learning and the
classroom environment?
Through discussions with my mentor and leadership staff, these more common student
differences including EALD, ASD, and student backgrounds, a few examples of the impact on
the learning environment became clear. Due to the variety of student backgrounds, and
students with EALD, teachers must consider and carefully select the types of content they
will work with and must provide the necessary context to give students a strong base
knowledge should it be further elaborated on. Teachers cannot assume that students are,
for example, familiar with pop culture icons, or a genre of novel or film.
A personal example of this from my placement, was found in the unit of work I was doing
with my Year 10 English class. Throughout the lessons we were building towards a
comparative summative task between the documentary Free Solo, and a persuasive media
text of their choice. In the film, the main subject is referred to as being like the Star Trek
character “Spock”. When I elaborated on how this is as a persuasive technique, many
students were in fact confused and did not know the character. This is a small-scale
example, but important to consider if an activity, or even an entire unit of work, is built
around something you as a teacher would consider ‘general knowledge’.
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3. How do teachers and other staff typically respond to these differences?

My mentor teacher and other teachers from the same faculty respond to these differences
in a variety of ways that are uniform across the board. With regard to EALD students and
their diverse backgrounds, many of their classroom practices involve teaching concepts and
big ideas, utilising accessible and somewhat general material at Years 7 – 9, before moving
over to the SACE reading lists. They select unique stories that offer a multitude of
perspectives of topics relevant to our current society here in Australia.
The learning difficulties and disabilities are also a big focus of the teachers at the school.
With the program Seqta, any student which has a medical condition and/or an IEP is easily
identifiable, and the necessary documentation is easily accessible. Teachers responded to
these differences through their classroom content, and inclusive relationships with
students. (Wiggins & McTighe 2011) In my observations I witnessed each teacher call students
by name and have clearly written and scaffolded tasks which in some cases offered a variety
of ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge of the curriculum. The school itself as
mentioned above has numerous support staff which assist students with learning disabilities
or difficulties, but it also has a couple of programs designed to assist students including an
after-school hours tutoring program which runs each day until 5pm, and a mentor program
conducted during the school day on a Monday and Friday.
4. What philosophy and approach to student diversity and inclusion is reflected in the
school’s mission or vision statement, policies, or other published information?
The philosophy and overall approach to student diversity and inclusion is reflected in the
school’s importance on community. This importance on community is found in the name of
the school itself and is the focus of a lot of the published material and advertisements. In
their published information, there is a heavy emphasis on all the communities the school
reaches, especially the importance of parent engagement in the students learning, and
many other communities, not just local, but overseas as well. (School XX 2019) The schools
main mission statement is their adherence 5 Habits of Excellence, which are Attendance,
Punctuality, Application, Work Completion, and Community Involvement. This importance
on community creates a fantastic feeling of inclusiveness at the school and is enacted not
just through the students but through staff as well. (School XX 2019)

5. Your observations and impressions of:

a. How the philosophy embodied in the mission and vision statement is
specifically enacted in practice at this school.
I believe that this focus on community and belonging is enacted incredibly well at the
school. As stated above this focus is not just aimed at the students, but the staff as well.
Monday and Thursday morning there are small staff briefings which address some school
important school events, but also are used to give thanks to staff members who participate
in extra-curricular items either during or outside of school time, such as student retreats or
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events. It is also used to address important events in the lives of the many staff members,
with their permission of course, including birthdays, engagements, births / pregnancies, and
unfortunately deaths and sickness. During my time there I did actually feel like I was a part
of the school, rather than just a student teacher was a really enjoyable feeling.
The schools 5 habits of excellence which are aimed at the students were also heavily acted
upon and not just there as a tokenistic advertisement for the school. Each point is addressed
by the school in some fashion including work completion programs and following up on
unexplained absences. Each classroom also always has a placard with the 5 Habits on
display, and I saw it referred to more than once.
b. The extent to which the classroom and other school practices you observed
throughout your professional experience align with the philosophy,
principles and practices of differentiation and inclusion we have studied
this semester.
Ultimately, I believe that the school addresses inclusion as a fundamental element of
maintaining a welcoming school environment focussed on belonging. Differentiation I
believe is something that a good number of the staff have a handle of, however I did see
some shortcuts being taken, and was given advice that would contradict the philosophy we
have been studying. My mentor teacher, and other staff members within the office I was in,
all utilised different elements of differentiation when it comes to creating lesson activities
and summative assignments, including scaffolding and ways students interact with the
curriculum. Nearly all the summative tasks I saw allowed students to create something in
their own way, through oral or written methods.
3. Professional Reflections - Suggested length: 700-800 words

1. What differentiated strategies did you try to implement during your professional
teaching experience? Did you have a chance to implement one or more of your
assignments?
During my practical I was able to implement a few differentiation strategies, but
unfortunately, I was not really able to utilise my assignments in any way. One of the big
focus points for me and implementing differentiation was the key point of student interest.
(Sousa & Tomlinson 2018) I was able to utilise classroom votes and exit cards to gauge student
interest to build classroom activities. Due to the context of the school I did not have any
ability to create my own assessment tasks but thankfully they did seem fairly differentiated
due to the variety of ways students could complete and hand up the final task, student
negotiation was always on the table. The main area I was able to utilise student interest the
most was my Year 8 Geography class, by giving them say in the countries and cities we
looked at, it made the subsequent lessons more engaging for them. (Tomlinson 2003) In
many cases across all my classes, I was able to find and utilise videos with either subtitles or
transcripts to allow students to access the material in the ways they wanted or needed to. I
also utilised my knowledge of creating accessible material so that the terminology and
language was year level and challenge level appropriate.
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2. What worked well? What factors (personal or environmental) helped you to

differentiate effectively?
The factors that greatly benefited my ability to differentiate was my mentor as she was
fantastic and, in my opinion, was differentiating properly during my observations. I did not
hit any road blocks with her. Another area which was both good and somewhat
‘challenging’, was the access to technology. Every classroom featured an electronic display
capable of being connected to by a laptop. My ICT skills are decent, so I was able to use a lot
of programs to assist with my teaching. Students also have their own laptops which is good
for students who need to utilise electronic programs to assist their writing, however, and
this is more of a behavioural issue, students would easily be distracted by the many
capabilities of the internet, and for a student in my class who had ADHD it proved rather
detrimental to his learning even though his IEP stated that he must have it otherwise he
shuts off and does not engage. Through this however I managed to differentiate for him by
showing him a variety of web-based programs that he could use to complete assignments,
which worked out very well in the end. It could go unsaid but this university topic has also
been an enormous benefit to my professional knowledge.
3. What factors (personal or environmental) made it challenging to differentiate?
On the whole, I do not believe that there were many challenge areas per-say that were
outright restricting my ability to differentiate, but I would say that during my placement I
had a bit of a confidence issue at the start regarding building relationships with students, so
it took longer than it should have to get to know how they learn. Another challenging area
was that I did not have full access to Seqta until I started teaching, so I was unable to access
student lists and IEP’s from the start to gain some background knowledge going in. Due to
some of the things I overheard and the responses I got when I asked, I am thankful for my
mentor, as some other teachers did say they differentiated, but would offer examples such
as very modified assessments, or a reduction in word count / steps they had to complete.
Due to the context of the school as stated above, I was unable to create my own assessment
tasks, which, even though the assignments themselves were differentiated, was unfortunate
as I really wanted to try and implement a RAFT based approach to student learning. (D.C
2019) I did do a similar formative activity to the RAFT structure, but it was not was I was
hoping for.
4. Thinking critically, how can you improve your teaching practice with diverse
learners for your next experience? What goals do you still have for yourself?
During my practical I believe that I had a good experience trying to differentiate for my
students, and that I made a lot of the resources as accessible as possible. An area of
improvement that I have for myself however is making my written and spoken terminology
more accessible when implementing activities or summative assessments, as I found in
some cases that I would use language that was too advanced for the classroom context. I
also found during my practical that I was not fully prepared for high absenteeism. If a
student missed a day or even two I was able to catch them up during class time by seeking
them out and spending time with them to check and ensure their understanding. However,
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in one case I had a Year 10 student with extremely high absenteeism, and I only saw her
twice throughout my whole practical. Even though I did e-mail her the content she missed
out on, she missed when we watched the film in class which was half of what the
summative assignment was about, so I had to create a modified task for her but ensuring
that she still hit all the same curriculum standards as the other students. (Sousa & Tomlinson
2018) Honing my use of language is something I will work on moving forward, along with
working on strategies to try and work around students with higher absences than average.
To fully reflect on my time at university and on practical, I can absolutely see the undeniable
need for differentiating in the classroom. Teaching to the middle of the class is not what
educators should be aiming for as they are leaving out students who might not be at the
level of readiness required, and they will be leaving out students who can go above and
beyond. Differentiation is going to be a staple in future classrooms, and anything less is
ultimately a disservice to our future.
Reference List:
Ainscow, M., & Miles, S. (2009). Developing inclusive education systems: How can we move policies
forward? Published at:
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/COPs/News_documents/2009/0907Beirut/Devel
opingInclusive_Education_Systems.pdf

Differentiation Central (D.C). (2019). What is differentiated Instruction? Retrieved from

http://differentiationcentral.com/what-is-differentiated-instruction/

Hattie, J., & Yates, G. (2014). Analysing your students' style of learning. Visible learning and the
science of how we learn, pp. 176-186.

Jarvis, J, (2019) Lecture 1: Differentiation for Diverse Learners. Flinders University

Jarvis, J, (2019) Lecture 4: Differentiating in response to different interests and learning profile
preferences. Flinders University

Moon, T.R. (2005). The Role of Assessment in Differentiation. Theory into Practice, 44(3), pp. 226-
233.

Nazareth Catholic Community. (2019). 5 Habits of Excellence. Retrieved from Nazareth:

http://www.nazareth.org.au/our-community/aspiring-for-excellence/5-habits-of-excellence

Sousa, D. A., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2018). Differentiating in response to student readiness.

Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom (use brain-
based learning and neuroeducation to differentiate instruction), pp. 91-120.

Sousa, D. A., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2018). Differentiating in response to student interest.

Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom (use brain-
based learning and neuroeducation to differentiate instruction), pp. 121-147.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). Essential Questions and Understandings. The understanding by
design guide to creating high-quality units, pp. 70-88.