“Differentiation has become a ubiquitous term and a much discussed concept in education. Educators everywhere realize that students have diverse needs, and there has been a push to ensure that teachers are using strategies and supports to meet the needs of all students,” a report by Teachers Pay Teachers said.
The same report found that more than 95% of educators view differentiated instruction as important to student achievement. Providing educational support to advanced learners not only engages students, but also more actively involves them in the learning process.
DIFFERENTIATING EDUCATION FOR HIGH-ACHIEVING LEARNERS
YuJa makes it easy for teachers to provide varied work to meet the needs of high-achieving students.
Carol Tomlinson, an expert in the field of differentiated instruction, notes that “a chief objective of differentiated instruction is to take full advantage of every student’s ability to learn.” Differentiated instruction provides all students with learning opportunities they need, but can be especially helpful for advanced learners.
Ideas to help challenge advanced students include:
- Offer more challenging work to students who already have the basic competencies. Students can work independently or in groups.
- Offer a variety of assignment options. For instance, students could be offered the option of a PowerPoint presentation, an essay, a poster, or a video project.
- Break up classroom projects into different portions to allow students to focus on their strengths. Assign high achieving groups research tasks to increase their interest level.
Some of the top strategies for differentiation, according to the TpT report, include individual/small group instruction, leveled activities, scaffolded lessons, formative assessments, offering multiple learning styles, flexible timing, options to show learning and providing student choice.
BUILDING SKILLS FOR HIGH ACHIEVERS
YuJa enables students to engage and interact to build new skills and maximize the educational experience. Some high-achieving students, while successful academically, may struggle with social engagement or have other challenges.
- Real-time discussions enable in-depth conversation about class topics, enabling students who may be less likely to speak up in class to engage online.
- Auto Captioning offers a readable and searchable transcript, facilitating learning for students who do best with visual, rather than auditory learning.
- Students who feel anxious in large group settings may find video presentations less stressful than in-person presentations.
