Students Differ in these Areas

According to McTighe and Tomlinson (2006) the areas in which students differ most obviously are (p. 17):

• Biologically-based diversity
• Privilege
• Position for learning
• Preferences

Category of Student Variance	Contributors to the Category	Some Implications  for Learning
Biology	Gender Neurological “wiring”for learning Abilities Disabilities Development	High ability and disability exist in a range of endeavors. Students will learn in different modes. Students will learn on different timetables. Some parameters for learning are somewhat defined, but are malleable with appropriate context and support.
Degree of privilege	Economic status Race Culture Support system Language Experience	Students from low economic backgrounds, and representing races, cultures, and languages not in positions of power, face greater school challenges. Quality of student’s adult support system influences learning. Breadth/depth of student experience influence learning.
Positioning for learning	Adult models Trust Self-concept Motivation Temperament Interpersonal skills Prior knowledge and skills	Parents who actively commend education positively affect their children’s learning. Trust, positive self-concept, positive temperament, and motivation to learn positively impact student Positive interpersonal skills and “emotionalintelligence” positively impact student learning. Students may be advanced in some areas, not in others; this presents opportunity for teachers if they know how to compact and use grouping techniques.

Preferences	Interests Learning preferences Preferences for individuals	Student interests will vary across topics and subjects. Students will vary in preference for how to take in and demonstrate knowledge. Students will relate to teachers differently.

 

What Role Can Differentiation Play In Educational Transformation?
Many now recognize a new paradigm of reform aimed at excellence and equity that counters much of what has preceded, which was based on a “deficit model.” The conversation about what is effective for students must always be pushed to address the question, “Effective for whom?” Those characterizing lower student performance as reflective of diminished student capacity have set practices, policies, and power structures that have served to reinforce assumptions that essentially blame the student. Instead of asking what quality educational opportunities students have had, NCLB has attempted to document only educational outputs. Instead of exploring what barriers exist for students who are otherwise extremely capable of making progress, NCLB furthers assumptions about fixed capacities, IQ, and disparities of performance along cultural lines. Instead of inviting reflective dialogue on professional practice, NCLB has placed teachers, parents, administrators, and students on guard or in a defensive posture about performance. Barbour (2005) reaffirms that the shift from a deficit view of students to a problem-solving model based on formative data derived from interventions is optimal (p. 55).

Ironically, a deficit model helps to document the system’s own failure to meet the needs of students, or the system’s lack of responsivity, not simply the achievement levels of students.  The operating principle behind traditional methods of explaining the reasons for students’ lack of success is to project that something is wrong with the student. The vicious cycle for a student who receives ineffective, or inappropriate, instruction is that over time he is placed deeper into the “wait to fail” model. Eventually, students who cannot successfully access the general education curriculum end up performing as though they have a disability, when a deficit may exist due to repeated exposures to mismatched instruction, curriculum, and assessments. As cited earlier, CAST has posited that many students do in fact encounter significant barriers and experience variations of “curricular disabilities.”  This is not to say that all learning disabilities are the product of this type of process, but the logic and research behind Response to Intervention (RTI) models is to eliminate the effects of a “wait to fail” approach. 

The good news for teachers who pursue a differentiated instructional approach is that answering the questions asked by reformers is already in alignment with how they approach the needs within their classrooms. In other words, any metric created to measure the success of reform efforts for the entire educational system must have a way of honoring the roles, relationships, and realities that exist for both teachers and students. No effort at education reform or reformation of NCLB can rise above the quality observed in the learning environment at the classroom level.