Time to Meet Your Maker... Model

There is one good reason why every high school in Australia should have an iPad or laptop program for every student: differentiation.  Not only does this technology provide opportunities to support every learner in the classroom but they make implementing a differentiated curriculum that much easier.

For those educators who have been living under a rock for the past couple of years, differentiation is

“the recognition of and commitment to plan for student differences. A differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquire content, to process or make sense of information and ideas and to develop products. The goal of a differentiated classroom is to maximise student growth and to promote individual student success.” (Tomlinson 1999)

In essence, differentiation is ensuring that you modify:

•  what you teach
• how you teach it, and
• how the students show you they understand

for every student. While this may seem daunting, it is something teachers naturally do every day in the classroom. From a slightly more complex question to a small extension task, these are great examples of modifying the curriculum to suit a particular student’s needs and abilities.

Recently I started an online PD about differentiation in order to get more skills in this area. One of the models of differentiation they used was the Maker Model and I used it this week to teach my Year 7 English class film analysis skills. Essentially, the Maker Model focuses on:

• Content – varying the level of abstraction and complexity of concepts covered
• Process – giving students alternative methods to complete tasks as well as different types of graphics organisers
• Product – allow students to demonstrate mastery through a variety of forms
• Learning environment – student-centred and flexible areas that encourage independent learning

Using this as a template, I tried to design a lesson where my best kids could push themselves to deeply analyse the ideas and techniques behind the film we were studying while also providing my lower ability kids with the chance to successfully write an analytical paragraph. In terms of content, the Maker Model helped me focus on the bigger concepts behind the film as well as the task. So rather than just add more clips for my better kids to analyse as I might have done, I tried to choose clips with different themes that showed different aspects of the message of the film. While each student had to write an analytical paragraph, I used the process and product elements to really differentiate what I was doing. Hence, I had students completing everything from 1 properly structured paragraph through to mini-essays. Thus, rather than have my better students finish early and become bored, I was able to keep them on task and occupied for the whole lesson. Importantly too, it pushed them to make connections between the themes and film techniques and hence engage their higher order thinking skills in a meaningful way. Finally, I was able to utilise the student laptops to allow them to work individually or in pairs to view the clips and type their responses.

In terms of the actual lesson, it turned out to be a success. My introduction and explanation of the task definitely needed work, especially in distributing the tasks (which I could have used the laptops to do), but once the class got started they were quiet and on task for the whole lesson. I really enjoyed the opportunity to work more one-on-one with the lower ability students as well as seeing the higher ability kids embrace the challenge I set them. In particular, two students who usually get all their work done but I don’t really extend all that much, were a little surprised when I gave them the mini-essay task but were animatedly talking and writing for the whole lesson. Moreover, they asked more questions than usual and I was able to teach them some new technical terms that I wouldn't cover with the rest of the class. On the other end, all my lower ability students produced an edited, structured, analytical paragraph and were beaming with pride because they had completed all the class work. So all up, every student was engaged and on task for the whole lesson as they developed their film analysis skills.

The important thing for me from this experience was that using a structure like the Maker Model made my differentiated class more focused and effective. Sure, I have been differentiating my lessons for years, but the Maker Model helped me see my lesson content and procedures in a new light and thus be able to better tailor my differentiation for my own purposes. It is a model I will use to plan differentiated lessons in the future and I think it is definitely worth a try.