79. Creating Differentiation in Assignments Efficiently

Brittany 0:05

Hey everyone, welcome back to the teaching toolbox. I'm Brittany here with my always insightful and creative co-host Ellie.

Ellie 0:28

Oh, thanks. Hello.

Brittany 0:32

Today, we're exploring a topic that can truly transform your teaching: differentiation. And we're not just talking about big, time consuming strategies, we're breaking down simple, efficient ways to differentiate assignments and lessons without doubling your workload.

Ellie 0:51

Yeah, because no one wants double the workload. Teachers are already stretched thin, so today we've got practical, realistic ways to meet students diverse needs without spending hours reinventing the wheel. Today we'll focus on three key areas: differentiation in note taking, because not every student learns best through traditional notes, differentiation in lesson activities, so every learner is engaged, and differentiation in homework, so students have meaningful, accessible assignments. And the best part, these strategies work for any grade level and any subject. So let's jump in.

Brittany 1:30

So let's start with note taking. We know that note taking is one of the biggest ways students process and retain information, but here's the problem, just like Ellie said, not every student takes notes effectively.

Ellie 1:45

That is for sure. Research actually shows students who take notes strategically retain more information. In a study from the Association for Psychological Science, students who summarized key points and made connections between concepts performed better than those who just copied information verbatim. But here's the thing, most students don't naturally know how to take notes that way.

Brittany 2:11

Which is where the differentiation can come in. Instead of assuming all your students can listen, process, and write down notes in the same way, try offering different approaches. Guided notes give students structured outlines with key ideas and blanks to fill in. This is great for students who struggle with organization, so you provide the organization and give them blanks to fill in. Cornell notes are a method which encourages students to summarize, ask questions, make connections. Studies show Cornell notes improve long term retention, but these would be your kids who are definitely more organized and structured themselves, who can handle pulling out the big information and the little information themselves. Sketch notes are for visual learners who may do better with concept maps, doodles, symbols, instead of traditional notes. Some teachers even let students create one pagers to summarize their content. And then, of course, there's lots of digital options. Some students process better by typing instead of handwriting. Apps like one note, notability, and Google Keep allow students to organize notes in a way that makes sense for them.

Ellie 3:32

And then we also have audio and video. Some students, especially those with learning differences like dyslexia or ADHD, benefit from recording lessons and listening back later. Others might prefer a flipped classroom model where they watch videos at their own pace and pause to take notes in a way that makes sense for them.

Brittany 3:53

Exactly. And differentiation doesn't have to be overwhelming. Just offering students a choice in how they take notes can dramatically improve comprehension in your classroom. Let's think about a few quick strategies to make this differentiation fairly easy to implement. First off, if you can give students a choice, and they can choose writing, recording, watching a video at their own pace, or taking their own notes, that's fantastic.

Ellie 4:22

Yeah, my daughter has auditory processing disorder, and this did not happen when she was in middle school or high school, but when she was in college, she was able to have the lectures recorded, you know, and she could take notes during the lecture, but it was also being recorded, so then she could re-listen to the lecture at her own pace and clarify anything that was in her notes. However, if audio or video are not possible in your classroom, how else can you differentiate the written notes fairly easily? When we think about guided notes, you could add some sentence starters or key terms to students' notes pages. Some students struggle with where to begin so providing some sentence starters or a list of key terms can help them focus on the essential ideas and not feel overwhelmed. So again, it gives them a little bit of an outline.

Brittany 5:10

And even if you aren't using sketch notes or doodle notes or math wheels, you can help students implement color coding and highlighting. Students can use the different colors for main ideas, supporting details, and examples. Or anything related to a specific key term can be the same color, and this kind of color cue helps them categorize and retain information more effectively. And since students all think a little bit differently, the things they highlight or color code will be a little bit different from their peers. With any of the written notes, you could allow some peer note sharing time or collaborative notes. Some students benefit from comparing notes with a partner or working on a shared digital document where everyone contributes key ideas. This helps to make sure they don't miss critical information. My daughter actually took - she's in a very difficult class this semester, herpetology, and the professor gave out the study guide for the final on the first day of class, and it's basically just a series of questions that you have to know. And so my daughter took that document and made it digital,

Ellie 6:28

okay,

Brittany 6:29

and put it in Google and made everyone in the class an editor, and so everybody can contribute ideas to it, and they can all tackle the notes together.

Ellie 6:42

Oh, wow.

Brittany 6:43

And so they can all help each other pass the test.

Ellie 6:46

Oh, that's fantastic.

Brittany 6:47

Yeah. So, and although harder to implement for hands on learners, you can use foldables, flaps, interactive elements to make note taking more engaging. But these physical tools, although they help reinforce concepts and make reviewing notes more interactive, they do take a while to cut out and set up and get going in those students notebooks.

Ellie 7:11

I'm just kind of having a thought, as we're talking about taking notes in different ways, I could hear someone saying, you know, but I want my kids to all have exactly the same information, like, if this one does audio and this one does video and this one does this, how are they all going to have the same information? And that's a valid thought. So I'm thinking, you know, if you do decide that you need to have students have all of the same written information, then maybe some of their homework could be to take the time to color code, to take the time to put it into a different format, like, I'm going to take my notes and I'm going to make an audio recording of what was in the notes so that I'm reinforcing and understanding it in a different way. Or, like, writing down those connections, or things like that that maybe they didn't get to do in class, that could be part of their homework assignment, to transfer it into some different ways to learn, put it into the digital document, that kind of thing.

Brittany 8:07

Yeah, that's a great idea. Or that peer sharing time, you know, you group a kid who took the visual notes, the sketch notes, with a kid who took the Cornell notes, and you have them exchange and -

Ellie 8:22

Yeah and one last idea for something teachers can do as we present information, is to chunk the information and allow some time for pause and process. So if you've got that time during class, instead of having students take notes continuously, you could build in some short pauses to allow them to summarize what they've just learned, kind of like a think pair share type of thing, and that helps students digest information in manageable sections, and it can give them a little time to just go back and look at what they wrote and be sure they actually understand what they wrote. Okay, moving on to some lesson activities. This is where differentiation can make learning way more engaging.

Brittany 9:00

Absolutely. Traditional lectures, whole class discussions work for some students, but if that's the only way we deliver content, we're losing a big chunk of our learners.

Ellie 9:13

Absolutely. Studies show that students remember only 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, but 75% of what they actively do, and that comes from the National Training Laboratories. I'm sure that most of us have heard something along those lines before. So instead of one size fits all lesson, you can differentiate by offering some small group work. You can give students different tasks based on their skill level. Struggling students might work on foundational skills while advanced students tackle deeper analysis. You could use choice boards. These allow students to pick how they engage with a topic, such as creating a podcast, a storyboard, or a short essay, so they're self differentiating in that case. You can try some hands on activities. Kinesthetic learners thrive with movement, so role playing, not my favorite, personally. Experiments and simulations can make abstract concepts click. You can bring in some real world connections, like guest speakers. You can try virtual field trips or project based learning to show students why the content matters. And then tiered assignments, instead of giving every student the same worksheet or task, you can create different versions based on complexity. All students work toward the same learning goal, but some may have more scaffolding, while others go deeper with critical thinking.

Just as a side note, I gave my kids Tic Tac Toe chores this week.

Nice.

It was a choice board, but they had to make Tic Tac Toe by choosing the chores.

I like that.

One easy way to save time when creating tiered assignments is to put all of your questions on one page, then allow students to choose the ones they'll answer. So you could have basic level questions on level questions and advanced level questions all in the same assignment, maybe three or four of each question type. And then have students choose three to five questions to answer, and that way they would self differentiate, and you would only be creating one assignment. You could also use AI to generate two or three different versions of an assignment.

You could even take that same worksheet and say, you guys are going to do these questions. You could specifically assign the questions to students if you didn't want them to self-differentiate. So a couple options there. You can use learning stations or centers. They're another great way to differentiate lessons. If you set up different stations around the classroom with varied activities. For example, one station could focus on problem solving, another one on technology based learning, another one on hands on activities. Students can rotate and engage with content in different ways, and not every student has to do every rotation. So it's not like they all have to do all of them. In my math classes, we did centers for almost every unit, and we had a mix of question types, problem solving, review, lots of different types of activities. Once you have a variety of resources on hand, then it's very easy to differentiate in centers.

Yeah and another way you can differentiate in centers is you can go up to a student and say, you know, I only want you to do the odds in this center. Or, you know, I want you to pick six problems in this center, to do.

right, right,

and makes it very simple. Another easy to implement strategy is to use think pair share with a twist. Instead of a traditional discussion, have students engage with the material at different levels. Some may draw their understanding, others may write a summary, some may explain verbally - this allows for multiple ways to process and share learning.

We've already talked a little bit about notes and such but we can touch again on scaffolded graphic organizers. Providing different types of organizers depending on the students needs. Some might need a simple main idea, detail, format. Others could use a cause and effect or compare and contrast layout. And again, this can be applied in notes or in assignments and lesson activities and any place you might use a graphic organizer. We talked all about scaffolding way back in episode two with our good friend Leah. So if you want more scaffolding tips, give that episode a listen. And you can use game based learning with interactive reviews. You can use platforms like Gimkit, Kahoot, or Quizziz.

I've never heard it pronounced.

It's just, you look at the word and I'm like,

Oh yeah,

to reinforce concepts in a fun way. You can also turn review activities into escape rooms or scavenger hunts to get students more engaged.

And don't forget about other ways to use tech. Tools like Nearpod, Pear Deck, Flipgrid allows students to interact with lessons in different ways. Whether through polls, videos, collaborative discussions - there's lots of ways to integrate tech into your lessons.

Great points. The goal is to keep students actively engaged in learning, rather than just sitting and absorbing. The more ways we present material, the more students we reach. And honestly, if they're moving, just movement helps their brain to be more engaged.

Oh yeah, definitely. All right. Last, but definitely not least, we have homework. Homework differentiation is so important, because not all students go home to the same environment or the same resources.

Exactly, so how can we make homework more accessible and meaningful? We already talked about ways to differentiate lessons, and some of these strategies are perfect for homework assignments as well. We can have choice based homework, where we let students pick from different assignments based on how they learn best. They could write an essay, create a video summary, or even explain a concept to a family member and then reflect on it. They can have tiered assignments where they give different levels of complexity based on student readiness. For example, all students might analyze a short story, but some might focus on plot summary, while others might do a deeper thematic analysis. And we could have real life applications for our homework. We could have students apply what they've learned in real world ways, like budgeting their weekly expenses in math or interviewing family members for a history project or applying for a job. And some students have after school jobs, family responsibilities, or learning differences that make strict deadlines stressful, so consider giving extended deadlines or multiple due dates. Have those flexible deadlines for kids.

And all of this differentiation doesn't have to mean more grading for you. You can use rubrics, self assessments, and peer reviews to lighten the load while keeping students accountable.

Love that. The goal isn't more homework, it's better homework that actually helps students learn. So to recap, differentiation and note taking gives students multiple ways to process information. Differentiation in lesson activities keeps students engaged with hands on collaborative learning. And differentiation in homework ensures assignments are meaningful, accessible, and adaptable to student needs.

And the best part is that these strategies don't need to take a ton of extra time. They take a little bit of a shift in mindset. Doesn't mean that they won't take any extra time, but the best question to ask is, you know, how can I most effectively and most quickly get these things worked into my routines? A little flexibility goes a long way in making learning more effective for all students.

So that's it for today's episode of the teaching toolbox. If you found this helpful, be sure to subscribe, share with a fellow teacher, and let us know what are your favorite differentiation strategies?

Until next time, keep teaching smarter, not harder.

Bye.