Personalisation of the Curriculum in English

1. Personalisation of the Curriculum in English Sharyn Stafford Frensham

2. What is differentiation? …teachers response to variance amoung learners in the classroom… ‘The key to the differentiated classroom is the flexible use by teachers of a wide range of activities and lesson organisations’ Jane Spilman

3. Where to start? Consider… • Student readiness • Student interest • Learning profile… find out all you can or gather your own data.

4. Personalising the curriculum involves… • Qualitative not quantitative • Multiple approaches • Student centred • Blend of group configurations • Careful planning • Flexibility

5. Qualitative not Quantitative …not about the amount of work given to students but rather putting students in a learning environment in which students can achieve learning… • not busy work • not extra work • not easy work – but work that is just a bit challenging, just beyond them.

6. Multiple Approaches • Content…What they need to learn and how to get access to information? • Process… What activities will they be engaged in to master the content? • Product… What will they produce to demonstrate learning/apply/rehearse/extend learning? • Learning Environment… How does the classroom work and feel?

7. Student Centred • Allow students to think for them selves • Stop doing all the talking. • Allow students to discover concepts independently at their own pace. • Engage them and allow growth in all learners • Neither too easy or too difficult but challenging.

8. Blend of Group Approaches • Whole class… has its place and gives a sense of community and common understanding. • Small groups… like minded, same ability, one leader and a few learners, random…various reasons for each depending on the task. • Individual instruction… personalised and less threatening.

9. Careful Planning • Pre-test…You need to know what they already know… can take the form of pen and paper, learning conversation, questionnaire etc. …Gather all the data you can… • Assessment has to be ongoing and tightly linked to instruction…can just be observation, tick a box, self-evaluation, short conversation/speech or formal ‘product’ …evidence of learning… • Classroom environment and how you establish what will occur… e.g. I always select groups, no one has to worry about who will work with them, who they will sit next to etc. …set the tone, rules, respect, foster resilience and risk taking…

10. Flexibility • Teacher flexibility…organisation, moving students up, down and around depending on mastery…Do not pigeonhole students. • Student flexibility… acceptance of others, resilience – ‘I cannot be amazing at everything’ ‘If I cannot do it I will try another way…’ etc. • Classroom configuration, be flexible…

11. Challenges… • Time • Dependent on policy of faculty, school • Quality of… • Access to student information • Not to pigeonhole students • Students need to be taught how to work in groups, pairs etc. • Goldilocks - either too easy or too difficult • Can be difficult to explain what you are doing and why – esp. to students.

12. Ideas… • Program formats • Modify assessment tasks • Establish pre-testing as routine • Set up systems in class – polywics, wide reading journal, email work, group configurations that suit certain tasks, alternate tasks, more challenging choice of tasks, modified tasks (support students) • Others ?

13. Contact Sharyn Stafford sharyn.stafford@bigpond.com