Inclusion and Differentiation

Our unit is purposefully designed around the Universal Design for Learning framework, consisting of multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression through flexible formats (movement, pictorial, symbolic, technology, verbal, written, auditorily, sorting, various tiered formative assessments and many hands-on tasks) to reach all students, their diverse learner needs and their learning preferences, ensuring all students may access the learning outcomes.  Within our unit plan we recognize the importance for differentiation throughout our lessons. Each lesson is thoughtfully planned out and designed to meet the needs all learners.

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Students will be engaged through choice in being providing multifaceted approaches to the topics and curriculum to ensure an authentic, meaningful, and contextualized, learning experience. Students will be given many multimodality approaches by means of expression, representation, and engagement of their learning. This will create conditions of empowerment for students as they choose the method in which they can best process and demonstrate their learning, putting control and creativity back into the students' hands, promoting independence. Our unit plan also uses a variety of teacher directed and student-centered instructional approaches.

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Built purposefully into the unit are a wide variety of lesson structures and learning tasks that aim to offer multiple entry points for students of varying abilities to successfully engage. We have also included multiple approaches of teacher directed and student-centered instructional approaches and provided flexibility for various learning styles. These include:

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• Language and literacy learning

• Technology-based learning

• Gamified and Gamification learning

• Individual, partner, small group, and whole class learning

• Visual/artistic learning

• Hands-on learning

• Guided-Inquiry learning

• Experiential learning

 

An important consideration is equity vs. equality, as not all students learn the same, therefore learning tasks may not always look the same. All learners will be provided the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge to the best of their abilities with the necessary supports to do so.

 

Students will be engaged through choice:

• Various activity formats (written, visual, digital, audio, script, etc.): Students will choose how they complete their individual reflections (ex. written, visual, digital, script, etc.)

• Position to take and defend: Students will create videos/blogs representing their personal position in relation to the essential question (To What Extent….?)

• Workspaces: Students will be able to work in flexible spaces during activity times depending on individual/group needs (ex. desks, on the floor, in the hall, in breakout rooms, etc.)

• Students will be engaged through authenticity:

  • Personal reflections based on students' individual backgrounds and experience

• Students will be engaged by avoiding distractions:

  • Breakout room use for quiet and productive spaces

  • Multiple short activities rather than one long activity per class

 

We aim at getting students into their flow phase by allowing students to take on roles bigger than themselves, and opportunities to be playful and think creatively. This will be exemplified through the formative assessment component in creating a gamified class-wide locked room scenario and various puzzles/games that will be held during the school festival that simulates the timely importance of sustainability and global citizenship through the SDG’s, engaging on the power of play and playful discovery, while addressing core math and science outcomes.

 

We have also incorporated ongoing flexible groupings to reflect student/class dynamic and their learning and social needs, rather than the needs of the task. This promotes peer mentorship through balancing learner’s strengths, while addressing needs of advancing students.

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Throughout the unit and project, students will complete peer and self-assessment in constructive ways while meeting curriculum outcomes, task rubrics and personal goals. This will allow students to identify their areas of strength, learning challenges and areas for growth, while constructing personal goals that are intellectually engaging and meaningful. Through transparency, ongoing formative feedback, along with self and peer-assessment, students will plan goals for growth in areas of need and identify and utilize their own strengths within their flexible groupings. This group work dynamic will allow students to form a collective knowledge through building a sense of community where all students can contribute strengths, while developing students skills for personal development in areas of need.
 

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For struggling students:

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• Allow more time and resources in the different stages of learning: Concrete, pictorial, and symbolic, for struggling students to practice more before moving to the next sections.

• Provide time before, and after school for additional help/discussion.

• While circulating groups/individuals to assist individual needs, encourage a growth mindset with students who may engage in negative self-talk.

• Encourage frequent movement breaks can improve focus of students. Use the lesson overview as a checklist for tasks to be done will help students who struggle staying focused.

• Access to closed captioned videos, pictures and extra notes for all students

• Flexible groupings during inquiry for peer assistance

• Supporting students with diverse needs: 

  • Devote class time to revision

  • Provide ample time for students to ask questions to clarify concepts

• Scaffolding:

  • Incorporating UDL principles (multiple means of engagement, representation, action/expression) (CAST, 2010)

  • Multi-modal expression, representation, and demonstration approaches for teachers and students to ensure that students are assessed on their learning rather than their ability to communicate through one medium.

 

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For students who need a challenge:

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• Access to modified questions that are more challenging, and in-depth concepts for all students.

• Challenges to explore advanced problems/scenarios with varied technology for all students. This will focus on current real-life applications.

• Flexible groupings during inquiry for peer mentorship.

• Opportunities to further research a topic of interest related to the unit of inquiry. Rather than giving gifted students a larger quantity of work to do, ​teachers will allow them opportunities to delve into certain topics in greater detail or explore related topics of their interest, linking it back to the essential questions. 

 

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Accommodations:

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• Group and paired work opportunities with varied workspaces.

• Multimodal opportunities for students to showcase understanding- diagrams, charts, posters, websites, audio, video, written, visual, and through technological tools.

• Tools- computer access, word lists, check lists, graphic organizers, vocabulary lists, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and translation applications.

• For students that require additional supports for attention and memory, the brief documentation period prior to sharing with peers provides students with greater opportunities for re-engaging with material and more opportunities to transfer ideas and concepts into long term memory.

• The use of a visual schedule and timers can also aid students struggling with attention and memory with time management. Visual reminders for key concepts and tasks may also be displayed on a board to act as a reminder or focus point for student learning. 

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Modifications:

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• Varied assessment benchmarks, consulting individual IPP and ELL files for guidance.