Moving from 'differentiation' to 'adaptive teaching'

Over the past few years, ​‘differentiation’ has become an increasingly unpopular term in teaching. Most likely, it was an unintended consequence of an accountability system that incentivised teachers to ​‘prove’ they were differentiating by generating multiple worksheets or by organising mini-lessons for different groups.

In a helpful document entitled, ​‘Differentiation – Why and How?’, NASEN capture some of the problems:

The possible danger behind this is that it may lead to a lowering of expectations, particularly when in-class groupings are permanent e.g. ​‘the bottom group’ receives a different task to everyone else, regardless of the particular needs or aptitudes of the pupils in this area of learning. The provision of ​‘unnecessarily elaborate’ approaches is not considered to support the learning and progress for the majority of pupils; this means that, for example, the practice of providing three levels of task for every lesson, with different worksheets etc, would not be appropriate. [1]