e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates
Differentiated Learning (Admin Update 9)
Differentiated Learning—where individuals and groups of students can work at a pace that suits their needs, and where data analyses allow that these processes are readily and conveniently managed by teachers. This ensures that all learners are able to make progress measured against common goals.
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Video 7a: Learner Differences in Old Classrooms and New
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Video 7b: Personalized Learning
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Video 7c: Valorizing Diverse Student Identities
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Differentiated Learning in Scholar
All Levels of Participation: Make a comment below this update about the ways in which technologies supporting differentiated instruction can change the experience of learners. Respond to others' comments with @name.
Additional Introductory and Advanced Participation: Make an update introducing a differentiated instruction concept on the community page (not your personal page - because only peers will see that!). Define the concept and provide at least one example of the concept in practice. Be sure to add links or other references, and images or other media to illustrate your point. If possible, select a concept that nobody has addressed yet so we get a well-balanced view of differentiated instruction. Also, comment on at least three or four updates by other participants. Differentiated learning concepts might include:
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Personalized learning
- Adaptive learning
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Learner diversity - classifications, profiles
- Learner diversity - pedagogical design and management
- Learning (dis)abilities
- Localized learning
- Global learning
- Software for differentiated instruction
- Disability-specific tools
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Suggest a concept in need of definition!
Looking at this week's concepts related to 'differentiated learning', I wondered whether 'localised learning' is merely a synonym for 'differentiated learning' or does it describe a specific type of learning activity. I tried to look for references related to 'localised learning' and it seems to be interpreted differently by different people. For some, localised learning is the ability to take something like a national curriculum and adapt it in a way that is relevant at the local school level. For others, it seems to be about sharing of best practice or 'own learning' with others. Yet others, use it in the context of the the 'lifelong learner' and seem to use 'localised learning' as a synonym for 'ubiquitous learning'. Any thoughts or insights into this?
Once the e-learning environment is built as a constructive space of knowledge, in which everybody can make some kind of intervention and choose what is at the person’s best interest, it certainly supports differentiated instruction. As such, just like the experience we’ve recently had at Coursera and at Scholar, it absolutely changes our experience as learners, since we have the chance to choose what interests us the most and read about and work on it, avoiding spending time on things we do not care about. This way, we are all doing different things despite being in the same course and having the same assignment. In other words, the paths we follow, even though guided, are different and entirely our responsibility. As for what @Soraya Garcia-Sanchez said, it is very nice you are trying to adapt your teaching to what you believe to be students' needs and interests. Have you tried giving them a chance to choose and bring to class different materials so that you can develop ESP with them? My point is that, even though you are trying your best to reach them, they are still (as a group) doing the same thing. Therefore, is that differentiated learning?
As it has been mentioned in the videos, e-learning ecologies have the ability to make differentiated learning much easier to manage. Differentiated learning may be implemented in several ways: differentiated pace, differentiated path to a set goal, and differentiated goal. This course gives an example of such implementation. I am wondering what are other forms of implementation in existing e-learning tools and ecologies, and what might be worth implementing in the next generation tools/ecologies. What are your experience and thoughts about it?
This has been a welcoming Mooc for my summer holiday brain. I have learnt from your comments, questions and responses, while I have also been thinking about my very different learners. I say this because I teach Esp courses in Higher education and I do try to adapt these courses not only to the specific syllabus but also to the learners' needs and the competences they have to perform. So, in English for telecommunications engineering, for example, I focus on different content and skills that intertwine with other subjects in the degree. It is interdisciplinary. Different is also my course plan, the assessment and the tasks for learners enrolled in English applied to social work. In all the cases, I do try to combine language production with knowledge creation, ITC and communicative abilities. It is hard work to plan an entire course with all this in mind, but I think it's possible to allow at least one important task for diverse identity and differentiated learning. I totally believe in allowing learners to have some freedom to choose, research, create and represent their work in the most engaging learning scenario. Thanks everyone, and especially, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, for these challenging but nutritious 8 weeks. I have kept my thoughts fed with quite rich comments and suggestions to make learning more effective and a total success. Best wishes!!