Differentiation is good when we negotiate ways for students to
learn with students themselves. When we collaborate on ways to
learn and demonstrate learning, we build community, generate
buy-in, and help students enjoy and take advantage of their
natural curiosity and urge to imagine and create. However,
differentiation that involves students requires more of us than
offering a choice between teacher-designed pieces of work.
Differentiation that involves students requires more of us than
diagnosing a student’s weakness and prescribing the appropriate
intervention. Differentiation that involves students requires
students’ voices and efforts to make meaning of learning – it is
not a process of finding the best way for a student to memorize
or repeat what we adults consider to be important. In fact, when
we differentiate by ability grouping or academic tracking, we
are practicing a limiting, harmful sorting that diminishes our
society and its democracy by keeping all of our kids from
learning with and from one a