Differentiation

Differentiation is about accommodating differences in your learners' skills, knowledge and experience so that they each receive the appropriate degree of support and challenge. A particularly powerful Internet-based process that can be adapted for different learners is a 'webquest'.

Webquests are structured research activities for learners that use the Internet. You provide them with an outline that includes:

  • a motivational introduction to the task
  • a description of the task
  • a description of the sites they will access and guidance on what to do with the information they collect
  • how their output will be evaluated; and
  • what you expect them to have learned by the end of the activity.

You can personalise webquests to suit individuals' needs by:

outcome different learners use the same webquests but produce results at different levels
task different learners have the same webquests, but the tasks within the webquests are graded at different levels
level within your group, some learners do webquests that are straightforward, others more complex and so on
interest you devise more than one webquest in response to learners' differing interests
support learners can work individually or in groups, with varying degrees of tutor support.

Malcolm took his art group to visit the local art gallery. The members of the group had very different responses to the works on display. Two or three people were very interested in the works of L. S. Lowry, while another was taken by a work by Richard Dadd. For the following week, Malcolm developed webquests that enabled each learner to identify key facts about the life of the painter they were most interested in and report the outcomes to the rest of the group.

Links

For ideas and practical help on how to make the most of e-technology, click here: Further development

You'll find an online generator for webquest creation at
New browser window: www.aclresources.net/webquests
or
New browser window: webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html

For information about the structure of a webquest, plus examples of completed projects, go to
New browser window: www.webquest.org
or
New browser window: www.webquestuk.org