Week 7: Practicum Reflection: Individualization and Differentiation

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I am going to break, slightly, from my plan for this week (which was supposed to look at the second week of Module 2) and address differentiation and individualization in my online course. I will still provide some reflection on the end of the second module at the end, but I want to focus on some questions and feedback I received during the reflection process.

Individualization and differentiation are two things that are important to incorporate in our various courses. Differentiated learning is a process where instruction is tailored to meet the learning needs of students, whether that is through the subject matter, the learning process, or through the learning environment. Individualization is more about student pace in the course to help students meet their educational goals. To put it in simple terms, differentiation is the "how" and individualization is the "when" with regard to student learning. This post will focus on a couple (but not all) of the things I do in my course to provide a great learning experience for my students. *** Note - while I understand the differences between individualized and differentiated learning... I am combining them in this blog for simplicity sake ***

What I Cannot Do In the Collegiate Setting

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As I begin this discussion, I want to first touch on what I cannot do. While I really do not like to dwell on the things that I cannot do, it is important that I present the differences in what I cannot do in my learning environment, even if others can do these things in their learning environment. Throughout this program, I have learned a lot of different things about online instruction and design. This program is designed to teach to a variety of learners in different professions. There are collegiate instructors, primary and secondary school teachers, and business leaders in this program. This program seeks to educate all these different people and push them through their journey in online instructional design. This means that all of us will take the information we can use and apply it in our courses where we can and when it most benefits our students. I am a college science professor and microbiologist. That is how I must approach instructional design, while keeping adult learners in mind. With all of that being said, there are things that I simply cannot do.

A common practice in primary and secondary school instruction is to provide an individualized and differentiated learning environment. This can mean alternative assessments and individualized learning plans. This is great for students in primary and secondary educational settings. This follows federal laws and is permitted in the learning environment for those levels of education. The collegiate setting is very different... even with the federal laws. There are no such thing as individualized learning plans and ALL students, regardless of learning style and disability, must be assessed the same way. As college professors, we cannot give students different assessments to choose from and different grading criteria based on learning preference or disability. Everyone must have the same exam, labs, and so on. Let's put it this way... even a student with a severe disability must be assessed the same exact way as a student who does not have disabilities. We can only use accommodations granted under ADA and documented through a disabilities services center at the college/university. For example... if a student has a learning disability that makes it difficult to read and understand questions, they can only (as an example) be granted more time on an exam (such as time and a half) or a separate testing location. They cannot receive a different test, help on that test/other assessments, or leniency on those assignments. They still must have the same questions on the test and be graded in the same way. This is a huge difference from primary and secondary school where the accommodations can be more extensive and can include (in extreme cases) alternating a grading scale.

Image Credit: lifehacker

Another big difference in higher education versus primary and secondary school is that an individual chooses higher education and chooses the major they want to pursue. If a student has difficulty in one subject area, they can move to another area that fits their abilities. In higher education, the student chooses where they best learn. If a student chooses math or science, but struggles with math and science, then the student must work to find how they can best learn that information. The student can stay in that field, but they must learn the information or fall behind. In college, we must move forward and cannot slow down or simplify the information because it is too complex. It is science and math... complex is its nature. In the end, the student is responsible for their own learning.

In the end, the student must use their strengths to learn the material from what is given. Let's think of a learning example that just about everyone encounters: Driving. While some people learn better visually, auditory, or via read-write learning styles... in the end the individual must learn to drive kinesthetically. There is no other option. If you are not a kinesthetic learner by nature, you still have to learn that way. The difference for most people is motivation. If someone really wants to learn something and they feel like that learning will benefit them, they will learn it. Why do most people succeed in learning to drive a car but do not succeed at hands-on lab work? Both require kinesthetic approaches. A lot of the time it is drive and motivation. You may learn best by one learning style, but in a lot of cases, you must still utilize all other learning styles to learn all the information required of you.

Audio Lecture w/ Captions
Image Credit: P. Williams

What I Can Do In the Collegiate Setting

With all of that being said, there are things I can do to help my students. I can do a lot of different things in my courses to help the student learn. I can teach material to different learning styles, provide a variety of different assessment types throughout the course to help student demonstrate their progress in different formats, and a wide array of other methods to help my students.

By collegiate standards, my courses are highly individualized. In my courses, I offer a lot of different ways to learn information. While I cannot give different assessments, I can offer different ways for my students to learn.

Differentiated Content

Flash Cards
Image Credit: P. Williams

One big aspect of differentiation is offering content in a variety of ways for different styles of learning. All the material in my course is presented in multiple formats for students to learn using their preferred learning style. Lets take the content (traditionally referred to as lecture material). I present the material to be learned by the student in multiple ways. For students who learn best visually, I provide diagrams (with me describing them step-by-step), notes, study guides, and other materials that will help them. In addition, for the students who are better at learning through auditory means, I provide self-narrated videos and lectures, animations, lab technique demonstrations, Mp3 mini-lectures, and so on. For the kinesthetic learner, I provide activities and games on the lecture topics, lab simulations, and virtual activities to help them (a couple of the images above demonstrate some of these methods). In the end, each of the students must learn the same material and take the same assessments, but I provide a large array of material for different learners to use. 

Tiered Learning and Assessment

Another aspect of differentiation in my courses is through tiered learning and tiered assessment. There are a variety of ways this can be done in a differentiated classroom, but here is how it is approached in my online courses. Tiered learning is an approach in differentiated learning that allows students to work on material as it builds to greater complexity as the course proceeds. This allows students to have some personal choice in the direction in how they want to tackle a topic. This is also a form of individualization. It allows the student, to some degree, go at their own pace. Students that need more time on one area, can spend time learning that aspect of the topic while others can move forward. In essence, my course is designed this way, but there are some deadlines (biweekly due dates).  Although all my course material can been seen as tiered by definition, it is clearly evident in the lab portion of the course. 

Lab Setup for Unknown Lab
Image Credit: P. Williams 

My labs are designed to end in a culminating experience. The student apply all the techniques they learned throughout the term to build to a final lab. In this final lab they identify an unknown bacterial species. All the labs throughout the semester are designed to be smaller aspects of the large culminating lab at the end. It is almost like practicing before the big game to perfect your skills. The students work through the material at their own pace (with some biweekly deadlines for submission of labs) and work toward the more complex activities. While the students have deadlines for certain labs, they can continue to improve their lab skills by working through the labs until they master a particular skill. It is not all or nothing... students can improve through practicing skills (especially those in which they are struggling). The students can work at their own pace through the labs and keep learning and building on their experiences throughout the semester. This is a key aspect of individualized learning. Students who may struggle can get additional support on their topic, while a more advanced learner can move on to a more advanced topic. 

I am also a firm believer in allowing students to "retry" some of their work to demonstrate mastery. This is especially important in the labs and goes along with the tiered learning component of differentiated learning. It is also an important aspect of individualization in a course. This allows the students the experience to retry an assessment to improve throughout the term. I truly feel that we learn by repetition and providing a students a chance to demonstrate mastery really helps with learning.

Wrap Up

While this is just a small piece of the different types of individualized and differentiated learning experiences offered to my students, I hope that it provides some insight on some of the important instructional design techniques I provide to my students in my online courses. While there is always room to improve, I believe there are lots of different options for students (of all different learning styles) in my courses. I will always seek to improve my courses where needed and will continue, even after this program is over, to provide students with the best experiences possible.

As for the course's timeline now. We are in week 2 of module 2. The week is running smoothly and students are progressing through the material and working hard on mastering all aspects of the course.  As always, I am responding to student questions, offering help (video, audio, and text) on the course material where there are questions, and managing the virtual labs as the students work through them. It is a busy week and staying on top of it is a never ending job. I look forward to next weeks' reflection when we will be starting module 3 and I will be do more grading for the courses.

Now that the practicum is almost to mid-term... here's to the coming 8th reflection next week.

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