Impact of Differentiation on Student Engagement

When teaching elementary students, teachers face the challenge of getting students to be authentically engaged in the content. Tomlinson (2012) argues that differentiation in the classroom can help to engage students by ensuring that content is at their level, process meets matches learning profile, and level of support is appropriate to their ability. Differentiation is a way of recognizing and teaching according to the different readiness, interest, and learning profile of students (Tomlinson,2008). This self-study sought to explore the impact of differentiation on student engagement. Lesson plans, field notes, student surveys, student work, summative and formative assessment data, and anecdotal records were collected from a second grade inclusive classroom to investigate the impact of differentiation on student motivation and engagement. Findings indicate that differentiation of process, content, support, and assessment increases the likelihood that students will enjoy the learning activity and fosters authentic engagement in students. The students responded well to this instructional strategy and demonstrated authentic engagement and intrinsic motivation.