Dear teachers, today I will share how you can differentiate your physical and health education assessments. When you finish reading, please let me know if this was useful to you, and feel free to share how you differentiate your assessments. 

To explain in detail how we can differentiate through Content -Process-Product, I will take you through a thought piece about Differentiation made by Inosse Wilson Chavane – International Baccalaureate Chemistry Teacher from Mozambique. His thought Piece was developed, as one of the requirements for the conclusion of the Teaching Preparation Program (TPP), as a contribution to the study of good pedagogy practices. Instead of Chemistry, I shared Physical and Health Education examples. In the end, I shared 6 scenarios which you can use to differentiate your Physical and Health Education Lessons. 

Differentiated instructions by content

Happen when the teacher focuses on knowledge, consciousness, and competencies that learners need to acquire. Here, it is imperative to ensure that the learning goals are similar to all learners, or at least close. The teacher looks at the most suitable ways in which each student may access the key content.

In this way of differentiation, students can learn through reading independently or with a partner, reading cartoons or listening to them on tape, doing research or interacting with experts, taking part in group demonstrations, or having instructions in small-group. The other way of Differentiating by content can be in form of presenting the same content in diverse ways in the classroom. This can be done by showing students images of specific objects illustrating PHE concepts. These could be brilliant baby steps in teaching these abstract concepts.

Differentiated instructions by process 

Happen when the teacher focuses on the meaning of the content to the students. In order to achieve this level of differentiation, the knowledge of the student’s background (to the teacher) and interest (of the learner)  is essential, because this is the base data upon which instructions are premised on, what the learner best relates to. 

For example, when teaching shapes to students, it would be interesting for a student who likes sports, to give examples of objects related to sports (eg. rectangular for a soccer field, circle for a soccer ball, and oval for an American Football ball). 

The main Idea of Differentiating instructions by the process is to allow students to create a sense of the content that they are learning, this will allow them to transfer the knowledge from class to real life and vice versa. The most interesting thing about this differentiation approach is that students will tend to ask questions, test and learn from their mistakes.

In differentiated instruction by process, it is also important for the teacher to keep in mind that the speed of learning among students in the same class will be different, and support students in diverse ways.

Differentiated instructions by product 

Aim on allowing students to show their knowledge the best they can. This approach of differentiation aligns perfectly with the authentic assessment, meaning that it ensures that the students are able to showcase their learning premised on their interests, preferences, abilities etc. 

In addition to these three approaches of differentiation, there is also differentiation by affect/Learning environment. Here the main focus is the mental health of the students. It focuses on the student’s culture, feelings, disposition and others. (ASCD, 2011)

For example, before tackling a sensitive topic such as the human body or sexuality, it is critical to understand the student’s feelings about this, and the best way for this would be by looking at their background (eg. talking with parents).

Now looking at these 3 areas Content- Process – Product, you can reflect on your practices and see what you have been doing to help the learners with their needs. 

Now I will be sharing some examples of assessments in PHE that you can try in your teaching, try to allocate each example in one of the 3 areas we discussed above. 

Scenario 1 

At the end of the unit, we gave students a choice on how they will demonstrate their learning and the resource they feel comfortable with. Some of them used Bows, others did without external materials and others used ribbons. By differentiating resources we encourage students to perform with materials that facilitate them to demonstrate as much as they learn during the unit. 

The teacher used plickers to assess their students in different ways, but this time they mixed questions about the content they were covering ( striking and fielding ) and approaches to learning. They focus on their communication skills, so they were able to collect information and see where they (students) need help so that they can make sure to focus on this point in their future lessons. 

Scenario 4 

We gave freedom for the students to use resources of their choice to come up with a game. Some of them used hoops, others scops, balls, batters…) 

Scenario 5

Each student was assessed on the discipline that they were coached during the unit, so we had students doing Javelin, Long jump, High jump and discus.

Scenario 6

Write poetry related to your gymnastic routine, showing knowledge and understanding about all elements of gymnastics you have used in your routine. Give a unique name to your Poem.

You can do your poetry in different ways, written poetry, video, audio, a poster or a combination of two or more.

Ensure your poetry reflects your performance.

How to differentiate a summative assessment?

In 2019 we had a learning session with MYP coordinator Esther Nondi, and she asked us to write on green papers things we know, and on yellow paper things that we would like to know. So the green papers are mine and the yellow papers are my colleague’s papers. So I had to explain how to differentiate a summative assessment and how to align a summative assessment with the statement of inquiry. 

 Hope this information was useful, when it comes to differentiation it is always a challenge for teachers as we deal with different students every year, and this is one of the reasons that make us long life-learners. 

Inosse Chavane summed up his thought piece by giving us some recommendations: 

It is clear that differentiated instructions are a must in class. Differentiated instruction goes beyond teaching, it is a way of showing respect to students and recognizing the diversity of people and their cultures. Differentiated instructions aim to bring out the best in each student, ensuring that they are able to connect what they are learning with what they know.

Differentiated instructions are really a huge area to explore, making it very difficult to implement them to their fullest. Although the aim is to implement it to its fullest. It is recommended to start from the base {remember the base data mentioned earlier?}. Some of the things that we could start with are to find ways in which we could support students who clearly are behind. This will inevitably make us reflective teachers, meaning that we will start searching for strategies, learn more about the students and understand ourselves better.

Apart from that, things such as emotional support for students, understanding their needs, and building a solid relationship with the students will help in developing differentiated instructions skill.

Differentiated instructions are not a one-day practice, but a lifetime one.

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