What do we do in the classroom then? If we're going to throw away those generic readers, which everybody reads the same story. And we're going to do all this stuff which is more sensitive to learner differences. How are we going to do that? And I'm going to name this discussion Differentiated Literacies Instruction. But you'll see in a moment that I've got a bigger definition of that meaning than the one that's normally applied. So differentiated instruction means, okay it's self-paced. You're on page 84 of the textbook, and you're on page 126, and we call that differentiated instruction. Well, it's not, really, because it's the same darn textbook. So we have a number of low-level descriptions of what differentiated literacies instruction is. But what I want to do is I want to talk about a deeper level of differentiation. And I want to start with, I've got five ideas I want to run through, I want to start with the idea of design as the first idea. So do you remember, earlier on in this series of videos I introduced the idea of meaning as design? So here's the contrast between traditional literacy pedagogy and a design focused version of literacy pedagogy. Traditional literacy pedagogy said, look, here's the correct grammar, here's the correct spelling, you learn it. Okay, and some kids failed as we were saying a minute ago, because there was a gap between what the school was telling them and what their actual experience was. And here is a great work of literature and you'll read it and you'll appreciate it. All right, so this is a kind of a traditional model of literacy. Kind of a transmission model of literacy learning. But also one where the business of becoming literate, which is learning to appreciate literature, and learning to become a good writer is simply a matter of learning certain rules and conventions, which you're being told, okay? So, it's a kind of a replication model. We'll tell you what's right, you learn it, you repeat it, that's the kind of model. Now the designing idea is this, that when I make a meaning, which is I'm speaking or I'm writing, or even by the way when I interpret a text because that's another form of making meaning. What I'm doing is I am designing, so let's take writing as an example. So I've got to write, let me say I've got to write a piece of geography, for example. I'm doing something about the natural environment in a geography test and sustainability, or geography text and sustainability. So what I have in the world is, I have out in the world the available designs which is how to write a report, and I've got a whole pile of sample text, a whole pile of information. And then what I do is I take that raw material of these available designs, and I don't just repeat it, I don't just get it right, I do designing. I write something, I put in some images, I build a text. And you know what, even though my design resources, which are the model of how to write a report, the information I've got. Even though those are all available in the world, when I rebuild those and recombine those things, I am rebuilding the world, I am designing. And what comes out of that which is the next step is the redesigned. Which is a text, which perhaps other students will read. So it goes back into the world as another design but that text is unique. It's never been written that way before. It's never been thought that way. And part of the reason why it's been redesigned in this way is you brought something of yourself into this. You've had selective interest. You found things that attract your interest. You've, from your own experience, found a way to voice what's being said. So in a way, what you've done is you've injected something of your identity into that process of mini-making, this process of representation. Now, what does that mean? That means that in this regime of deep differentiated literacies instruction, not the superficial stuff. That in this regime deep differentiated literacies instruction. That what I'm doing is that I'm creating a space for the students to express their own voice, to be their own selves. And right across the class, particularly, certainly if you allow the student to choose their own topic. But even on one topic, you will find this amazing variety, which you wouldn't find in a ABCD grammar test, other than differences in scores which are irrelevant because you're measuring them against the same thing. So in other words, what we're doing is we're creating kind of a model of literacy learning. Which incorporates voice and allows the sum of the components of available design, which are created in designing are greater than the individual components that went into them. That's something about infusing identity and voice and literacies experience into that process. So that's one idea. The second idea is multimodality, and one of the things about multimodality is if we allow students to express their thinking in multiple modes, in fact, some kids may be better at writing. Some people might be better at drawing. Some people might be better at make a great video, some people might be better at speaking, and that thing gets put up as an audio file, we might put all those things together. In fact switching between modes means that if you're slightly better at one than the other, the combination actually helps you improve the whole lot. So, multimodality is also a way for catering for a range of ways of thinking and ways of expressing yourself. The idea that I'm expressing here is a little bit like Gardner's multiple intelligences notions. So the traditional intelligence notion was that intelligence is generic, it's all the same. His idea was there are these different kinds of intelligence and some learners are better at some things than others. Well, I'm kind of, in an analogous way, making an argument about mutlimodality, which is some modes of expression are more comfortable for some learners than others. And by expecting them to do a variety, it means that we're pushing them into both their preferred and their less preferred modes. Put them together, and their less preferred modes will get better along the way. But the entry point depending on your preferred mode, there's a wider range of entry points, is really what I'm saying. So that's the second point. In the third point, I want to come back to a knowledge process idea which we discussed earlier in the In the course. And the knowledge processes idea is one where we have these different ways of making knowledge about the world. There are different activity types. And some of these activity types explicitly ask you to bring in your own experience. In other words, connect your own world with the world of the school. So experiencing the known, for example, explicitly says that, bring in a text that you're familiar with. Describe something that you're familiar with. And when we go to experiencing the new, that's only in that Vygotskian zone of proximal development. It's a relationship to experiencing the known. That's one example. Another example is, in these terms of these knowledge processes, is applying appropriately or creatively. Take it back to the world, do something, communicate something. Do something which goes back in to your social world, in to the community of your classroom. So although some of the knowledge processes are about forms of activity which don't so directly connect with everyday experience. Life, cultural differences, conceptualizing by naming, conceptualizing with theory. The classic academic modes of thinking. These other ones are about making explicit connections with the differences in the life worlds of all the students in the classroom. So we need to build pedagogies which have a variety of activity types, and a variety of experiences, which connect deeply with the learner's own life world experiences, and bring those life world experiences into the classroom. Fourth now is alternative navigation paths. And classically, the universe of alternative navigation paths is the world of, in the new digital world it's the world of adaptive learning environments, personalized learning environments. You can go at your own pace. In fact, pre-digital era, I remember the SRA, Science Research Associates box, this new-fangled reading scheme which was brought into my classroom as a kid. And what it was, it was a big box, where there are different colors, and you read one card by another, different reading levels. So you went through the brown level, and the green level, and the orange level, and you went at your own pace and you worked your way through all those cards. So the idea of having alternative navigation paths is not that old. The thing is that in these digital environments, that is much more manageable. So in other words, you can have everybody in the class doing things which interest them. And relating in small groups to others who are interested by the same thing. You can have them progressing in their own pace, and it's manageable around these digital information systems which we now have. So building alternative navigation paths is another very important thing we can do to differentiate our learning. And the final thing, the fifth thing I want to mention here, is something that I call creating a learning environment of productive diversity. So what I mean by that is that if you got kids working on a project together, this kid's very good at doing the diagrams, this kid is very good at writing something up. They allocate the tasks and what becomes valuable in the group is the differences of styles of thinking, skills, experiences, networks, contacts. And the work they do is very much enriched by not the sameness of the group, but the differences amongst the group where those things are shared. Another example, a classroom where students are bringing in all these different life experiences and articulating them is a rich environment because the other students are getting exposed to these other knowledges, identities, experiences, histories, and they learn from that. So in other words, what's happening is the value with the class is actually this productive use of diversity. It's not just a deficit, a deficiency, something that we've gotta get over in order for that student to catch up with that student. It's actually about those differences being valuable. Everything that everyone in the class brings to the table adds to the value of the learning. So, these are a set of five ideas which actually have, in my sense, a deep shift in pedagogy away from standardized, generic one size fits all, architecture of sameness type learning environments.
