Equitable Education

Equitable education, rather than equal education, must be an aim for all educators and the school system. Many educators have previously stressed the need to provide students with equal emotional and material support in order to ensure equal opportunities for all students. Educators of the 21st Century, however, are gradually realizing that equal opportunities do not necessarily ensure equal outcomes. Instead, equitable education, in which students receive and participate in differentiated and personalized instruction and assessment, is one of the most important features of an effective learning culture for all students.

Equal education assumes that if all students are given the same opportunities they will learn and succeed equally. Equal opportunity is supposed to mean equal outcomes. But assuming that all students learn the same way is counter-productive. Students do not learn the same way as each other. They have important individual needs and abilities which can only be effectively harnessed and promoted through equitable education.

Teachers asking students to do the exact same activity and expecting equal outcomes is unrealistic.
Source: http://staff.prairiesouth.ca/sites/kletnes/student-support/differentiated-instruction/

In an attempt to provide every student with equal education, teachers do not differentiate or personalize their instruction and assessment. Unfortunately, a consequence of non-differentiated learning is, what many educators refer to as, "teaching to the middle." Teaching to the middle implies that because education is not tailored to each individual student, teachers are forced to utilize only one approach to instruction and assessment. Their approach is often targeted to the average student in between the highest and lowest achieving students. Although the middle students are generally the majority, the higher and lower achieving students are consequently and inevitable left behind. Teachers do not adapt their instruction and assessment to the individual student, but instead teach to all students equally and hope at least the majority or the middle learn something. Non-differentiated instruction stifles learning and inhibits students from reaching their full potential. All students, especially higher and lower achieving, need differentiated learning in order to effectively address their own needs and abilities.

Differentiated learning was not a common attribute of any of my schools.  Only rare and exceptional teachers would recognize the problematic nature of equal education and strive to adopt differentiated instruction and assessment. For example, teachers would often manipulate the curriculum guidelines to allow students a choice in assigned projects. Students could choose between creating a scrapbook, doing a presentation or writing an essay. Although this allowed for some creativity, individual learning and encouraged students to understand their own educational needs and abilities, these projects only addressed a small portion of a significant problem.

Many teachers do not even attempt differentiated learning because they either do not understand its importance or they choose the easier and conventional approach. My grade 12 history teacher was an extreme advocate of equal education. She did often give of choices between assignment formats, but during lectures she delivered the same content in the same way to every student. Each student was expected to copy and memorize her notes on the board using the exact same format (i.e. underline the title, highlight the key words, use point form). Although her objective was to give students equal opportunities to learn, the reality of her instruction was detrimental to student learning. Students who did not learn using this approach usually lost concentration or simply gave up trying to understanding. Those who did learn this way were often bored and even neglected because she was preoccupied disciplining the "misbehaviours." Therefore, non-differeniated learning does not only stifle learning for those who simply do not learning that way, but it also neglects those students who desire more. Ironically, by trying to teach everyone equally, most students lost touch with the content and did not actually learn.

Instead of blaming students, teachers must acknowledge their role in ineffective teaching and learning.
Source: http://nicholasmeier.com/2013/07/20/differentiated-instruction/

Equitable education acknowledges and prioritizes students' individual needs and abilities through personalized instruction and assessment. Educators utilize differentiated instruction and assessment, also known as DI, to create equitable education for their students. DI refers to personalized and differentiated instruction (content and lessons) and assessment (feedback) which is tailored to each student. DI fundamentally incorporates "student voice and choice in [the] process and product" of instruction and assessment as students play an essential part in creating and maintaining effective DI. (76)

Establishing learning goals and success criteria for students is an important part of DI. It is essential that teachers and students co-construct learning goals and success criteria in order to ensure participation and accountability from both of them. Teachers and students must co-construst these goals and criteria so they both "have a clear and shared understanding of what is expected in a demonstration of the learning." (76)

Learning goals are "short statements that encapsulate the K(now)D(o)B(e) of a lesson, learning cycle or unit of study." (76) Teachers and students mutually create learning goals or aims and filter them through required curriculum to understand the KDB. Their purpose is to determine the KDB of a lesson so that teachers and students can understand the expectations of the content prior to instruction and assessment. Learning goals allow students to recognize and comprehend what the teachers expect of them and what they should expect from themselves.

Success criteria "explicitly outline the "look fors" to achieve the learning goal." (76) Teachers and students co-construct an outline of the success criteria in "student-friendly language [in order to] make learning and successful achievements transparent and attainable." (76) Instead of teachers solely creating rubrics in order to summatively assess students, teachers and students co-construct an outline of how students can be successful and effective learners.

Differentiated learning in practices requires administrator-teacher-student connection and collaboration as well as creative and innovative approaches to instruction and assessment. The Mesquite Elementary School in Arizona, United States implements differentiated instruction as one of their core and most important approaches to instruction and assessment. Mesquite's DI program is called "Reteach and Enrich." The principal of Mesquite explained "Reteach and Enrich" as giving "students an opportunity to be retaught skills that they did not learn... [They] made sure we had a time in the day where if students did not master the skill that was previously taught, [they] gave them time to master that." Teachers of the same grade level work collaboratively to create an objective for each week and "at the end of teaching that objective, [they] would give a formative assessment... And based on the results of that formative assessment, [they noticed] if students have mastered that concept or not mastered that concept." At the end of each week, the teachers of the same grade level got together again and divide students between those who mastered the concept and can move on to enrichment and those who did not yet master the concept and had the opportunity to be retaught. The teachers agreed that whichever teacher had the best formative assessment results would work with the reteach students while the other teachers would rotate between the enrichment students.

A Mesquite student named Erica expressed her perspective on this differentiated instruction. She said: "I think reteach is kind of nice because if you don't understand something, you won't go on until you understand it so you won't be confused with anything else. And the teachers do help you."

Calvin Baker, the Superintendent of Mesquite's school district, supported reteach and enrich by stating, "When we hold students accountable for very specific standards and we expect all of them to know that standard then we hold ourselves accountable for getting that job done."

Mesquite Elementary is effectively practicing differentiated learning through their Reteach and Enrich program. Administrators and teachers collaboratively share ideas and strategies to best approach DI. Students are instructed in innovative ways and given opportunities to be retaught concepts they did not immediately master. Students are also consistently rotated between teachers in order to offer them a wide variety of instructional approaches.

Differentiated instruction and assessment is an essential approach for teachers in order to ensure equitable education for students. Teachers and students must co-construct learning goals and success criteria to encourage student participation and accountibility in their education. By offering students the opportunity to learn with personalized instruction and assessment, teachers will meet students' individual needs and abilities and create an effective learning culture.

Emily RS