ABSTRACT
Traditionally, ‘Differentiation by Outcome’ is regarded by teachers as an openended task that is given to all children. The children then attempt this task in their own way and at their own pace, thus allowing for varieties in learning styles and abilities. A common example is the worksheet approach where teachers give the whole class the same worksheet and expect some children to complete it well, some to manage to complete it and others to do just a part of the work. The result of this is that all reach different learning outcomes. For instance, if a comprehension sheet is given to a class, those who complete just one question, those who complete five and those who complete ten questions have all gained different amounts of knowledge from the set piece. What teachers tend to do to overcome this is to adjust the difficulty of questions with the easier questions at the beginning getting harder as they go through. Assessment exercises such as SATs are in this format.
