Jason PHAN
Centre for English Language Communication (CELC)

Jason takes us through the challenges and strategies involved in implementing ability-based differentiation in a university writing course, balancing student diversity, community, and resource constraints.

Phan, J. (2025, Oct 29). Ability-based differentiation: Balancing diversity, community and resources. CTLT Teaching Connections. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/teachingconnections/2025/10/29/2025-jphan/

 

A. The Differentiation Conundrum

It is easy for educators to see the value of differentiated teaching for diverse learners. The difficulty lies in the execution, which poses a conundrum. This can be seen within Tomlinson’s description of the differentiated classroom: one that “honours and adapts to learner variation while building a ‘team of learners’ who work together to benefit outcomes for the group and each of its members and around curriculum that is designed to be relevant and engaging.” (Tomlinson 2017, p. 13).

Breaking down this description, we can see the need to manage three potentially conflicting elements:

1. Diversity: Students can vary in significant ways, including their interests, abilities and learning styles. Consequently, teaching that is optimal for some learners may be less effective for others. To accommodate this diversity, Tomlinson advocates that educators differentiate content, process and product.
2. Community: There is value in fostering a community of students learning together – supporting, challenging and complementing one another (Lichtenstein, 2005; Tinto, 2003).
3. Resources: Educators have limited time and energy. Likewise, the learning resources they can provide are finite.

A high degree of differentiation risks diluting the community. For example, highly personalised learning plans may reduce robust communal learning. This also causes immense strain on educators as they have to juggle a wide range of learning activities and create a vast pool of supporting resources.

In this essay, I shall reflect on my attempt to balance these elements in AY2023/24, as the lecturer for UTW1001T “How Rich Should Anyone be? The Ethics of Wealth Inequality.” This is a topic-based University Town writing course, with the objective of developing thinking and writing skills. The average class size was 16 students, who were mostly first-years from a wide range of majors and largely new to the course topic. The total enrolment was 64 in Semester 1 and 47 students in Semester 2. While I differentiated the learning experience based on both student interest and ability, I shall focus on the latter due to space constraints.

 

B. Ability-based Differentiation

My students began the course with different levels of ability. For this discussion, I shall focus specifically on their general critical thinking ability. Differentiating learning for them calls for intentional design, not ad hoc accommodation (Tomlinson, 2017; Heng & Fernandez, 2017). My overarching strategy was to emphasise inquiry instead of content, and to facilitate self-directed learning (Renzulli & Reis, 2008). An overview of my approach is depicted in Figure 1 below:

 

I designed the class activities around questions, instead of theories and concepts. For instance, instead of directly teaching prominent theories of distributive justice and their associated concepts, I presented the questions they are addressing, such as “When, if ever, is inequality just?”, and “How should we decide what is the right wage?” I then helped my students to appreciate the puzzles embedded within these questions and guided their search for satisfying answers. In the process, I introduced relevant theories that deepened or opposed their views. The theories were not the learning goals; they were the means to facilitate active learning (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Lockhart, 2002). Ultimately, these activities served the course objectives by motivating students to use and cultivate critical thinking skills. Figure 2 below shows the outline of an inquiry-based class session.

 

This inquiry-based method has an advantage in facilitating differentiated learning compared to a didactic, content-focused approach. In the latter, the instructor directly presents the theories, their strengths/weaknesses, followed by their applications. However, even if the pace is comfortable for the majority, the learning is less efficient—everyone would have to follow the pace and the instructor’s scheme of explanations, although they could learn better by proceeding at a different speed or through a different way. When the focal questions are pitched at the right level, students of varying competence levels would be meaningfully engaged, even as they progress at different speeds.

Here a major challenge arises: students are to learn as a community to reap the benefits of collaboration and mutual support. Even if everyone is meaningfully engaged, how do we facilitate productive interaction between the faster and slower students? Ultimately, differentiation must be accompanied by integration—both within and beyond class meetings.

 

C. Integration

My strategies for integration are summarised in Figure 3 below:

 

Maximise inclusivity

• While the classes were inquiry-centred, they were certainly not spontaneous, free-flowing discussions. Every session had a clear direction and activities to facilitate collective contribution. For example, to draw contributions from weaker students, I found brainstorming, asking for examples and analysing concrete practices particularly effective. These are either more relatable, or do not involve a single correct answer, thereby encouraging diversity and subjectivity. For example, when exploring the ethics of markets, we started with price-gouging, which most students had strong opinions on, compared to theoretical arguments by Robert Nozick. Similarly, when we examined the structural causes of social stratification, weaker and less confident students were forthcoming when asked questions like, “Where do your close friends come from, and why is that the case?” On the other hand, the analysis of more abstract arguments tended to elicit more responses from advanced students.
• Instead of responding immediately when a question is raised, I found it useful to collate the students’ questions/comments before leading the class discussion. This allowed me to organise the pace and coherence of the discussion. I would select student responses that reflect a range of ability levels, and scaffold learning by addressing basic questions before the advanced ones. As such, discussions were heavily moderated to maximise inclusivity.

Identify progress and process components

• I would indicate when a response was especially insightful so everyone would have a better understanding of what counted as an advanced comment. This signaled substantial progress in the inquiry and also helped in students’ self-assessment of competence. Clarifications and supplementary explanations were given to make it easier for other students to grasp the idea. I then showed how the response fits within the overall discussion—for example, it could be a subtle conceptual distinction that ultimately undermines a premise of the argument. The aim is to have most students appreciate the point, even if they may not be currently capable of independently coming up with it. To support a growth mindset, I broke down the skills/techniques needed to think at the advanced level and provided targeted practice, within and beyond the classroom.

Magnify the impact

• I constantly looked for opportunities to scale up the impact. For example, by sharing with all my classes examples of outstanding ideas (Figure 4 below) or common pitfalls. This was done through class sessions, our course blog and several annotated samples for independent learning. Depending on what was appropriate, I gave credit to the students or ensured anonymity by using work from a past semester (e.g. common pitfalls).

 

D. Evaluation

I begin with relevant data from the past two semesters of the NUS student feedback report (Table 1).

Table 1
Data from the NUS student feedback report

 

Given the high response rates and positive scores, these perception surveys indicate that a large majority of the class benefited from the course. The standard deviation for these scores were low, suggesting that the perception was consistent (compared to faculty averages of 0.7 to 0.8). This is despite the course difficulty being rated 3.6/5, compared to the faculty average of 2.9 and 3.0 in the academic year. In terms of qualitative feedback, many respondents found the course stimulating and rewarding. For example:

 

Beyond perception surveys, there was a distinct improvement in the quality of students’ work. In both semesters, the average score for the final assignment (submitted in Week 13) is about 2 marks (of a total of 100) higher than the average for the first assignment (submitted in Week 5). Both assignments are similar in nature, although the final assignment is far more demanding—600-word and 1500-word argumentative essays for the first and final assignments, respectively. However, other factors may have contributed to the progress, such as additional effort invested by students since the final assignment constitutes 35% of their grade compared to 15% for the first assignment.

As I employed these differentiation strategies right from the first iteration of this course, I am unable to compare these results with a semester without these strategies.

 

E. Reflection

In summary, a good balance can be achieved by combining differentiation with integration. However, educators may face different constraints. For example, I find it difficult to foster a vibrant learning community. This is because the main assignments, which I have limited control over, are difficult to fit into the communal learning ecosystem. This course is part of CELC’s University Town Writing Programme, which has a standardised set of assignments for all its courses. The final assignment is a good illustration. It is a 1500-word argumentative essay that showcases the interest and weeks of thought invested by the student. However, its readership is probably a total of two—a peer reviewer and me. As students tend to proportion their effort according to the assignment weightage, most tend to be less engaged with low-stakes tasks that contribute more to communal learning, such as contributing comments on our course blog.

Consequently, it is easier for me to manage the diversity and resource aspects of differentiated learning, compared to the community element. Educators with larger class sizes may find diversity the stiffest challenge—customising learning for 500 students is far harder than 50 due to reduced time for individualised attention. Regardless of the difficulties, limited but well-managed differentiation is better than none.

 

References

Bonwell, C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. The George Washington University.

Heng, M. A., & Fernandez, L. (2017). Reexamining differentiation: Big ideas and misguided notions. In K. Tan, M. A. Heng & C. Ratnam-Lim (Eds.), Curriculum Leadership by Middle Leaders (pp. 104-124). Routledge.

Lichtenstein, M. (2005). The importance of classroom environments in the assessment of learning community outcomes. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 341-356. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2005.0038

Lockhart, P. (2009). A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form. Bellevue Literary Press.

Renzulli, J. S. & Reis, S. M. (2008b). Enrichment learning and teaching. In Enriching Curriculum For All Students (pp. 103-130). Corwin Press.

Tinto, V. (2003). Learning better together: The impact of learning communities on student success. Higher Education Monograph Series, 1(8). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237333638_Learning_Better_Together_The_Impact_of_Learning_Communities_on_Student_Success

Tomlinson, C. (2017). How to differentiate instruction in academically diverse classrooms (3^rd ed.). ASCD.

 

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Jason PHAN is a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication. Jason majored in journalism at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), then pursued graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Melbourne and NUS. He is drawn to philosophy because of its sublime ideas and questioning of dogmas. He likes journalism for its practical value of telling the truth to better the world. Teaching enables him to combine elements of both. It is the privilege of entering the mental home of a stranger, to help it flourish. From 2011-2021, Jason taught philosophy at the Singapore Institute of Management, and communication at NTU’s business school. His research interests initially revolved around rather abstract questions such as ‘What is morality?’ and ‘Do physical objects exist outside of the mind?’. However, the 2011 Occupy Movement got him thinking a lot more about issues of social justice. He is especially interested in the ethics of market exchanges and the nature of critical thinking.. Jason can be reached at jphan@nus.edu.sg.