QUE STION
1
1.
Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding what the authors
suggest about basing learning on student interest?
a.
Teachers should develop lessons that attend to all students’ interests all the
time.
b.
A student's interests are static, not changing over time.
c.
All lessons must be interest focused.
d.
When teachers know both their students and content well, they have many
opportunities to link what matters most in a topic to what matters most to the
learners.
QUE STION
2
1.
Which of the following scenarios best illustrates what the authors mean by
flow?
a.
Johnny was so absorbed in the assignment that he couldn't believe it was
already lunch time and wants to come right back to finish it after lunch.
b.
Mr. Jones transitions from math class to language arts smoothly and with
minimal disruption.
c.
Ms. Davis plays students’ favorite radio station in the background while they
do assignments.
d.
Betty multitasks smoothly with at least two tasks at a time.
QUE STION
3
1.
What two types of student interest do the authors describe?
a.
Neuroscientific and Individual
b.
Thematic and Situational
c.
Situational and Individual
d.
Individual and Thematic
QUE STION
4
1.
Which of the following is TRUE about the connection between learning
readiness and student interest?
a.
Students who are interested will likely remain interested if the content is well
beyond their academic ability.
b.
Students who are interested will likely remain interested if they've already
2 points
2 points
2 points
mastered the content.
c.
Students who are interested will likely remain interested if the content is at
their appropriate challenge level.
QUE STION
5
1.
The authors discourage sidebar studies because they distract from the core
curriculum.
True
False
QUE STION
6
1.
In a paragraph of 4 to 5 sentences, develop a new example of how you might
use expert groups to address student interest in a particular unit of study.
•
Question 1
Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding what the authors suggest
about basing learning on student interest?
Selected
Answer:
d. When teachers know both their students and content well, they
have many opportunities to link what matters most in a topic to what
matters most to the learners.
Answers:
a. Teachers should develop lessons that attend to all students’
interests all the time.
b.
A student's interests are static, not changing over time.
c.
All lessons must be interest focused.
d.
When teachers know both their students and content well, they
2 out of 2 points
2 points
2 points
have many opportunities to link what matters most in a topic to what
matters most to the learners.
•
Question 2
2 out of 2 points
Which of the following scenarios best illustrates what the authors mean by flow?
Selected
Answer:
a. Johnny was so absorbed in the assignment that he couldn't believe
it was already lunch time and wants to come right back to finish it
after lunch.
Answers:
a.
Johnny was so absorbed in the assignment that he couldn't believe
it was already lunch time and wants to come right back to finish it
after lunch.
b.
Mr. Jones transitions from math class to language arts smoothly
and with minimal disruption.
c.
Ms. Davis plays students’ favorite radio station in the background
while they do assignments.
d.
Betty multitasks smoothly with at least two tasks at a time.
•
Question 3
What two types of student interest do the authors describe?
Selected
Answer:
c. Situational and Individual
Answers:
a. Neuroscientific and Individual
b.
Thematic and Situational
c.
Situational and Individual
d.
Individual and Thematic
•
Question 4
2 out of 2 points
2 out of 2 points
Which of the following is TRUE about the connection between learning readiness
and student interest?
Selected
Answer:
c. Students who are interested will likely remain interested if the
content is at their appropriate challenge level.
Answers:
a. Students who are interested will likely remain interested if the
content is well beyond their academic ability.
b. Students who are interested will likely remain interested if
they've already mastered the content.
c. Students who are interested will likely remain interested if the
content is at their appropriate challenge level.
•
Question 5
2 out of 2 points
The authors discourage sidebar studies because they distract from the core
curriculum.
Selected
Answer: Fals
e
Answers: True
Fals
e
•
Question 6
Needs Grading
In a paragraph of 4 to 5 sentences, develop a new example of how you might
use expert groups to address student interest in a particular unit of study.
Selected As a teacher, I would address student interest using an expert group by for
Answer:
instance, proposing a list of subtopics to them, and ask if any of them would
like to volunteer to make a class presentation to their peers about one of the
topics from the list their interest is inclined to. This will give the students an
opportunity to select and act on their interests. To be more particular, I would
present a list of sub-topics from the topic "The Development of Humanism in
England". The subtopics would be "What is Humanism", "Major contributors to
the development of Humanism in England", and "Impact of Humanism in
education". Students would be allowed to select a subtopic of their interest and
collaboratively work with peers who also the same interest so that they make a
presentation out of it to present to their peers in class
CHAPTER 6
Differentiating in Response to Student
Interest
It is wasteful to teach someone who is not interested and so is not motivated…. It is not enough for the information
to be clear and rational; it also has to be interesting. Learning has to be engaging and rewarding for students to
learn.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Kevin Rathunde, and Samuel Whalen
When teaching is often equated with preparing for standardized tests, it would be easy to conclude student interests
have no place in the classroom, unless a student happens to be interested in some portion of the prescribed agenda.
Research, our own personal experience, and classroom observation, however, indicate student interests are anything
but tangential to learning (Amabile, 1983, 1996; Bruner, 1961; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Walkington, Milan, &
Howell, 2014). Student interests are conduits to motivation, relevance, and understanding. They even affect whether
a struggling student will remain in school or become one of the increasing number of dropouts. One study asks
nearly two thousand adolescents why they left school (Gould & Weller, 2015). Although students drop out for
numerous reasons, more than 46 percent say the two main reasons are they did not find their classes (1) interesting
(25.9 percent) or (2) relevant to their lives (20.3 percent). (See figure 6.1, page 122 for the other top two reasons.)
Regrettably, that percentage has barely changed since the 2006 survey we describe in this book’s first edition
(Bridgeland, DiIulio, & Morison, 2006), and continues to be one powerful message from students that educators
cannot ignore. And yet, many teachers do largely ignore student interests, failing to link what students care about
with the curriculum they feel responsible to teach.
Source: Gould & Weller, 2015.
Figure 6.1: Top-four reasons students drop out of high school.
A Case in Point
Mr. Waymer felt pressure coming from all sides to raise student scores on the end-of-year standardized test. He had a sense
of racing to a finish line that was coming exponentially faster at him and his students every day. He worked hard to make
his lessons as efficient as possible. He aimed for, and generally achieved, a high level of time on-task in his mathematics
class. He could not help but notice, however, that a number of his students, while cooperative, were lifeless in his class.
Philip did what he had to do to make Cs in the class because to do less was to incur endless lectures at home and the
likelihood of being grounded. Suzanna paid attention but looked at her watch a lot. Andre slouched and frequently did not
complete either classwork or homework.
One day, as Mr. Waymer tried to enlist his students’ attention to a new topic, he said, “OK, folks, listen up. This can be
tricky, but it’s really, really important for you to understand.”
From somewhere along the right side of the classroom came the comment, said softly and to no one in particular, “Yep.
Gonna make us all better people.”
Attend to Student Interest
Interest refers to a feeling or emotion that causes an individual to focus on or attend to something because it
matters to that individual. Topics, events, or instances interesting to a person draw and hold that person’s attention.
They evoke curiosity or result in fascination. They occupy a person’s thoughts, typically in a pleasant way, but they
can cause concern. They result in a person’s concentrating on the elements of interest and screening out other
elements.
Attending to student interest in a classroom is certainly a catalyst for learning, and yet it’s much more than that.
Interest-based instruction suggests a teacher’s desire to capitalize on those things students care about to facilitate
learning and help learners discover who they are and who they aspire to become (Kallick & Zmuda, 2017). Ensuring
a focus on student interest in learning clears the way for young people to pursue creativity, make sense of the world
around them, establish or extend a sense of purpose, grow in agency, and feel a sense of control in life
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2013). Attaching important content to student interests builds bridges between the student
and essential knowledge, understanding, and skills—and the student’s present and future. Therefore, effectively
differentiating instruction in response to student interest should not be an occasional add-on, but an imperative.
Differentiation based on student interest rests on the following four keys.
1. Interest recruits the brain’s attention systems and stimulates cognitive involvement.
2. Any group of students at a given time is likely to have both common and varied interests.
3. When teachers know and address their students’ interests in the context of curriculum and instruction, students
are more likely to engage with the content.
4. Attention to student interests can focus students on essential knowledge, understanding, and skills while
simultaneously opening broader horizons of learning.
Differentiating instruction based on student interest does not suggest a teacher should develop lessons that
attend to all students’ interests all the time. It does not suggest that a student’s interests are static. It does not suggest
all lessons must be interest focused. It does not suggest essential content take a backseat to student interests.
What interest-based differentiation does suggest is when teachers know both their students and content well,
they have many opportunities to enhance teaching and learning by linking what matters most in a topic or discipline
to what matters most to learners. Seen in that light, differentiation based on student interests has great potential to
enhance learner efficacy and academic outcomes. For example, in a middle school mathematics unit on linear
equations, students who worked with problems differentiated by interest outscored control students who worked
with undifferentiated problems. The stem or core of the problems students worked on did not vary; rather, the topic
or domain of the stem was varied by student interest (such as music, sports, art, games, and so on). The greatest
achievement advantage occurred for students who typically struggled with mathematics (Walkington et al., 2014).
Since about 2013, and perhaps as a reaction to a nearly two-decade emphasis on highly prescribed curricula
designed to raise student test scores, there has been a significant focus on what is called personalized learning.
Although, at this point, the definition of personalized learning remains fuzzy, a number of instructional approaches
classified under that umbrella (such as problem-based learning, project-based learning, and inquiry) intend to
increase student voice in curriculum and pursue questions and topics that reflect their interests rather than expect
them to generally or always adhere to the requirements of curricula designed with little attention to student interests.
These approaches align with the intent of interest-based differentiation.
Why Student Interests Matter
A sizable and long-standing body of theories and research indicates interest-based study is generally linked to
enhanced motivation to learn and increased long- and short-term achievement (Harackiewicz, Smith, & Priniski,
2016; Hébert, 1993; Renninger, 1990, 1998; Tobias, 1994). For example, various theorists and researchers propose
the following about interest-based study.
• Leads to greater student engagement, joy in learning, productivity, and achievement (Amabile, 1983, 1996;
Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; DeCaro, DeCaro, & Rittle-Johnson, 2015; Torrance, 1995)
• Generates a sense that learning is rewarding (Amabile, 1983, 1996; Collins & Amabile, 1999;
Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2013; Sharan & Sharan, 1992)
• Contributes to a sense of competence, self-determination, and autonomy (Amabile, 1983, 1996; Collins &
Amabile, 1999; Sharan & Sharan, 1992)
• Encourages acceptance and persistence in the face of challenge (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013; Csikszentmihalyi
et al., 1993; Fulk & Montgomery-Grymes, 1994)
• Contributes to a positive, student-focused environment (National Research Council, 2000)
• Contributes to a culturally relevant classroom for students from non-majority backgrounds by allowing them
to construct meaning, beginning with their own experiences (National Research Council, 2000)
• Promotes positive connections between student and teacher (Willingham, 2009)
• Outweighs a student’s perception of his or her mathematics ability in encouraging pursuit of advanced
mathematics coursework (Cribbs, Hazari, Sonnert, & Sadler, 2015)
Experts also note the use of choice, novelty, and prior knowledge can help students who do not have strong
personal interests in a particular academic context engage with important content (Harackiewicz et al., 2016; Hidi &
Anderson, 1992; Hidi & Berndorff, 1998). For instance, when students are encouraged to pick reading material of
interest to them, it enhances their academic engagement and outcomes (Carbonaro & Gamoran, 2002).
In addition, researchers note when students find cognitive tasks interesting and satisfying at an early age, they
are more likely to persist in seeking cognitive stimulation as they develop (Gottfried & Gottfried, 1996;
Harackiewicz et al., 2016; Neitzel, Alexander, & Johnson, 2008). Similarly, young people who enter adolescence
with strong interests are more likely to make the journey through adolescence successfully than those students who
do not have strong personal interests (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993).
Further, learners who experience flow—or a sense of such complete absorption that time passes quickly when
they are working in a particular area—are likely to develop successively more complex skills in that area because
doing so promotes continued satisfaction (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993; Csikszentmihalyi et al., 2013); Teachers are most
effective in helping students find flow when they communicate high expectations with clear standards, support
student efforts, are passionate about their content areas, and plan to take advantage of students’ interests and talents
(Whalen, 1998). It is important to note the connection between readiness and interest. It is unlikely work will remain
interesting to a student if it is well beyond reach or already mastered. Thus, work that interests students will
necessarily be at an appropriate challenge level for that student (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013; Csikszentmihalyi et al.,
1993; National Research Council, 2000).
Students who find cognitive tasks interesting and satisfying at an early age are more likely to persist in
seeking cognitive stimulation as they develop.
Neuroscience and Interest
Cognitive psychologists tend to describe interest in learning as a set of behaviors a person displays when
involved in an activity. These behaviors include increased attention, greater concentration, pleasant feelings of
applied effort, increased willingness to learn, and free engagement with persistence, energy, and intensity.
Psychologists also describe the following two types of interest (Rounds & Su, 2014).
1. Individual interest refers to the ongoing individual preference for a particular subject or activity. This interest
develops slowly over time and leads to increased knowledge and skills, appreciation, and positive feelings.
Examples include a person’s love of playing a musical instrument, delving into astronomy, or writing
computer code.
2. Situational interest occurs when certain conditions in the environment elicit positive feelings, although it may
include some negative emotions Many of the behaviors researchers use to describe interest—especially
motivation—find support from studies in cognitive neuroscience as well. It is a more immediate reaction that
may or may not endure. An example is visiting a planetarium to discover how it replicates the night sky
indoors.
Both types of interest include a positive affective component, tend to specifically relate to content, and result
from the interaction of the individual with the environment. It is possible that individual and situational interests
themselves interact. For example, individual interest in a subject may help a student get past a boring presentation.
Situational interest in a topic because of a novel presentation may sustain motivation, even when the student has no
particular interest in the topic. In addition, situational interest may develop over time into individual interest. For
instance, reading teachers may use the situational interest a student has for a particular story to develop long-term
individual interest in reading.
The question arises whether interest is a separate mental entity or the result of behaviors that occur when an
individual is intrinsically motivated to learn more about a topic or skill. Neuroscientific studies have not isolated any
neural networks related specifically to a singular entity that defines interest. Nonetheless, many of the behaviors
researchers use to describe interest—especially motivation—find considerable support from studies in cognitive
neuroscience. Findings from these studies show high motivation leads to greater attention, curiosity, and increased
willingness to learn (Engelmann & Pessoa, 2007; Goldberg, 2001; Oudeyer et al., 2016; Raymond, 2009);
persistence (Vansteenkiste, Simons, Lens, Sheldon, & Deci, 2004; Vollmeyer & Rheinberg, 2000); and a greater
probability of remembering the learning (DePasque & Tricomi, 2015). High motivation leads to greater interest, and
high interest is intrinsically motivating.
A surprising finding about motivation comes from an imaging study concentrated on motivation to learn versus
motivation to gain a monetary payment (Mizuno et al., 2008). The results show motivation to learn activates an area
of the brain called the putamen (figure 6.2), and the higher the motivation, the greater the change in the signals
within the putamen. Monetary motivation also activates the putamen, but the intensity is not related to the size of the
monetary payment. The researchers make two conclusions: (1) the putamen is critical for motivation in different
domains, and (2) the extent of activity of the putamen may be crucial to the motivation that drives academic
achievement and, thus, academic success (Mizuno et al., 2008). One might also infer that the motivation a student
experiences when learning something interesting is more rewarding than a potential financial gain.
Many of the behaviors researchers use to describe interest—especially motivation—find support from
studies in cognitive neuroscience.
Source: Johnson & Becker, 2010. Used with permission.
Figure 6.2: The location of the putamen in each cerebral hemisphere.
Seven Themes for Addressing Student Interest in the Classroom
There are multifaceted and interconnected reasons to attend to student interest. At the very least, connecting
important content with student interests improves the learning environment, supports student attention and
engagement, provides a foundation for working with complex ideas and developing complex skills, supports
persistence in the face of challenge, creates a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in work, and builds a sense
of student agency or independence. In the end, these factors, singly and in combination, can significantly enhance
student learning.
We identify seven themes that can help teachers think about and plan for student interests in the classroom.
Each theme can draw on and contribute to student interest—that is, to sense-making, engagement, persistence, and
ownership. And each theme has a place in planning curriculum and instruction responsive to student needs and
differences.
1. “Hey, I’ve heard of that before!” Starting with illustrations and applications familiar to students is often
more interesting to them and can help them move from more concrete to more abstract, and from simpler to
more complex, understandings and skills (DeCaro et al., 2015).
2. “That sounds like my house!” It is useful for all students to see themselves in what they learn about. That
experience is more common, however, for students in the classroom’s majority culture. Administrators and
teachers tend to rely on the settings they grew up in—and the majority culture they were educated in—to
provide books, heroes, celebrations, ways of working, and illustrations that depict cultural or economic
contexts. Ensuring cultural relevance, fit, or familiarity for every student in a classroom casts a wider net of
interest and success.
3. “This stuff is cool!” When teachers know their content deeply, they can easily craft curriculum as a lively
narrative rich with meaning, surprises, intrigue, and stories rather than as a series of data bits and isolated
skills. When curriculum is designed to be interesting, it is more memorable for more students, not less so
(DePasque & Tricomi, 2015).
4. “Man, he’s an interesting teacher!” When teachers respond to both content requirements and student
interests by systematically varying the way they teach and the ways students can show what they know, the
class is much livelier and much more interesting to more students. More students succeed and, not
surprisingly, more students find learning interesting.
5. “You know, she’s really an interesting person!” When a teacher shares her own interests—beyond those of
the content she teaches—with her students, they benefit from a good model of a person with a multifaceted
life, and they can come to understand more fully how learning enriches life in all its aspects. If the teacher
then helps students see how she uses those interests to connect with and illuminate the content they share,
there is a dual benefit (Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015).
6. “This sounds like me.” Not every student is interested in mathematics or history or art or any other school
subject. However, every student does bring interests to class. Further, in the real world, content is interrelated,
not segmented in the way we divide it in school. Mathematics is highly relevant to sports, music, and politics.
History is a mirror of the street corner. Poetry is lyrics waiting for a musical score and it pokes at everybody’s
life. Teachers who grasp the power of student interest find critical moments to say, “Here’s the important skill
we’re practicing today, but you have a choice of whether to use that skill to address a problem in our school, a
dilemma in our country, or a scenario from the future.” Or they say, “Everyone needs to read a biography to
help us understand the characteristics of good biography. I’ve brought in biographies of athletes, actors,
scientists, villains, heroes, leaders, and inventors from many countries and time periods. I hope you’ll find a
book that links up with things you care about, and I’m going to ask you to make connections between the
book you select and your own experiences. I’m also open to you suggesting other biographies that seem
interesting to you.”
7. “Isn’t there some way I can learn about …?” Sometimes students bring well-developed interests to school
not reflected in the curriculum. In some cases, they have a deep hunger to learn more about those topics, and
school may be the only place or the best place to do so. A teacher who wants to extend the curiosity and
learning processes of such students finds ways to make space, give permission, and provide guidance for such
learning. At other times, students bring (or develop in class) questions that itch for answers. These, too,
provide opportunities for teachers to make room for student interests in the classroom and erase some of the
artificial segmentation of knowledge that often characterizes school. In both instances, strategies such as
anchor activities (tasks for students when they complete required work), inquiry centers, enrichment centers,
and independent investigations allow students to delve into areas or questions of personal interest.
The Role of Classroom Elements in Planning for Interest-Based
Differentiation
As is the case with readiness differentiation, differentiating in response to student interest has implications for
the five key classroom elements: (1) learning environment, (2) curriculum, (3) assessment, (4) management, and (5)
instruction. Most of the remainder of this chapter focuses on the role of instruction in effectively addressing the
diverse student interests that inevitably exist in a given classroom. Understanding those implications as well as how
the other four elements interact to support effective interest-based differentiated instruction enables a teacher to plan
more effectively and carry out those plans more efficiently.
Learning Environment
As we emphasize, an environment that is safe, affirming, challenging, and supportive to each student supports
learning. Teacher belief in each student’s worth and potential is a catalyst for teacher-student connections and
ultimately for building a community of learners that functions like a team—with each member drawing on the
strengths of the others and contributing to his or her development and success. Certainly, when a teacher seeks to
understand student interests and incorporates those interests into curriculum and instruction in substantive ways, it
enhances these important environmental attributes. In such an environment, students are likely to believe they matter
to the teacher, their interests and experiences have value, both their common and unique interests contribute to
learning, and their varied backgrounds extend the shared perspectives of the class. Further, an environment rich in
learning materials and opportunities—other likely attributes of a classroom that addresses student interests as one
facet of differentiation—supports academic, emotional, and social growth.
Curriculum
While prescribed standards significantly shape much of a curriculum, a set of standards is not a curriculum any
more than a sack of groceries is a dinner. How educators conceive, organize, and share required content knowledge
is the art of curriculum design. Clearly, the core goal of curriculum is to ensure students master essential knowledge,
understanding, and skills so they can not only retain but also apply and transfer what they learn. Nonetheless, there
is ample room for student interests in that goal, and designing curriculum with student interests in mind can
contribute to the goal in important ways. The truth of an essential understanding can be written in many ways.
Crafting the understandings in language that relates to the experiences of students is wise. Further, analogies often
activate information in long-term memory, thereby helping students grasp unfamiliar and complex ideas. Drawing
analogies from multiple areas of student interest simply enhances their power to illuminate—whether the teacher
generates them or calls on students to do so. In schools where personalized learning takes center stage, the emphasis
moves from a preconstructed curriculum (which teachers can and should weave student interests into) to a student-
and teacher-developed curriculum (which integrates essential knowledge, understanding, and skills).
A set of standards is not a curriculum any more than a sack of groceries is a dinner.
All quality curricula provide opportunities for students to try out, make sense of, or come to “own” the specified
essential knowledge, understanding, and skills. Enhanced learning will be most likely if, at least some of the time,
students can try out what they need to learn in areas of interest to them. Finally, quality curricula weave a narrative
—a coherent story that helps students understand concepts such as cause and effect, sequence, main idea and
illustration, and so on. Often, the story derives the greatest meaning by paralleling and drawing from the students’
own stories or the stories of people, places, events, and times that capture their attention. Levy (1996) talks about the
importance of steering the currents of student enthusiasm to the shores of the required curriculum. That is the
balance a quality curriculum achieves. Student interests in content contribute to, rather than detract from, what is
essential.
Assessment
Student interests intersect with assessment in at least three ways.
1. Preassessment is an important vehicle for beginning to understand what interests students bring to school with
them. Simple surveys give students a chance to share what they like to do in their spare time, what subjects
they find most interesting in school, or things they would like to learn about as the year goes on.
2. Similarly, formative assessment—both formal and informal—can continue to inform the teacher’s
understanding of what is interesting to students, both in general and in particular segments of study. Teachers
who consistently study their students and develop positive connections with them are well positioned to
connect student interests and experiences with content.
3. Develop both formative and summative assessments of content with student interests in mind. As long as the
unit’s essential knowledge, understanding, and skills remain the clear focus of the assessment, the
applications of those elements to various interest areas is legitimate and often advantageous in promoting
student engagement with the assessment and encouraging transfer of ideas and skills to varied contexts.
Classroom Management
Just as we saw with readiness-differentiated classrooms, flexibility is a hallmark of classrooms differentiated
based on students’ interests. Teacher and student comfort with the flexible use of time, space, materials, student
groups, and tasks makes it possible for students to draw on, pursue, and share different interests when appropriate.
This sort of flexibility also enables the teacher to work with individuals and small groups of students on interest-
focused tasks and applications, providing coaching on skills of inquiry—such as planning, using resources,
evaluating progress, collaborating, and revising—as well as required content.
Guidelines for Differentiating in Response to Student Interest
It should not be a surprise that some guidelines for planning and teaching with student interests in mind are
similar to those offered in chapter 5 (page 91) for addressing variations in student readiness. The following
guidelines make clear once again that effective teaching stems from a set of consistently implemented principles and
practices.
• Identify and articulate in student language what students should know, understand, and be able to do as a
result of the unit of study you will be differentiating. Conveying this information ensures you and your
students are clear about the destination everyone is expected to reach. Including student interests in teaching
and learning plans ensures more students arrive at the destination more readily. Even when the curriculum is
largely student constructed, there are still typically overarching expectations that guide a student’s work.
Finding problems, locating resources, using materials appropriately, planning, making sense and meaning,
discovering implications, working for quality, clearly communicating, and so on are not only relevant to
virtually every inquiry and product but also foundational to student development and should be explicit in
the thinking of teacher and students alike.
• Use a preassessment of student interests. This can be in the form of a checklist or questionnaire. Young
students or students who struggle with reading, writing, or learning a new language find it helpful if they
can respond to icons or images rather than words, audio-record answers, or give answers verbally and have
someone else write them down. The preassessment can take place early in the school year or at the outset of
a new unit of study. It can focus on the students’ personal interests or ask them which of the required topics
are most interesting to them, or both. Figure 6.3 provides a sample interest survey.
Figure 6.3: An interest survey for students.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
• As a way to connect with your students, find small time segments to share your interests with them,
individually and as a class, modeling the pleasure a good learner derives from learning about many aspects
of life.
• Be purposeful in providing opportunities for students to talk about or otherwise share their interests (both
general and content specific) as the year goes on. Develop and use a system for recording what you learn
about student interests so that you can retain and refer to this information as you plan lessons and student
groupings. For example, one teacher uses index cards to record student interests over time (figure 6.4). She
flips through the cards quickly to refresh her memory as she plans presentations, activities, and products.
She could also sort the cards easily to form like-interest groups or groups of students with varied interests,
depending on the nature and requirements of a task. A wide variety of apps can also be useful in recording
and retrieving information on student interests.
Figure 6.4: The front and back of an index card for recording student interests.
• When you plan curriculum, draw on your knowledge of student interests in seven ways: (1) state essential
understandings in ways relevant to student backgrounds, experiences, and interests; (2) build in activities
that draw on student interests; (3) use a variety of student groupings based on both similar and dissimilar
interests; (4) incorporate anchor activities and extension activities that encourage exploration of student
interests; (5) include instructional strategies that invite attention to students’ varied interests; (6) develop
assessments that incorporate student interests as a means of engaging students with important ideas and
skills; and (7) make useful connections with other content areas.
• Based on preassessment information and other knowledge about your students as a class, think about ways
you can include examples, analogies, stories, and applications in your instruction that you know will interest
many students.
• Based on preassessment information and other knowledge about your students as individuals, refine plans
for activities, products, extensions, and groupings to focus on the specific interests of individual students.
• Remember the connection between readiness and interest. While students may be able to work at somewhat
more complex levels in areas of high interest, it is still true that they will not grow when tasks are well
above or below their current level of functioning. Further, tasks that initially seem interesting are likely to
become frustrating or boring if they are well outside a student’s current challenge zone. Thus, materials,
directions, models, and expectations need to be just above a student’s current level of functioning, no matter
his or her current proficiency level. Moreover, scaffolding or supports remain necessary to help students
succeed at the new level of challenge.
• Be sure plans for the flexible grouping of students include interest-based groups. Design some of these
groups to help students with similar interests connect key content with those interests. Design others to
bring together students with disparate interests. In this mix, the students gain insight into important issues,
develop broader perspectives on issues, or understand how essential understandings and skills apply in a
variety of settings.
• Provide various opportunities and formats for students to share how they connect essential content with their
interests. When such sharing is structured appropriately, students should reinforce and extend essential ideas
and skills, see themselves and others as contributing members of the learning community, and develop a
growing appreciation for their own interests as well as the interests of others. Ensure directions, rubrics, and
models that support student work keep students focused on the lesson’s or unit’s essential knowledge,
understanding, and skills within the context of the students’ areas of interest. Interest-based tasks should
also align tightly with the unit’s or lesson’s knowledge, understanding, and skills.
• Implement the necessary classroom procedures and routines for the interest-based options to work as they
should. Then, make sure students are ready to participate successfully in those routines. (For more
information about classroom management, see chapter 8, page 179.)
• As students work independently on interest-based tasks and applications, use your time to meet with
individuals and small groups of students for monitoring progress, coaching for success, and noting what you
learn so your understanding of student strengths and needs grows consistently.
• Continue to study your students and elicit their input on interest-based approaches they find helpful in
mastering essential content and ways they would fine-tune current approaches. Ask them to suggest
additional interest-based ideas.
• Seek input from students on how they are feeling about their proficiency with essential knowledge,
understanding, and skills, and use what you learn to provide guidance and feedback tailored to students’
varied developmental needs.
• Keep studying your content to understand more and more fully what makes it interesting and dynamic and
how it relates to a variety of human endeavors so you become more comfortable with and skillful at
connecting the content with student interests.
Exercise 6.1 (page 143) offers questions for teachers to reflect on their practice in addressing student interests.
Guidelines for Differentiating Content, Process, and Product Based on
Student Interest
As with readiness differentiation, it is useful to think about how teachers can differentiate content, process, and
product based on interest. Thinking systematically about opportunities to link each of the elements with student
interests provides a wider range of teaching and learning opportunities.
Content
You will recall that differentiating content can entail either differentiating the stuff students need to master (the
knowledge, understanding, and skills) or differentiating how students gain access to it. You will probably also recall
that the goal in differentiation is most often to vary how students access key content rather than to vary the content
itself. That is certainly true in terms of essential understandings. In terms of interest-based differentiation, the
essential knowledge, understanding, and skills explicit and central in most curricula will generally, in those contexts,
remain constant for students. In other words, the same knowledge, understanding, and skills will be central to each
interest-based option. The reason, of course, is that interest-based differentiation is one way to maximize the
likelihood that each student will succeed with key content. Therefore, the interest-based options are in service of the
knowledge, understanding, and skills.
True, a student who reads about pioneers in medicine will come away with some different information than a
classmate who reads about oceanography pioneers. However, if the task is structured appropriately, all the students
will, for example, focus on the essential concepts and principles related to the nature of pioneers. What, for example,
makes a pioneer different from a traveler or a discoverer? Further, students who pursue extension options or
independent inquiries will also come away with content different from their peers’ content. Here too, however, that
content expands rather than supplants the knowledge, understanding, and skills.
To differentiate content based on student interests, a teacher might do the following.
• Provide books, articles, websites, videos, podcasts, expert presentations, and other resources to help students
relate essential content knowledge, understanding, and skills to their areas of interest.
• Use illustrations of complex ideas that relate to student interests to help students move from familiar and
satisfying contexts to less familiar and more taxing contexts.
• Show examples of skills applications in areas of student interest to help students see how the skills apply in
varied and real-world settings.
• Use examples, analogies, and applications that mirror the cultures, languages, and experiences of all
students in the class.
• Spotlight high-interest examples from the discipline that effectively represent key ideas.
• • Help students learn how experts in their area of interest conduct their work and how to integrate the
experts’ skills and success criteria into their own work.
As you teach and guide class discussions, share ways you see students’ personal interests intersecting with
essential knowledge, understanding, and skills in a unit or lesson, and invite students to do the same.
Process
Recall process begins when students move from taking in content from outside sources (including teachers, text,
and the media) to actively making sense of and trying out or applying it themselves. We often refer to process
as activities or sense-making. Process provides students with time to practice what they need to master and can
occur both in class and at home. To differentiate process based on student interests, a teacher might do the following.
• Provide opportunities for students to apply skills in relevant areas of interest. (For example, simply writing
mathematics problems or providing writing prompts that link to student interest and experience can make
the work more approachable and relevant for many students.)
• Provide opportunities for students to establish, test, or expand essential understandings in areas of interest—
including areas of high cultural relevance.
• Provide models of student (or expert) work in relevant areas of interest.
• Structure opportunities for students to share examples of ways to reveal essential skills and understandings
or apply them in areas of like or dissimilar interests.
Product
Remember products are a kind of summative assessment. They occur at the end of major segments of learning
(although students may begin working on them earlier) and should enable students to effectively demonstrate what
they know, understand, and can do as a result of that segment of study. Tests are also a kind of product but are
usually limited to measuring knowledge and skills—often outside a meaningful context. Products more authentic in
nature that call on students to apply and transfer what they have learned typically integrate knowledge,
understanding, and skills. To differentiate products based on student interest, a teacher might do the following.
• Develop authentic product assignments to assess the same knowledge, understanding, and skills, but that
students can use to
• address issues or propose solutions to problems in different areas or topics of interest—including interest
areas students propose.
• Develop tests that draw applications from areas likely to be of interest to many students.
• Encourage and scaffold independent studies or inquiries students can apply and extend to key content in
areas of personal interest.
• Encourage and facilitate student work with experts or mentors in an area of shared interest to apply and
extend key content.
• Ask students to set personal goals for their interest-focused products.
Exercise 6.2 (page 146) offers some additional activities teachers might use to differentiate content, process,
and product in response to student interests.
Guidelines for Differentiating With Expert Groups and Sidebar
Studies
This chapter contains numerous strategies for addressing student interests. We will take a closer look here at
two commonly used strategies: (1) expert groups and (2) sidebar studies.
Expert Groups
Expert groups enable students with common interests to learn more deeply about a particular aspect of a unit of
study and then help the teacher teach the class about it. This strategy enables students to engage in more complex
cognitive processes to build extensive and long-lasting neural networks. The following process generally works well
in establishing expert groups and supporting their success.
• The teacher determines some topics in a unit of study that address student interests and seem to lend
themselves well to student investigation and sharing with the rest of the class. Typically, two or three
possible topics will be adequate for a unit. In some instances, only one aspect of the unit will seem
appropriate for an expert-group investigation.
• The teacher offers students an opportunity to join an expert group—generally with some limitations on the
number of students in a group and the number of groups working during a given unit. If students do not
have a particular interest in the topics the teacher suggests, they might suggest alternatives for the teacher’s
approval. It is also fine if there is no expert group for one or several units. When introducing possible
topics, the teacher should frame the investigation in ways that tap into student curiosity and shape the
parameters of the group’s work.
• If an expert group surfaces, the teacher meets with the group early in the unit to provide guidelines for
working, timetables for planning work, a rubric for quality work, and models of high-quality work from
other expert groups. Students in the group make a plan with the teacher, including check-in dates as they
complete key components of their work. It is particularly important at the outset that the students and
teacher are clear on the knowledge, understanding, and skills that must be represented in their presentation
to the class.
• The teacher checks in with the expert group informally several times a week and provides formal feedback
at the designated check-in times.
• Several days before the expert group participates in teaching a lesson, the members meet with the teacher to
develop the lesson plan. The plan must include a way for the class to work with the important ideas or skills
in the lesson and for the expert group to assess student understanding as the lesson ends. Students play a
key role in developing the lesson plan; the teacher plays the role of coach and facilitator.
• The expert group and the teacher teach the lesson at the appropriate point in the unit, ensuring active class
participation. The expert group also conducts and reviews the formative assessment and debriefs with the
teacher about the lesson as a whole.
The process is less complex than it may seem. Most of the meetings with the teacher take place during class
while other students are working on assigned tasks. Students in the expert group are given released time from some
class activities and homework to allow them to learn about their topic and plan to share their findings. Once one or
two expert groups have co-taught with the teacher, the system becomes familiar to the class and everyone plays a
role in shaping the process as the year moves forward.
Often, students will volunteer for expert groups around topics relating to their longtime interests that they
already have a good bit of knowledge about. Sometimes, however, students volunteer for an expert group because
they want to learn more about a topic that seems intriguing to them but that they know little or nothing about. In
either case, as long as there is a good balance between teacher-provided structure and student autonomy, expert
groups affirm and extend student interests and independence.
Our first In the Classroom scenario is an example of using expert groups in an elementary-level social studies
lesson.
In the Classroom
Elementary School Social Studies Lesson, Expert Group
Students in Mrs. Regan’s class were about to begin a study of the American Revolution. One part of the unit would focus
on the war’s costs and benefits to young people. An essential question for the unit was, What is revolutionary in a
revolution and for whom? As the unit began, Mrs. Regan asked students to share what they knew about how the
Revolutionary War affected their town. Some students had a good bit of information to offer, but many did not. She then
explained to the students that the war had been revolutionary for people their age and asked them how they thought those
young lives might have been revolutionized. After some discussion, she proposed an expert group that could help the class
answer the question, “What was revolutionary about the Revolutionary War for young people in our town?” Four students
volunteered to be in the expert group, and Mrs. Regan met with them the following day to share an expert-group packet
she had developed over the past several years. The packet included the information and materials they would need to begin
their investigation and planning.
To come up with answers to the question the teacher assigned them, the students ultimately used books from the school
and local library, conversations with a local historian, a couple of websites suggested by the historian, a search of an old
graveyard in their area, and courthouse documents. When they presented their lesson, they asked their classmates to take
on the roles of young people they had found out about in their search and propose their own answers to the key question as
the class period progressed.
As a result of their work, the students in the expert group gained a much deeper and more personal sense of history. Their
classmates also saw a side of the time period they would not have encountered otherwise. Both groups made many
connections to the lesson through the remainder of the unit and as they studied other time periods later in the year. One
student said, “I guess I never thought about history happening to kids before.”
Sidebar Studies
A sidebar study is an investigation students conduct as a unit of study progresses in their classroom. It is called
a sidebar study because it takes place outside of class time and does not interrupt the flow of the curriculum. A
sidebar study also allows students to explore an interest on the side that integrates directly with the required
curriculum. Individual students usually conduct sidebar studies, but small groups could complete them as well. A
sidebar study generally lasts at least two or three weeks to give students time to pursue the investigation as well as to
complete required classwork and homework—although teachers often assign less homework during a sidebar study.
When a sidebar study is successful, students will gain important information and insights from their investigation as
a unit unfolds, resulting in far more participation and enthusiasm because the unit becomes increasingly relevant to
them.
As is the case with expert groups, it is important for teachers to give students specific guidelines for planning
and conducting their investigations as well as the questions to answer. Students should also understand from the
outset their options for reporting their findings and what quality working processes and final products look like.
Our second In the Classroom scenario is an example of using a sidebar study in a middle school mathematics
class.
A sidebar study allows students to explore a curriculum-related topic of interest outside of class.
In the Classroom
Middle School Mathematics Lesson, Sidebar Study
Mr. Mercado worked hard to help his students see mathematics as a living language that helps people in their everyday
lives and makes a difference in the world. Early in the year, he asked his pre-algebra students if they knew whose lives
would be diminished in some significant way if mathematics did not exist. Not surprisingly, the students initially found it
humorous that people’s lives could be “messed up” without mathematics. One student exclaimed, “Man, my life is messed
up because math exists!”
Mr. Mercado asked his students to find adults whose hobby or work seemed interesting and who were willing to make the
case that mathematics was essential to their work or hobby. The person chosen could be an adult at school, a parent or
another relative, a neighbor, someone at church, someone who worked with them in an extracurricular activity, or someone
famous. Whoever they selected had to be approved by the teacher and had to agree to communicate with them at least
twice to explain and demonstrate specifically how the absence of mathematics would negatively affect their lives. Students
could write up their interviews using sketches and diagrams as necessary; create a brief PowerPoint synopsis of their
interviews using a variety of visuals to answer the question; or contribute to a podcast on the question emceed by the
teacher. Presentations could not be more than three minutes long. The students had to introduce the interviewee, briefly
explain the person’s job or hobby, use the person’s own words to make a case for the necessity of mathematics in his or her
life, and provide one concrete example of how mathematics made the person’s life better.
Students found it surprisingly easy to recruit interviewees. Their subjects included athletes, physicians, musicians,
engineers, businesspeople, the school principal, architects, scout leaders, collectors of various items, and a grandfather
trying to make the most of his retirement funds. Mr. Mercado noted that students began volunteering examples from their
interviews within a day or two from the time the sidebar study assignment was given. The student contributions continued
throughout the year, whenever what the students were studying intersected with the lives of the people they had
interviewed. Mr. Mercado often used pieces of the PowerPoints, paragraphs from the essays, and snippets of the podcasts
to remind students that what they were learning at a given time had, as he said, “a fan club out there in the streets.”
A Better Scenario
Mr. Waymer told his students that they may, from time to time, think they’d stumbled into the wrong room because they
would find themselves in a crime lab, a courtroom, Las Vegas, or someplace else they didn’t anticipate. He used clips from
popular TV shows, segments from the news, and excerpts from novels to introduce mathematics concepts, create problems
for students to solve, and demonstrate key mathematics skills at work in the world.
He surveyed his students two or three times a year to ask about their interests and also engaged them in conversations
about what they enjoyed doing. He used what he learned to create word problems in which the students were characters
and their interests played a role. When it was appropriate for content requirements, he provided options for assessments so
students could select areas of interest to apply key skills.
Mr. Waymer was finding his teaching more satisfying since he had started looking for ways to make mathematics livelier
for his students. Not only were students more energetic and engaged, but they also had become his allies in looking for
mathematics in the world. They now brought him some of his best examples, which he in turn shared with his classes.
Exercise 6.1
Questions for Teachers About Differentiating Instruction Based on
Student Interest
Respond to the following questions. After you finish, review your responses and reflect on whether you
should consider making any changes to your instruction to respond more effectively to students’ varied
interests. Building administrators can use this activity at a faculty meeting to discuss the school’s progress
toward differentiating instruction in response to student interests. The questions could also provide a
framework for planning professional development and helping teachers incorporate differentiation based
on student interest into their instructional plans.
1. Have you clearly articulated the knowledge, understanding, and skills for the unit or lesson?
2. Do you ensure students are clear about the knowledge, understanding, and skills as they do
interest-based tasks so each task focuses on what is essential about the lesson or unit?
3. Have you thought about potential high-interest areas in your subject or unit?
4. Have you invited students to contribute interest-based ideas for exploration during a unit?
5. Have you built interest-based options into varied aspects of the curriculum?
6. Have you developed a narrative for your subject or unit—a story to help students make sense of
the content and find it memorable?
7. Are you aware of the various cultural backgrounds of students in your classes? Do you
understand them well enough to have a sense of what is relevant and interesting to them?
8. Do you look for and provide examples of use of the content by a variety of individuals in a
variety of contexts likely to be of interest to students?
9. Have you developed and administered a student-interest survey?
10. Do you listen to student conversations and engage students in conversations about their
interests?
11. Do you have a systematic way of recording what you hear so you can develop and draw on an
increasing sense of what captures students’ interest?
12. Do you use what you learn about student interests to inform your instructional planning?
13. Do you consider critical readiness needs in planning interest-based assignments?
14. Do you use examples from students’ lives and interests to help them move from familiar to
more complex applications and understandings?
15. Do you use student interests to help correct student deficit areas and enhance student
proficiency areas?
16. Do you make time to share your interests with students?
17. Have you looked for ways to use contemporary technologies as teaching and learning tools?
18. Do you plan for both similar and dissimilar interest-based groups as part of each unit?
19. Do you use strategies such as sidebar studies, expert groups, learning centers, jigsaws,
independent studies, anchor activities, and other approaches that invite attention to student
interests?
20. Do you provide interest-based work options to students, as appropriate, and invite them to
propose interest-based options as well?
21. Do you provide clear guidelines for work and quality when students are doing interest-based
assignments so they are prepared to succeed?
22. Have you developed classroom routines and procedures that support students in working with
varied tasks and in varied group configurations?
23. Have you prepared students to work effectively with and contribute to the refinement of those
routines?
24. Do you use student work time to meet with individuals and small groups about interests and
interest-based assignments?
Differentiation and the Brain • © 2011, 2018 Solution Tree Press
• SolutionTree.com Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction to download this free reproducible.
Exercise 6.2
Activities for Differentiating Content, Process, and Product Based on
Student Interest
Here are some suggestions for activities to help you differentiate content, process, and product based on
your students’ interests. Add other activities you and your colleagues feel are appropriate to each section.
Building administrators can use this activity at a faculty meeting to discuss the school’s progress toward
differentiating these three elements based on student interest.
Differentiating Content Based on Interest
1. Use expert presentations that demonstrate essential knowledge, understanding, and skills in
contexts of interest to students.
2. Use mini-lessons with small groups to connect key content with students’ areas of interest.
3. Offer books on a variety of topics and in a variety of genres that relate to essential content.
4. Use contemporary media as resources for teaching and learning.
5. Provide student-chosen reading material on a wide range of topics.
6. Ensure topical resources reflect a variety of cultures and backgrounds.
7. Develop (and invite students to develop) anchor activities that reflect a wide range of student
interests related to key content.
Additional Activities
Differentiating Process Based on Interest
1. Design and use interest centers around topics within a unit of special interest to students.
2. Facilitate short- or long-term mentorships in which students will extend and apply key content
knowledge in contexts of interest to them.
3. Use expert groups or jigsaw groups that allow students to specialize in facets of a required topic
of particular interest to them.
4. Use simulations relevant to the essential content and allow students to play roles and address
problems or issues of particular interest to them.
5. Use contemporary resources to support student exploration, application, testing, and extension
of essential content.
Additional Activities
Differentiating Product Based on Interest
1. Offer Let’s Make a Deal options so students can propose products that use knowledge,
understanding, and skills in relevant areas of personal interest.
2. Invite (or ask students to invite) experts to help develop product criteria and provide feedback
on student products in interest-based areas.
3. Enable students to use contemporary media as tools to demonstrate knowledge, understanding,
and skills.
4. Differentiate test items to ensure high cultural relevance while holding knowledge,
understanding, and skills constant
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