Differentiation in Your Science Classroom – Simple Tips to Decrease Overwhelm [Episode 168]

Rebecca 0:00
Do you feel overwhelmed by differentiation? Do you find you spend a lot of mental energy spinning your wheels on scaffolding? Do you feel discouraged that you aren’t pushing your higher achieving students enough or supporting your lower achieving students as much as they need? If you relate to any or all of these feelings, this podcast series we are about to embark on is for you. This episode is the first in a series of five covering all things related to differentiation and scaffolding. In order to reach every learner in your classroom, we want to serve each and every one.

Rebecca 0:41
So to get us started in this conversation, today, I’m going to share a few kind of foundational mindset beliefs. I want to make sure you hear some truths that we need to establish and stack hands on before we dive into this conversation more deeply. And then I’m going to share three really simple, practical tips for getting started with this or improving your current differentiation practice If this is an area where you just feel overwhelmed, you know you’re not doing enough. You could be doing more, and you just don’t know where to begin. So that’s what we’re gonna start with. Just three simple tips for getting started. Are you ready for it? Let’s dive in.

Rebecca 1:20
This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode.

Rebecca 1:57
So if you clicked on this episode to listen to, I’m assuming that you are concerned about addressing the needs, abilities and the interests of the variety of learners in your classroom, or maybe you just feel like this is an area you can always grow in, and either way, you’re in the right place, especially if you’re the latter, I just think This is something we can never stop growing in this area.

Rebecca 2:23
We can always be doing more, and that’s why I really want to start off this series with two really specific truths. I want you to adopt, kind of some mindset beliefs I want you to grab a hold of before we dive into more specific and actionable differentiation tips in the upcoming episodes. So first, you can’t do it all, and you definitely cannot do it all at once. If you’re a more veteran teacher listening to this, I hope I can get an amen here in your car or your Airpods or wherever it is that you’re listening to me.

Rebecca 2:59
But like you just truly cannot differentiation is on its own, is such a massive undertaking, and we’re gonna talk more about that in a second. But especially just this job as a whole, there is so much that goes into a teacher that people who aren’t teachers just don’t understand, like people just think you’re opening a textbook and you’re teaching from it, and you’re writing your little lesson plans from it, and then you’re executing them, and you grade A paper here and there, and that’s it.

Rebecca 3:28
They have no idea what goes into lesson planning, let alone curriculum writing or curriculum acquisition. As you’re piecing things together for your curriculum, the lab prep, all the things you have to think about all the ways you have to change up what you’re doing, your strategies to reach all these different students. It is so much, it is such a large job, but zooming in just a differentiation. I just want to also start with too that, like you can’t do it all. We’re going to scaffold your differentiation. Okay, as a teacher, we’re going to start small. Make that your goal and make it a goal that every year you’re gonna grow in how you reach more and more of your students in a deeper and more meaningful way, just like you’re gonna scaffold for your students. I want you to do the same for yourself. Let’s just make this be like a running goal we have for ourselves and something we grow in and we add to our toolbox and we add to our strategies and our abilities year after year.

Rebecca 4:21
So I want you to adopt that idea of like, I cannot do it all, and I can’t do it all at once, and that is okay. That’s very normal. And the second thing I want you to really hear, before we get into some specific tips, is you can’t and shouldn’t be doing this alone, just like, this isn’t a job and a task that you’re gonna check off the list this year and say, I did it. I differentiated like I’m done. I’ve done this all by myself, and I’ve got it totally complete. This isn’t something you can do all by yourself, and you shouldn’t be doing this all by yourself. You should never, ever be doing this alone. There are so many people that need to be on your team and helping you to reach.

Rebecca 4:59
Reach every learner in your classroom. I’m talking about the resource or the special ed department team at your school. All of the teachers that are part of that department should be on your team in this if there’s a gifted and talented person at your school, an instructional coach, or maybe it’s just a GT person at your district who can give you some ideas for reaching those higher achievers. If you teach a course like biology or chemistry and an on grade level or honors fashion that then has an AP teacher after you, those people are people you should be reaching out to to help you reach those higher achieving students in those levels.

Rebecca 5:33
And we’re going to talk more in future episodes about, like, all the different ways you can utilize these people and be on a team together to serve your students. But I’m just trying to, like, spit ball them now, just so you can start thinking, like, Oh, these are some ideas for people who could help me in this. So I’m not just having to do all these things by myself. Another thing too, is outside of your school walls, and it can be outside of your district. It’s outsourcing curriculum writing. I mean, obviously I’m gonna say that as a curriculum writer, that’s the first and foremost, part of my job and what it’s not rocket science began as before I got into secondary science, simplified and virtual, PD and all of that. But truly, like I tell teachers all of the time, curriculum writing is not the same thing as lesson planning. You can be a great teacher, a great lesson planner.

Rebecca 6:17
You be a great teacher and a bad lesson planner, and you know, still not be great at curriculum writing. Like those things are not all mutually inclusive. Writing curriculum is its own thing. I found when I was in the classroom that writing curriculum was my favorite part of the job, which led me to doing it as a second job for a while, and then doing it as I do now full time. But it’s not the same thing as being a teacher and all the other things that you do. So by outsourcing curriculum writing to another person, where you get curriculum from them, then you have your baseline done. You have all these things selected, all these tests written, all these labs curated, specifically written. You have all the reinforcing things, all your test questions are aligned to your resources.

Rebecca 6:58
You’re using all of that’s done. So you save so much time there with the lesson planning and the finding, the great labs and all of that, that box is checked. Now you can take all of that energy you would be spending to curating or writing your own curriculum, and then writing your lesson plans for that curriculum, to differentiating and meeting students individual needs as they come up. So that’s another way. You cannot do this alone.

Rebecca 7:22
By outsourcing that curriculum writing this is way too much to do. You cannot think that one person can do it all, one last person or thing. I don’t even know how to refer to AI, but having AI can be on your team here. You should not be doing this alone. You can use AI. I’m not an expert in AI, but I love bringing on people to this podcast who are and are doing great things. And back in episode 157 I had Elise from Keystone science, and she shared so many amazing ideas and ways that we can use AI to differentiate our resources that we already have to better serve our students. So go back and listen that episode if you haven’t already, she has some free guides and stuff that like help you walk through using AI. She’s amazing, and she’s such a valuable resource on this. So I told myself I wouldn’t gab about this for more than five minutes, and here I am.

Rebecca 8:16
But I just want to start by saying those two things, you can’t do it all, and you should not be doing this alone. Okay, don’t take on this burden for yourself. Now with those mindset points in your brain, let’s give you three quick tips for getting started. If you’re just wanting to improve your differentiation, or just feel like it’s one of those things that’s like, you always know you need to do it, like it’s in the back of your mind, but you’re just kind of winging it on a daily basis, kind of triaging, which we will talk about in a second, that actually is an important thing, just where we’re bleeding out the most, we’re just kind of, you know, clamping down on those things, if that’s you like, here are some things to kind of help you take a deep breath and feel like you have a strategy in place to make progress in this area, for you as a professional, and also, Of course, for your students that we’re here to serve, first, get some help.

Rebecca 9:05
Okay, get some help. Reach out to any of those sources I previously mentioned, again, I’ll go into these in more detail, but maybe your first small step is listening to that episode 157 and learning how you can be using AI to do some differentiation things with the resources you already have for you. Maybe you spend so much time finding resources and lesson planning and doing all that, so maybe getting some help for you looks like outsourcing your next unit or two. I’m not saying you need to go drop hundreds of dollars on a curriculum bundle, but maybe you say, Hey, I’m about to teach evolution next. It’s never really my strong point, I’m going to outsource this unit, spend 40, $50 on something, see how this goes. So then I have more time during this evolution unit, which is a really hard topic in biology, to make sure I’m serving all the students at their different levels that I have maybe getting some help looks like, Hey, I teach Chem one. I’m going to reach out to the AP chemistry to. Year and see, hey, as the year is wrapping up, as we have a few more months left, what would be some things with my on grade level students, like my lowest level students, that are the most important to make sure I hit with them, in case any of them do make that jump to AP in a year or two.

Rebecca 10:14
And then with my honor students, especially because those are the students that are most directly going to step into an AP chemistry class next hey, here’s what I’ve covered so far this year. How do you think I should spend the last two months of school? Should I get into acids and bases? Should I get into thermochemistry? Should I circle back and do stoichiometry and gas laws again? Because you want to make sure that’s hit really hard, you know, tap into those people. You don’t need to be making all of these decisions for yourself. And definitely, definitely, going to be partnering with the professionals at your school that know how to serve students with IEPs and five oh, fours, they know how to serve your multilingual students, and get with those teachers and collaborate and say, Hey, what are you doing already that I could bring in here that would help you?

Rebecca 10:58
What can I do to work with you and help you do what you need to do. Let’s find some common ground here and work together on this to serve these students. So first tip, get some help. Second tip is, I want you to focus on one small change that you can make proactively, so that you can serve future students in differentiation. So something you can start now and kind of carry out through the end of the year, but a habit you can get into something you can start working on and creating and getting really intentional about now that you’ll be able to reuse year after year through students. So maybe it’s something where you’re like, I’m going to take my five biggest labs of the year and I’m going to write it on different levels to serve different groups of students I have.

Rebecca 11:38
Or maybe I’m going to go through and I’m just going to do a good audit of my tests as we end the year out, it was me. I think the first place that I would start is with your notes, offering varied levels of notes and support during note taking and direct instruction is such a easy way. And I say easy, it’s not like it’s easy the first time you do it. It does take time, but it’s easy in the sense that it’s so proactive and that once you do it, once you get to reuse these things year after year, and it’ll serve students for so many years to come. But it’s varying the level of your notes. So the different levels you can have are like a set of notes that’s completely filled in, completely typed in, or written in. Then you the next level for scaffolding. This would be fill in the blank. From there, you could have a skeleton outline. We’re gonna have some major headings, maybe some built in questions, but it’s truly just headers and dividers in the notes. And then the lowest level here could be just absolutely nothing at all, like those students are getting a piece of paper. You don’t have to do any prep for that student.

Rebecca 12:38
Other ways that we can vary the level of notes too, are having print versions of all of these things, so things that students are going to print and write down on, and then also having digital versions of these for your students that are going to be using a computer, and then that’s going to serve their needs better. That’s all just different ways that you can differentiate your notes for students. Now, you know, cheap plug if you use it’s not rocket science resources. I do all that for you. You you get the filled in, you get the fill in the blank, you get the skeleton outline. Obviously, if you wanted nothing at all, you can and everything comes in print and digital. But I think that is a really great use of your time to do something that then you’re gonna be able to reuse year after year.

Rebecca 13:13
And it’s gonna serve the masses. Okay? It’s gonna serve all of your students. That’s why I think it’s a great investment of your time. Another way you can work on differentiating your notes is by starting to record your lecture videos to offer for students. One of the very first things I did, before I even started writing resources, was I started my It’s not rocket science classroom YouTube channel. I made it for my own students. I started recording my lectures into video format so that they would have them, whether it was for absent students or studying purposes or, you know, some of my students with accommodations who needed to hear things several times.

Rebecca 13:45
And you know, they can do closed captioning on YouTube, which is so helpful for multilinguals. Now, you know, YouTube can make these transcripts of your videos, which is great. Then you can plug that into AI and have it do all sorts of robotic things that AI does for us. You know, I think recording your lecture videos is a really, really valuable tool, if that’s something you don’t do already. Now, going back to point one, get some help here. I’m not saying you have to do this all on your own. This is a great, great, great thing to bring in your honors classes, Your Honor sections. You may be much further ahead in the content, or may have, you know, you may have, like, two weeks after your bio, EOC, what are you going to do with your honor students?

Rebecca 14:24
Here’s a little project for them that’s going to serve your future students. Okay, also think about your AP students. If they take the AP exam, first week of May, 2 week of May, what are you doing within the last month of May? What if they did something like this that’s going to serve your other students? And it’s like, almost like a service project for them. So make it where they make the notes. Let’s say you have a couple of sections of honors or AP Bio. One section has to make filled in notes, and then the next section takes those filled in notes and they make a fill in the blank version. Then maybe another class takes all of those and makes a digital version of them. Or maybe you have a group of students that’s really, really creative. Of and you say, hey, I want you to make a graphic version of these notes, or a doodle version of these notes for my students that are more visual learners and who like to color and things like that that they can use during those notes.

Rebecca 15:10
That’s another way you can differentiate too. Like, there’s so many ways you can do this, and you don’t need to be the person making every single form of your notes. Honestly, I bet the AI will probably do some of this for you too, if you asked it to, and then you can just review it and edit it and you have it done. So that is a really great place if you just want to focus on one small change here, but don’t feel again like you have to do it yourself. Work smarter, not harder. I’m all about that over here. If you missed Episode 166 I’ll link that in the show notes as well. But that is all about this exact topic of using your greatest free asset, which is your students, like, let them help you. They are very sharp, and especially those classes where you have those weird amounts of time after a standardized exam, this is like the perfect type of project that they can do and really help you and the future students in your classroom. Okay, so three tips to get started. We’re going to get some help.

Rebecca 16:03
We’re going to focus on just one change we can make proactively. We can do it for the end of this year, and we’re going to be able to reuse it next year and build upon it next year. We’re just doing one small change at a time. We’re scaffolding this, remember. And then three, you need to hold space for triage. Hold space for triage, for anything else that’s going to come up the rest of the school year. I honestly feel like what makes differentiation, what it is, is the ability to, like on the fly, meet the needs of each individual learner. Like, yes, of course. We’re going to follow IEPs. We’re going to follow five oh fours. We are going to customize things for students and do what we really need to do to support them. But oftentimes you and I both know, like, you’re in a lab and you’re realizing this is really hard for this group of students, and it’s being way too easy for this group. Or, you know, even just some practice problems you gave, you’re like, wow, some of these students are flying through this, and others are really struggling. So in that moment, you’re having to make all these decisions that are in that umbrella of differentiation.

Rebecca 17:06
You know, you and I both know there’s no one size fits all for education, and that’s why I know it might seem silly me saying that and contradictory. Again, as a curriculum writer who writes one curriculum for you, but I do have some built in scaffolding there. But again, it’s there. So you have a foundation that then you have more capacity. You have now created more space to do the triaging, to do the day of things, the in the moment, things you need to have space, in terms of time and your own mental and emotional capacity when it comes to this job to address issues that arise in the moment, because that’s where I think you can really see the difference between a veteran teacher and a new teacher. In terms of differentiation, is the ability to in the experiences they’ve had over and over, to be able to stay calm under the pressure of these things and come up with solutions and ways that they can, you know, make things individualized for students in the moment. IEP stands for individualized education plans like it’s all about the individual. So even if you have 18 students IEPs this year, next year, you may have another 26 students the IEPs, and they’re all entirely different IEPs.

Rebecca 18:20
You know, a lot of the accommodations we see on these things are similar, you know, extra time or, you know, printed out notes or whatever, but at the end of the day, they are individualized. And so you need to have some capacity and space that you can triage those needs as they arise and really address the most pertinent needs first. And if you need help creating space and capacity, and really like auditing how you do this job and how to use your strengths and how to strengthen your weaknesses, I really recommend my core values mini course. It’s a virtual professional development course. It is not long. It’s the first unit in my full like secondary science, simplified virtual PD bundle. But I love it. It’s a lot of mindset work, for sure, but I have this spreadsheet in there that I think is kind of iconic, and it’s a job analysis spreadsheet where you basically go through every single part of your job as a teacher. We label it, we rank it, we categorize it, and we figure out which things we need to change, which things we need to do more of, which things we need less of, and how to do that. I think it’d be really valuable for you to really walk through that process and see, okay, how, where am I spending way too much time, and how can I create more space so I have the energy in those moments to serve my students better.

Rebecca 19:33
And y’all know I love to plan, planning. Planning. Planning is a favorite thing. I love organization. I love color coding. I love having all the things done and doing everything in advance, like, I’m the queen of working ahead. Okay, but truly, with differentiation. At many levels, you can do stuff in advance. But in even more levels, you have to make decisions on the fly. You have to see, like, okay, there are 25 students in front of me that all have. Different needs, I’m gonna have to again, I’m keep using that word triage, but like, look at who needs the most help right now, and I go to them first and then work my way through as best I can.

Rebecca 20:12
And this is hard. This is where I think we can get really defeated when it comes to differentiation, because we were so aware that we can’t do it all and we can’t individually serve these 35 students in our classroom as well as we want to, but that’s where I do think part of this is accepting that this is going to be some triage, and we’re just going to do the best we can with the capacity we have in the season that we are in. So don’t feel like less than if this is hard for you, like it is hard. It is one of the most important parts of being a teacher, but it’s very hard, and it’s an area, like I said the beginning, we will hopefully all forever, continue to grow in as we advance in our careers and our experience and all of that. And I don’t think either, like I said earlier, it’s not like you’re necessarily just getting smarter and smarter and smarter and smarter the more veteran you get. Although I’m you veteran teachers are geniuses. I’m not saying you’re not you, for sure, are but it’s more that again, I think the more you’re exposed to different situations, the more you kind of learn how to adapt to them, how to serve those students.

Rebecca 21:15
And then when you when you do, start to see some of those kinds of same needs over and over again, you start to have a better toolbox to pull from. And then also, I think you get less overwhelmed, because you’re you’re using these differentiation muscles. You’re using the part of your brain that can think creatively about, like how to reach and serve these students in different ways. A lot more things are running an autopilot in the background, like your lesson plans, you know, like probably how you prep labs and all that jazz. So then again, you’re having more space and capacity for triage, and so I think those are just things that naturally come with time. So I hope you find this helpful. Here’s what’s to come next week, specifically, I’m gonna start by talking about specific tips for serving your high achieving students, if you’re anything like me, honestly, those are the ones I ignore the most, those students that are finishing early, that get bored in my class. I’m just kind of like, you’re fine work on something for someone else, or read a book, and then I go and I hit up triage other places.

Rebecca 22:13
So I’m very guilty of not reaching those students as best I could, and so that’s why I want to start with them. Because for me personally, those are the ones I leave behind. Then in the following weeks, we’ll cover an episode specifically about reaching our lower achieving students, you know, who have a lot of variety and abilities. There, we’ll have an episode entirely about classes like class periods of mixed levels, whether you have like students that truly have like they’re in honors and they’re in on grade level and they’re in your same period, or just it’s an honors class with a huge range in abilities, or an on grade level CP class with a huge range in abilities. We’re going to talk about, what do you do with that, and then the last episode we’ll finish in this series of five will be really content specific. So ways that I think you should differentiate biology, content and skills, anatomy, chemistry, physical science, all my little pillars. So I hope you’re excited. I hope this is something for you to look forward to.

Rebecca 23:08
And one last reminder before you go your take home challenge, get help with this. Start small with just one thing, like notes, and then begin carving out space. You have more capacity for triage if you’re not sure where you’re spending all of your time, where it’s all going, you just feel like you’re drowning. Reach out to me in DMS on Instagram at its dot not dot rocket, dot science. We can talk about it. I can help you troubleshoot. Check out that core values. Course, it might help you kind of get started thinking these things. But let’s figure out what’s taking the most time from you so that you can create more space for things that really matter, like reaching every learner. If you want to check out the show notes, where I’ll link any like related episodes, I’ll link that AI episode, things like that. If you want to check out the curriculum bundles, or the core values mini course, all that’s linked in the show notes, which you can find it. It’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode, 168,

Rebecca 23:58
and if you have not left a review for the podcast today. I would love it. It makes my day so much when I see your reviews come in. And so I’d love to hear from you if, after this episode, you’re feeling a little less overwhelmed about differentiation and you’re excited to talk more about this over the next month. I would love to hear from you. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you. Teacher friend.