Differentiation in tutoring: Adapting to your students' needs

Author: Bella Thorburn

Bella has recently begun her gap year Yipiyap, and currently tutors Maths at a local school!

What is differentiation?

Differentiation, in teaching, means adapting your approach to meet individual student needs. In other words, taking a different path to ensure effective learning.

This blog breaks down how to apply differentiation in a tutoring context and explores how flexibility and stepping out of your teaching "comfort zone" can enhance the learning experience for your students.

Focus on targeted goals

When working with small groups or one-to-one students, it’s crucial to focus on specific goals rather than simply following the class curriculum. For example, in Maths, some students may struggle with basic arithmetic, like counting on their fingers. In such cases, recap fundamental non-calculator operations before progressing to topics like algebra or trigonometry.

Building strong habits early ensures that students develop a solid foundation for understanding advanced concepts later on. Regularly checking in on weak areas also creates opportunities to reintroduce forgotten topics during sessions, helping students retain and apply knowledge more effectively.

Set personalised tasks

When you assign tasks to students, consider their previous learning patterns. Think about which sessions they’ve struggled with in the past, and sessions they’ve excelled in.

If they’ve worked well in lessons that introduce brand new concepts, that means they benefit from the clear explanation and the examples that come with that. Therefore, you could ask them to complete work that has clear instruction alongside it, so they can practise. For example, they could complete structured exam questions, with clear annotation showing how they solved it.

On the flip side, if they are best with lessons that practise things they already know, like at the end of a topic when most of the work is just answering questions and filling in worksheets independently, then aim to give them a task they can do by independently with creative freedom. For example, making a mind map of the topic, or summarising concepts in their own words.

Experiment with your teaching environment

The learning environment your sessions take place in is also important - consider how you are delivering the sessions. If you’re an online tutor, do you work with pre-set powerpoint slides or a whiteboard with digital pen to show the working out? If you have a classroom space, do you use the digital projector or work on the whiteboard to show your thought process as you’re going through questions? If you’re in the library (like me!) do you work on computers? Or do you do things on paper and a mini whiteboard? If you do the same thing every lesson, that’s great for building a routine - but it means you’re not experimenting to see what works best with each of your groups. That leads me on to my final piece of advice…

Embrace variety and flexibility

If a group isn’t responding well to your sessions - whether they’re distracted or disengaged - it’s time to try something new. As long as you fully understand the work you’re delivering, have a list of tasks and examples to go through for the session, and above all believe in your own ability to improvise a little and respond to unexpected problems, then don’t be afraid to mix things up! Whilst it’s important that students know the expectations and requirements in your sessions, a bit of variety brings their interest back to a tedious subject they might not usually enjoy!