Differentiation is already hard enough in a regular classroom. Add chemicals, glassware, lab groups, safety goggles, and 30 teenagers moving around the room, and suddenly the idea of having different students complete completely different lab activities sounds like a nightmare.
Thankfully, you do not need three versions of a chemistry lab to differentiate it! In fact, I generally want my students doing the same experiment. They’re investigating the same chemistry, collecting the same types of data, and working toward the same learning target. Where I differentiate is in how students process and communicate what they learned afterward.
Keep the Chemistry the Same
One of my general philosophies about chemistry labs is that the actual experiment doesn’t need to be complicated to be rigorous. I love simple labs. Give me inexpensive materials, straightforward procedures, and an experiment students can actually complete successfully without me putting out 14 metaphorical fires around the room. The chemistry can still be challenging. (I have a year-long lab manual where about 85% of the lab activities would qualify as “low maintenance” labs.)
A huge amount of the thinking happens when students have to take what they observed and explain why it happened. So rather than making one group complete a “hard” lab and another group complete an “easy” lab, I can have everyone participate in the same experience and adjust the support students receive when they’re analyzing and reporting their results. That is considerably easier to manage, and every student still gets access to the same chemistry.
You Can Differentiate Within the Lab Group, Too
There are certainly times when students need additional support during the experiment itself. That’s where thoughtful grouping and lab roles can help. One student might be responsible for measuring materials while another records data. Someone might read the procedure aloud while another manages equipment. Those roles can change throughout the year as students become more comfortable and independent in the lab. Sometimes I assign out these roles, other times I let the kids decide. There are also times I don’t bother at all. Sort of depends on the class, and the kids in it.
The goal isn’t to permanently assign one student the “easy job.” It’s to make the experiment accessible enough that everyone can meaningfully participate. But once the experiment is over, lab reporting gives us even more room to differentiate. (And this is where your “documented differentiation” comes in to play, for those of you who need it.)
Differentiate the Lab Report, Not the Learning Target
Let’s say every student completes the same experiment and is ultimately expected to explain the relationship between the evidence they collected and the chemistry concept you’re teaching. There are a LOT of ways students can get there.
Some students may be ready to write a traditional lab conclusion independently. Or perhaps they can explain the purpose, summarize the procedure and results, discuss sources of error, and connect their evidence back to the chemistry, in a classic “journal” format. Other students might be capable of exactly the same scientific thinking but need more structure to communicate it.
Instead of saying, “Write an eight-sentence conclusion,” I break that conclusion into smaller prompts:
What was the purpose of the experiment?
What did you do?
What happened?
What data supports your conclusion?
What chemistry concept explains your results?
What could have affected your results?
They’re still analyzing the experiment, using evidence, and explaining chemistry. I’ve just removed some of the writing load involved in figuring out how to turn all of those thoughts into one cohesive paragraph. And for a student who is ready for more independence, I can remove those supports instead of inventing an entirely different lab.
Each of my students gets my document called “How to Write a Chemistry Lab Report.” In that, there’s an outline of how ALL the parts of a lab report should be written. This goes from the introduction all the way to the conclusion. Most of the time, my students are going to write just a conclusion. For them, it’s as horrifying as writing a whole essay for their English or history class.
With your more advanced students, you can try having them write out a procedure, design their own data table, or have them write without the outline. Again, same chemistry, different expectation for reporting.
Below Grade Level, ELLs, or High Intervention Students
If a student struggles with writing, that doesn’t necessarily mean they need easier chemistry. Sometimes the barrier is the reporting, not the science.
When my students need a little extra help, I cut down on the complexity of the writing I require. Nothing else. The kids will still have the same learning experience. Students write up their lab report with less detail.
I do this by breaking down the conclusion paragraph into questions instead. Yes, the will likely still have some post lab questions to answer. These questions are separate. They’re pretty much the same thing that the standard/grade level kids will have for their conclusion.
But instead of writing this all out as a paragraph that has to flow from one sentence to the next, this task is much smaller. The kids will write the conclusion paragraph piecewise. Answering just one prompt at a time helps the kids to see the 8 sentence conclusion as 8 or so smaller tasks. For some kids, I’ll even cut down the conclusion prompts to just 5 or 6 instead.
Create a Lab Reporting System You Can Reuse
This also doesn’t need to become another thing you recreate every week. I like having a consistent lab-reporting structure that students learn early in the year. Studnets know what belongs in a conclusion. They know how to report data and observations. They know that “human error” isn’t a magical explanation for anything that went wrong.
Then I can adjust the scaffolding depending on the lab and the students in front of me. One student might receive the full set of conclusion prompts. Another might receive sentence starters. Another might receive only the expectations and write independently.
Same lab. Same chemistry. Same general learning goal. Different amounts of support. And this being a simple “plug and play” formula covers 41 days of differentiation in my chemistry classroom.
Differentiation in Chemistry Labs Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated
I think sometimes we make differentiation harder on ourselves because we picture ourselves creating multiple versions of everything. (Or we received some ridiculous PD that made us feel inadequate.) You don’t need three labs happening simultaneously around your classroom to meet students where they are. Let them do the same chemistry. Then differentiate the support they receive when they’re asked to make sense of it with a simple formula.
Keep the experiment manageable, and learning target consistent. Scaffold the writing and analysis when students need it, and remove those scaffolds as they’re ready for more independence. Your students still get a meaningful lab experience, and you only have to prep one lab!
