Thembilihle, a Grade 10 Mathematics teacher, is teaching the section on Exponents in week 4 of the year. She knows that the learners have started this concept in Grade 9. Her challenge is that she has a class of students with a wide range of mathematical competence.

She previews the resources in 2enable under Week 4: Exponents and finds some good explanations in videos of the four basic laws. These explanations are very similar to how she plans to teach the topic in class herself.

During the series of lessons Thembilihle teaches the exponential laws to the best of her ability and gives the learners examples to do during the lesson. While facilitating, she observes and records which students have mastered the concept and which have not. She knows that some learners have a poor attention span and simply missed too much of her explanation as she taught the concept.

At the end of the first lesson she gives two sets of homework. To some students she has assigned some more challenging applications of the laws. To the learners who have not mastered the basics she gives an assignment to view the video Exponents Property 1 and gives them more basic examples to attempt.

The next day she marks the homework of the less competent students, but allows the more competent learners to mark their own work.

She repeats this process as she teaches each of the four basic laws and at the end of that she asks all learners to complete the assessment for Week 4.

Points to discuss:

• Why did the teacher not just use the video in class instead of teaching the topic herself?
• What other options are there in terms of how the teacher caters to differentiated learning?