Because differences are our greatest strength
What is differentiated instruction?
By Geri Coleman Tucker
At a glance
Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach that tailors instruction to students’ different learning needs.
It lets students show what they know in different ways.
It doesn’t replace the goals in a child’s IEP or 504 plan.
Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach that tailors instruction to all students’ learning needs. All the students have the same learning goal. But the instruction varies based on students’ interests, preferences, strengths, and struggles.
Instead of teaching the whole group in one way (like a lecture), a teacher uses a bunch of different methods. This can include teaching students in small groups or in one-on-one sessions.
Students have “multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn,” says Carol Ann Tomlinson, an educator who has done innovative work in this area .
According to Tomlinson, there are four areas where teachers can differentiate instruction:
- Content: Figuring out what a student needs to learn and which resources will help
- Process: Activities that help students make sense of what they learn
- Projects: Ways for students to “show what they know”
- Learning environment: How the classroom “feels” and how the class works together
This approach works well with the response to intervention (RTI) process used in some schools. The goal of RTI is to address learning struggles early. Students get extra support before they fall behind their peers.
How differentiated instruction works.
Differentiated instruction can play out differently from one classroom to the next — and from one school to the next. But there are a few key features:
Small work groups: The students in each group rotate in and out. This gives them a chance to participate in many different groups. A group can include a pair of students or a larger group. In all cases, it’s an opportunity for students to learn from each other.
Reciprocal learning: Sometimes students become teachers, sharing what they’ve learned and asking classmates questions.
Continual assessment: Teachers regularly monitor students’ strengths and weaknesses (in both formal and informal ways) to make sure they’re progressing in their knowledge and mastery of schoolwork.
Educators, learn more about how to use flexible grouping with small groups.
Differentiated instruction and special education
A teacher uses differentiated instruction to give every student multiple paths to learning. That includes students with Individualized Education Programs ( IEPs ) or 504 plans .
Differentiated instruction doesn’t replace the goals in an IEP or a 504 plan. Instead, the teacher personalizes teaching to help kids meet those goals.
Learn more about setting annual IEP goals .
How it compares to other approaches
Differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction. That type of teaching changes the pace of how students learn. It also requires an individual approach for each student, which isn’t the case with differentiation.
Differentiated instruction is also different from personalized learning. With personalized learning, students have their own learning profiles and paths to follow.
Find out more about personalized learning and the difference between individualized instruction and differentiated instruction .
What to watch out for
Critics say differentiated instruction doesn’t work in every classroom. If there are too many students in a class, or if the teacher isn’t experienced with the approach, the classroom can get distracting and chaotic. It can also be time-consuming for teachers.
Other critics say that differentiated instruction is a reaction to students’ needs. They say educators should use Universal Design for Learning to proactively create an environment that suits all students’ needs.
Discover more about Universal Design for Learning .
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About the author.
Geri Coleman Tucker is a freelance writer and editor and a former deputy managing editor for
Kylah Torre is an instructor in the department of special education at Hunter College.
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What is Differentiated Instruction?
Teachers know better than anyone that students each have their own unique gifts and challenges; interests, aptitudes and learning styles. Differentiated instruction is the practice of developing an understanding of how each student learns best, and then tailoring instruction to meet students’ individual needs.
“I think differentiated instruction actually is just teaching with the child in mind,” writes Carol Ann Tomlinson, an author and teacher regarded as a pioneer in differentiated instruction. She describes the practice as “a way of thinking about teaching which suggests that we establish very clear learning goals, that are very substantial, and then that we teach with an eye on the student.”
In her book, “How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms,” she explains: “Kids of the same age aren’t all alike when it comes to learning any more than they are alike in terms of size, hobbies, personality, or food preferences. … In a classroom with little or no differentiated instruction, only student similarities seem to take center stage. In a differentiated classroom, commonalities are acknowledged and built upon, and student differences also become important elements in teaching and learning.”
At its most basic level, Tomlinson continues, “differentiating instruction means ‘shaking up’ what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn. In other words, a differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content , to processing or making sense of ideas, and to developing products so that each student can learn effectively.”
Tomlinson’s emphasis on “Content, Process and Product” is fundamental to the theory and practice of differentiated instruction.
History of Differentiated Instruction [From One-Room Schoolhouses to the 21st Century Classroom]
The one-room schoolhouses of centuries gone by are often mentioned when your research topic is “the history of differentiated instruction.” Though not called by that name, it was understood that teachers in the traditional one-room schoolhouse setting, out of necessity, had to develop strategies for teaching students of different ages, abilities, literacy levels and backgrounds.
“Today’s teachers still contend with the essential challenge of the teacher in the one-room schoolhouse: how to reach out effectively to students who span the spectrum of learning readiness, personal interests, and culturally shaped ways of seeing and speaking about and experiencing the world,” Tomlinson writes in another of her notable texts on the topic, “ The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners.”
The magazine Educational Leadership, established in 1943 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), devoted an entire issue to the theme “The Challenge of Individual Difference” in 1953.
It invites readers to revisit the lead article by Carleton W. Washburne, “Adjusting the Program to the Child.” The report also cites the influence of Frederic Burk in the 1910s and other educators in recognizing the value of developing strategies for helping students “progress according to their own abilities.”
Some educational historians also draw connections between the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with its emphasis on helping disadvantaged students and improving individual outcomes in education, and some of the core principles of differentiated instruction.
Differentiated Instruction: Content, Process and Product
Today, differentiated instruction is widely practiced as a progressive approach to education that endeavors to leverage the unique learning characteristics each student brings to the classroom to deliver a more effective education than a so-called “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Reading Rockets, the Library of Congress Literacy Award-winning advocacy organization, also cites Tomlinson’s influence in mapping out the basic tenets of differentiated instruction , which guide classroom teachers in differentiating three specific aspects of the educational experience, plus a fourth that encompasses and expands upon these three:
- Content – the knowledge, concepts and skills that students need to learn based on the curriculum
- Process – the activities in which the student engages to understand and make sense of the content
- Products – the ways students demonstrate what they have come to know, understand and be able to do
Learning environment is the fourth variable in the differentiated instruction equation. It refers to the climate, or the look and feel of a classroom — the physical space as well as the tone set by the teacher to establish an atmosphere of mutually supportive learning.
A classroom with a learning environment optimized for differentiated instruction is one that:
- Establishes a safe and positive environment for learning
- Allows for individual work preferences
- Includes spaces to work quietly and without distraction as well as spaces that invite student collaboration
- Provides materials that reflect a variety of cultures and home settings
- Establishes clear guidelines for independent work that matches individual needs
- Helps students understand that some learners need to move around to learn while others do better sitting quietly
To help gauge the most effective strategies for reaching each student and helping them learn and perform to the best of their unique abilities, teachers are also encouraged to consider students’ individual:
- Readiness — This refers not as much to a student’s academic ability as to their capacity to learn new material in a particular subject or topic. Since one way to ensure learning growth is to challenge students with tasks that require them to stretch their minds, an awareness of student readiness can help teachers adjust the degree of difficulty to provide an appropriate level of challenge.
- Interest — Different students show interest in different topics and activities (from football to fashion to food, you name it). The basic theory here is that teachers can motivate students to learn by showing them how subjects being taught connect with their particular interests.
- Learning profile — The ways that students learn best can be shaped by a variety of factors including their culture, the learning environment (working solo or collaboratively, sitting still or moving around, in a quiet atmosphere or while listening to music), and their innate learning style or styles (for example, is the student a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner?).
Differentiated Instruction: Classroom Strategies and Examples
A simplified example of connecting a student’s interest to the content of a particular learning goal or assignment is illustrated in an Education Week video narrated by teacher and author Larry Ferlazzo, who explains that differentiating instruction is really about getting to know your students and making decisions, often in the moment, based on what they need.
During a classroom assignment that involved an “argument essay” about what would be the worst natural disaster to experience, he noticed that one student had his head down on the desk and was not participating. Knowing that this student was interested in football, Ferlazzo engaged him to write his argument essay on the topic of “why his favorite team was the best.” In this case, the learning goal was developing the skills needed to make an effective argument (not learning about natural disasters) and the product was an essay that followed all the attributes of a good argument essay.
When it comes to process , the road to the best outcomes might involve teachers asking themselves: What are the learning objectives? And what are the best roads to get there for different students? A few of the possibilities include:
- Having students work alone or in groups
- Offering a choice on a variety of writing prompts
- Connecting subject matter to individual interests
- Employing tiered activities through which the whole class works on the same important subject matter and skills, but with different levels of support, challenge or complexity
Regarding product , Tomlinson has written, “students can propose the way they’d like to show us something, or we might offer them two choices — with the notion that they can make a deal with us to do the third one.”
Ferlazzo says that when he gave tests, he sometimes included an extra blank page for students to write (or write and draw!) “anything else they remember about the topic being tested that they think is important.” He found that sometimes those responses were more inspired than the responses to his test questions. Ferlazzo said his version of differentiated instruction did not require a significant amount of extra work, but “did require that I had relationships with my students to know their strengths, challenges and interests.”
Another example of a classroom that employs an interesting variation of differentiated instruction is seen in an Edutopia video titled “Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students.” At Highlander Charter School in Rhode Island, classes start with a group lesson then break into smaller groups, each of which rotates through three stations designed to connect students with the material using different learning modalities.
Pro & Cons of Differentiated Instruction
The biggest criticism around differentiated instruction often centers on the idea that it requires teachers to take on an even heavier workload. Here is a brief summary of some of the chief pros and cons.
- Research suggests that differentiated instruction can be effective both for students who are academic achievers as well as those with learning challenges or even significant disabilities.
- When offered more options on how they can learn the material, students become more motivated and engaged, taking on more responsibility for their own learning.
- When students are more engaged in learning, there are typically fewer classroom disciplinary problems.
- Many educators believe that making differentiated instruction truly worthwhile requires significant additional work devoted to lesson planning.
- Though differentiated instruction comes naturally to some educators, when practiced schoolwide there can be a significant learning curve and there are often insufficient professional development resources.
- Critics contend that there isn’t enough research to justify the additional resources required to support the benefits of differentiated instruction.
Differentiated Instruction FAQ
Q: What is differentiated instruction? A: Carol Ann Tomlinson, an author and teacher regarded as a pioneer in differentiated instruction, describes it as “a way of thinking about teaching which suggests that … we teach with an eye on the student.” She emphasizes four key pillars of differentiated instruction: Content, Process, Product and Learning Environment.
Q: Does differentiated instruction require more work for teachers? A: The amount of additional preparation required is open to debate, but most educators agree that successfully employing differentiated instruction does require building relationships with students to know their strengths, challenges and interests.
Q: What are the biggest benefits of differentiated learning? A: Advocates contend that by connecting subject matter and learning goals to individual student strengths, interests and learning styles, differentiated instruction can inspire students to be more engaged and motivated, thereby creating improved learning outcomes by inspiring them to take on more responsibility for their own learning.
[RELATED] 10 Traits of Effective School Leaders >>
Innovative Techniques for Transforming Your Classroom
Many teachers reach a point in their career where they want to further develop their skills to make an even greater impact in their classroom, often following a particular passion or specific area of interest such as differentiated instruction. Whatever one’s desired area of focus, there are a range of master’s degree programs — including online options — designed to help working teachers achieve their career development goals.
For example, the University of San Diego offers an online Master of Education degree program with different specializations ranging from Inclusive Learning to Curriculum and Instruction . The curriculum in both specializations includes coursework focused on “strategies that provide differentiated support for the success of all students.”
Differentiated instruction is a comprehensive approach to teaching whose essence, according to the educational advocate Ferlazzo, is this: “Recognizing that all of our students bring different gifts and challenges, and that as educators we need to recognize those differences and use our professional judgment to flexibly respond to them in our teaching.”
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How Differentiated Instruction Can Help You Reach Every Student in Class
- July 24, 2020
It may seem like common sense that students perform better in class when they receive support that meets their needs. Research around differentiated instruction confirms this is true. If you can adapt your instruction to reflect your students’ needs and learning preferences, you can make class time more effective and help students become more engaged.
In this article, we’ll go over what differentiated instruction is and how using this learning strategy can provide your students with the resources they need to succeed. Then, we’ll provide a few ideas for differentiating your classroom instruction and show you how Waterford curriculum can help you provide personalized reading instruction.
What is Differentiated Instruction?
The idea behind differentiated learning theory is to make sure your curriculum reflects the diverse needs of your students. Each student enters the classroom with unique experiences, preferences, and conditions that affect how they learn. Differentiated instruction provides students with different resources or options for understanding and mastering a concept, depending on their unique needs. This can help move your classroom from heterogenous instruction toward individualized learning. [4,6]
Differentiated instruction doesn’t necessarily involve giving every student separate assignments—though you may adapt or modify assignments as specific needs arise. It’s more about providing students, individually or in a group, with different learning options or providing accommodations to help them learn more effectively.
Sounds familiar? Differentiated instruction is often compared to the learning styles theory , which posits that all students respond best to one of four learning methods. While research into learning styles is mixed, there are clear and measurable benefits to adapting your teaching methods to your students’ needs.
Benefits of Differentiated Learning for Students
In a survey from the International Journal of Education, 97% of teachers reported never or seldom using a flexible curriculum for their students. So why should you consider bringing differentiated learning into your classroom? The research is clear: students, especially those with diverse learning needs, learn more effectively when teachers respond to their needs.
A study published by Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences found that students’ learning outcomes significantly improve when teachers use differentiated content that responds to a student’s learning preferences. Students are also more likely to focus and be engaged in the learning process when teachers differentiate their instructional strategies.[1,6] As you provide opportunities for students to explore content based on their strengths, they’re more likely to flourish in your class.
Differentiated instruction strategies are especially important for students with physical or learning disabilities. These students often have strengths and weaknesses that are different from other students who don’t have the same disability. By differentiating your instruction, you can adapt lessons or assignments for these students to better accommodate their needs.
How to Differentiate Instruction in Your Classroom
Now that we’ve gone over why differentiated learning matters in the classroom, let’s go over instructional strategies. Some teachers may feel discouraged because differentiated instruction can sound like an increased workload. But differentiated instruction can make your teaching strategies more effective over time, which can help you make the most of both your students’ time and your own.
According to educational researcher and differentiated instruction expert Carol Ann Tomlinson, there are four key ways to differentiate classroom instruction:
- Content : How the student will access the information
- Process : The method of the activities students use to understand the information
- Product : Projects or homework that ask the student to practice or apply the information
- Learning environment : The space where the student is learning the information
If a student might work more efficiently in a quieter learning environment, for example, you could allow them to complete a project in the school library. Or if you think a student would respond to a more visual approach with vocabulary words, you could adjust the content to include images with each word or adjust the product by assigning them to draw a picture that represents the words.
Additionally, don’t get overwhelmed by feeling that you have to make all of your assignments unique for each student. Some students may have specific needs that require you to adjust your assignments or teaching strategy. But in many cases, you can practice differentiated learning by either breaking students with similar needs into groups or offering all students several options for completing an assignment.
Overall, the best way to practice differentiated instruction is by getting to know your students. As you work with them over the school year, you’ll be able to better understand their needs and what types of assignments they respond to. And just as important, you’ll be able to help them recognize their own strengths and learning preferences—which can help them seek out the right learning strategies through their academic career.
Waterford’s Adaptive Curriculum Offers Differentiated Instruction
Waterford ensures that students learn to read through thousands of games, songs, and activities. Our programs assign these lessons based on a student’s placement assessment and their demonstrated mastery. That way, the focus is always on the skills where they need the most practice.
And for older students, you can adjust our book-based study guides to offer personalized lessons on books you’re reading as a class. Students can also select independent reading books from our online library. When students choose what to read based on their personal interests, it encourages focus and engagement.
To learn more , get in touch! We’d love to discuss how our PreK–6 reading programs can revolutionize the way you support your students as they move from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”
- Morgan, H. Maximizing Student Success with Differentiated Learning. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues, and Ideas, 2014, 87(1), pp. 34-38.
- Jager, T. Guidelines to assist the implementation of differentiated learning activities in South African secondary schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2013, 17(1), pp. 80-94.
- Mentis, M. Different Technologies for Differentiated Education: Social Networks, Identity and Diversity in e-Learning. International Journal of Diversity in Organizations: Annual Review, November 2007, 7(3), pp. 85-93.
- Landrum, T.J., and McDuffie, K.A. Learning Styles in the Age of Differentiated Instruction. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 2010, 18(1), pp. 6-17.
- Tulbure, C. Do different learning styles require differentiated teaching strategies? Retrieved from sciencedirect.com: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811000541
- Subban, P. Differentiated Instruction: A Research Basis. International Education Journal, 2006, 7(7), pp. 935-947.
- Tomlinson, C.A. Mapping a Route Toward Differentiated Instruction. Educational Leadership, September 1999, 57(1), pp. 12-16.
- Weselby, C. What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom. Retrieved from resilienteducator.com: https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/examples-of-differentiated-instruction/.
- NYUSteinhardt Staff. Culturally Responsive Differentiated Instructional Strategies. Retrieved from nyu.edu: https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/005/120/Culturally%20Responsive%20Differientiated%20Instruction.pdf.
- Tomlinson, C.A. Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades. Retrieved from ericdigests.org: https://www.ericdigests.org/2001-2/elementary.html.
- Tucker, G.C. Differentiated Instruction: What You Need to Know. Retrieved from understood.org: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/educational-strategies/differentiated-instruction-what-you-need-to-know.
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What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom
Just as everyone has a unique fingerprint, every student has an individual learning style. Chances are, not all of your students grasp a subject in the same way or share the same level of ability. So how can you better deliver your lessons to reach everyone in class? Consider differentiated instruction—a method you may have heard about but haven’t explored, which is why you’re here. In this article, learn exactly what it means, how it works, and the pros and cons.
Definition of differentiated instruction
Carol Ann Tomlinson is a leader in the area of differentiated learning and professor of educational leadership, foundations, and policy at the University of Virginia. Tomlinson describes differentiated instruction as factoring students’ individual learning styles and levels of readiness first before designing a lesson plan. Research on the effectiveness of differentiation shows this method benefits a wide range of students, from those with learning disabilities to those who are considered high ability.
Differentiating instruction may mean teaching the same material to all students using a variety of instructional strategies, or it may require the teacher to deliver lessons at varying levels of difficulty based on the ability of each student.
Teachers who practice differentiation in the classroom may:
- Design lessons based on students’ learning styles.
- Group students by shared interest, topic, or ability for assignments.
- Assess students’ learning using formative assessment.
- Manage the classroom to create a safe and supportive environment.
- Continually assess and adjust lesson content to meet students’ needs.
History of differentiated instruction
The roots of differentiated instruction go all the way back to the days of the one-room schoolhouse, where one teacher had students of all ages in one classroom. As the educational system transitioned to grading schools, it was assumed that children of the same age learned similarly. However in 1912, achievement tests were introduced, and the scores revealed the gaps in student’s abilities within grade levels.
In 1975, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ensuring that children with disabilities had equal access to public education. To reach this student population, many educators used differentiated instruction strategies. Then came the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2000, which further encouraged differentiated and skill-based instruction—and that’s because it works. Research by educator Leslie Owen Wilson supports differentiating instruction within the classroom, finding that lecture is the least effective instructional strategy, with only 5 to 10 percent retention after 24 hours. Engaging in a discussion, practicing after exposure to content, and teaching others are much more effective ways to ensure learning retention.
Four ways to differentiate instruction
According to Tomlinson, teachers can differentiate instruction through four ways: 1) content, 2) process, 3) product, and 4) learning environment.
As you already know, fundamental lesson content should cover the standards of learning set by the school district or state educational standards. But some students in your class may be completely unfamiliar with the concepts in a lesson, some students may have partial mastery, and some students may already be familiar with the content before the lesson begins.
What you could do is differentiate the content by designing activities for groups of students that cover various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (a classification of levels of intellectual behavior going from lower-order thinking skills to higher-order thinking skills). The six levels are: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.
Students who are unfamiliar with a lesson could be required to complete tasks on the lower levels: remembering and understanding. Students with some mastery could be asked to apply and analyze the content, and students who have high levels of mastery could be asked to complete tasks in the areas of evaluating and creating.
Examples of differentiating activities:
- Match vocabulary words to definitions.
- Read a passage of text and answer related questions.
- Think of a situation that happened to a character in the story and a different outcome.
- Differentiate fact from opinion in the story.
- Identify an author’s position and provide evidence to support this viewpoint.
- Create a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the lesson.
Each student has a preferred learning style, and successful differentiation includes delivering the material to each style: visual, auditory and kinesthetic, and through words. This process-related method also addresses the fact that not all students require the same amount of support from the teacher, and students could choose to work in pairs, small groups, or individually. And while some students may benefit from one-on-one interaction with you or the classroom aide, others may be able to progress by themselves. Teachers can enhance student learning by offering support based on individual needs.
Examples of differentiating the process:
- Provide textbooks for visual and word learners.
- Allow auditory learners to listen to audio books.
- Give kinesthetic learners the opportunity to complete an interactive assignment online.
The product is what the student creates at the end of the lesson to demonstrate the mastery of the content. This can be in the form of tests, projects, reports, or other activities. You could assign students to complete activities that show mastery of an educational concept in a way the student prefers, based on learning style.
Examples of differentiating the end product:
- Read and write learners write a book report.
- Visual learners create a graphic organizer of the story.
- Auditory learners give an oral report.
- Kinesthetic learners build a diorama illustrating the story.
4. Learning environment
The conditions for optimal learning include both physical and psychological elements. A flexible classroom layout is key, incorporating various types of furniture and arrangements to support both individual and group work. Psychologically speaking, teachers should use classroom management techniques that support a safe and supportive learning environment.
Examples of differentiating the environment:
- Break some students into reading groups to discuss the assignment.
- Allow students to read individually if preferred.
- Create quiet spaces where there are no distractions.
Pros and cons of differentiated instruction
The benefits of differentiation in the classroom are often accompanied by the drawback of an ever-increasing workload. Here are a few factors to keep in mind:
- Research shows differentiated instruction is effective for high-ability students as well as students with mild to severe disabilities.
- When students are given more options on how they can learn material, they take on more responsibility for their own learning.
- Students appear to be more engaged in learning, and there are reportedly fewer discipline problems in classrooms where teachers provide differentiated lessons.
- Differentiated instruction requires more work during lesson planning, and many teachers struggle to find the extra time in their schedule.
- The learning curve can be steep and some schools lack professional development resources.
- Critics argue there isn’t enough research to support the benefits of differentiated instruction outweighing the added prep time.
Differentiated instruction strategies
What differentiated instructional strategies can you use in your classroom? There are a set of methods that can be tailored and used across the different subjects. According to Kathy Perez (2019) and the Access Center those strategies are tiered assignments, choice boards, compacting, interest centers/groups, flexible grouping, and learning contracts. Tiered assignments are designed to teach the same skill but have the students create a different product to display their knowledge based on their comprehension skills. Choice boards allow students to choose what activity they would like to work on for a skill that the teacher chooses. On the board are usually options for the different learning styles; kinesthetic, visual, auditory, and tactile. Compacting allows the teacher to help students reach the next level in their learning when they have already mastered what is being taught to the class. To compact the teacher assesses the student’s level of knowledge, creates a plan for what they need to learn, excuses them from studying what they already know, and creates free time for them to practice an accelerated skill.
Interest centers or groups are a way to provide autonomy in student learning. Flexible grouping allows the groups to be more fluid based on the activity or topic. Finally, learning contracts are made between a student and teacher, laying out the teacher’s expectations for the necessary skills to be demonstrated and the assignments required components with the student putting down the methods they would like to use to complete the assignment. These contracts can allow students to use their preferred learning style, work at an ideal pace and encourages independence and planning skills. The following are strategies for some of the core subject based on these methods.
Differentiated instruction strategies for math
- Provide students with a choice board. They could have the options to learn about probability by playing a game with a peer, watching a video, reading the textbook, or working out problems on a worksheet.
- Teach mini lessons to individuals or groups of students who didn’t grasp the concept you were teaching during the large group lesson. This also lends time for compacting activities for those who have mastered the subject.
- Use manipulatives, especially with students that have more difficulty grasping a concept.
- Have students that have already mastered the subject matter create notes for students that are still learning.
- For students that have mastered the lesson being taught, require them to give in-depth, step-by-step explanation of their solution process, while not being rigid about the process with students who are still learning the basics of a concept if they arrive at the correct answer.
Differentiated instruction strategies for science
- Emma McCrea (2019) suggests setting up “Help Stations,” where peers assist each other. Those that have more knowledge of the subject will be able to teach those that are struggling as an extension activity and those that are struggling will receive.
- Set up a “question and answer” session during which learners can ask the teacher or their peers questions, in order to fill in knowledge gaps before attempting the experiment.
- Create a visual word wall. Use pictures and corresponding labels to help students remember terms.
- Set up interest centers. When learning about dinosaurs you might have an “excavation” center, a reading center, a dinosaur art project that focuses on their anatomy, and a video center.
- Provide content learning in various formats such as showing a video about dinosaurs, handing out a worksheet with pictures of dinosaurs and labels, and providing a fill-in-the-blank work sheet with interesting dinosaur facts.
Differentiated instruction strategies for ELL
- ASCD (2012) writes that all teachers need to become language teachers so that the content they are teaching the classroom can be conveyed to the students whose first language is not English.
- Start by providing the information in the language that the student speaks then pairing it with a limited amount of the corresponding vocabulary in English.
- Although ELL need a limited amount of new vocabulary to memorize, they need to be exposed to as much of the English language as possible. This means that when teaching, the teacher needs to focus on verbs and adjectives related to the topic as well.
- Group work is important. This way they are exposed to more of the language. They should, however, be grouped with other ELL if possible as well as given tasks within the group that are within their reach such as drawing or researching.
Differentiated instruction strategies for reading
- Tiered assignments can be used in reading to allow the students to show what they have learned at a level that suites them. One student might create a visual story board while another student might write a book report.
- Reading groups can pick a book based on interest or be assigned based on reading level
- Erin Lynch (2020) suggest that teachers scaffold instruction by giving clear explicit explanations with visuals. Verbally and visually explain the topic. Use anchor charts, drawings, diagrams, and reference guides to foster a clearer understanding. If applicable, provide a video clip for students to watch.
- Utilize flexible grouping. Students might be in one group for phonics based on their assessed level but choose to be in another group for reading because they are more interested in that book.
Differentiated instruction strategies for writing
- Hold writing conferences with your students either individually or in small groups. Talk with them throughout the writing process starting with their topic and moving through grammar, composition, and editing.
- Allow students to choose their writing topics. When the topic is of interest, they will likely put more effort into the assignment and therefore learn more.
- Keep track of and assess student’s writing progress continually throughout the year. You can do this using a journal or a checklist. This will allow you to give individualized instruction.
- Hand out graphic organizers to help students outline their writing. Try fill-in-the-blank notes that guide the students through each step of the writing process for those who need additional assistance.
- For primary grades give out lined paper instead of a journal. You can also give out differing amounts of lines based on ability level. For those who are excelling at writing give them more lines or pages to encourage them to write more. For those that are still in the beginning stages of writing, give them less lines so that they do not feel overwhelmed.
Differentiated instruction strategies for special education
- Use a multi-sensory approach. Get all five senses involved in your lessons, including taste and smell!
- Use flexible grouping to create partnerships and teach students how to work collaboratively on tasks. Create partnerships where the students are of equal ability, partnerships where once the student will be challenged by their partner and another time they will be pushing and challenging their partner.
- Assistive technology is often an important component of differential instruction in special education. Provide the students that need them with screen readers, personal tablets for communication, and voice recognition software.
- The article Differentiation & LR Information for SAS Teachers suggests teachers be flexible when giving assessments “Posters, models, performances, and drawings can show what they have learned in a way that reflects their personal strengths”. You can test for knowledge using rubrics instead of multiple-choice questions, or even build a portfolio of student work. You could also have them answer questions orally.
- Utilize explicit modeling. Whether its notetaking, problem solving in math, or making a sandwich in home living, special needs students often require a step-by-step guide to make connections.
References and resources
Books & Videos about differentiated instruction by Carol Ann Tomlinson and others
- The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, 2nd Edition
- Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Marcia B. Imbeau
- The Differentiated School: Making Revolutionary Changes in Teaching and Learning – Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, and Lane Narvaez
- Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe
- Differentiation in Practice Grades K-5: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Caroline Cunningham Eidson
- Differentiation in Practice Grades 5–9: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Caroline Cunningham Eidson
- Differentiation in Practice Grades 9–12: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Cindy A. Strickland
- Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching – Carol Ann Tomlinson
- Leadership for Differentiating Schools and Classrooms – Carol Ann Tomlinson and Susan Demirsky Allan
- How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms, 3rd Edition by Carol Ann Tomlinson
- Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Tonya R. Moon
- How To Differentiate Instruction In Mixed Ability Classrooms 2nd Edition – Carol Ann Tomlinson
- How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms 3rd Edition by Carol Ann Tomlinson
- Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom Paperback – Carol Ann Tomlinson, Tonya R. Moon
- Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (Professional Development) 1st Edition – Carol Ann Tomlinson, Marcia B. Imbeau
- The Differentiated School: Making Revolutionary Changes in Teaching and Learning 1st Edition by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, Lane Narvaez
- Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom – David A. Sousa, Carol Ann Tomlinson
- Leading for Differentiation: Growing Teachers Who Grow Kids – Carol Ann Tomlinson, Michael Murphy
- An Educator’s Guide to Differentiating Instruction. 10th Edition – Carol Ann Tomlinson, James M. Cooper
- A Differentiated Approach to the Common Core: How do I help a broad range of learners succeed with a challenging curriculum? – Carol Ann Tomlinson, Marcia B. Imbeau
- Managing a Differentiated Classroom: A Practical Guide – Carol Tomlinson, Marcia Imbeau
- Differentiating Instruction for Mixed-Ability Classrooms: An ASCD Professional Inquiry Kit Pck Edition – Carol Ann Tomlinson
- Using Differentiated Classroom Assessment to Enhance Student Learning (Student Assessment for Educators) 1st Edition – Tonya R. Moon, Catherine M. Brighton, Carol A. Tomlinson
- The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners 1st Edition – Carol Ann Tomlinson
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What Research Says About . . . / Differentiated Learning
What we know, what you can do, educators take note.
Researchers at the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum define differentiated instruction asa process to approach teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same class. The intent is to maximize each student's growth and individual success by meeting each student where he or she is . . . rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum. (Hall, 2002)
- Focus on the essential ideas and skills of the content area, eliminating ancillary tasks and activities.
- Respond to individual student differences (such as learning style, prior knowledge, interests, and level of engagement).
- Group students flexibly by shared interest, topic, or ability.
- Integrate ongoing and meaningful assessments with instruction.
- Continually assess; reflect; and adjust content, process, and product to meet student needs.
Allan, S. D., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Leadership for differentiating schools and classrooms . Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Anderson, K. M., (2007). Differentiating instruction to include all students. Preventing School Failure, 51 (3), 49–54.
Baumgartner, T., Lipowski, M. B., & Rush, C. (2003). Increasing reading achievement of primary and middle school students through differentiated instruction (Master's research). Available from Education Resources Information Center (ERIC No. ED479203).
Ellis, E. S., & Worthington, L. A. (1994). Research synthesis on effective teaching principles and the design of quality tools for educators (Technical Report No. 5). Eugene: University of Oregon, National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators.
Hall, T. (2002). Differentiated instruction [Online]. Wakefield, MA: CAST. Available: www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstruc.html
Lawrence-Brown, D. (2004). Differentiated instruction: Inclusive strategies for standards-based learning that benefit the whole class. American Secondary Education 32 (3), 34.
McQuarrie, L., McRae, P., & Stack-Cutler, H. (2008). Differentiated instruction provincial research review . Edmonton: Alberta Initiative for School Improvement.
Rock, M., Gregg, M., Ellis, E., & Gable, R. A. (2008). REACH: A framework for differentiating classroom instruction. Preventing School Failure, 52 (2), 31–47.
Tieso, C. (2005). The effects of grouping practices and curricular adjustments on achievement. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29 (1), 60–89.
Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). Leadership for differentiated classrooms. The School Administrator, 56 (9), 6–11.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Differentiation of instruction in the elementary grades. ERIC Digest . Available: www.ericdigests.org/2001-2/elementary.html
Tomlinson, C., & Kalbfleisch, M. L. (1998). Teach me, teach my brain: A call for differentiated classrooms. Educational Leadership, 56 (3), 52–55.
Tomlinson, C. A., & Strickland, C. A. (2005). Differentiation in practice: A resource guide for differentiating curriculum, grades 9–12 . Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Vaughn, S., Bos, C., & Schumm, J. (2000). Teaching exceptional, diverse, and at-risk students in the general education classroom (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Vygotsky, L. S., (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Differentiation Theory In Learning
Redefining fair summary.
Within the beginning five chapters, each develops upon the previous question and content to strengthen and investigate more in depth the supports provided for mixed-ability classrooms. The supports within these chapters are on concrete examples Cooper has encountered to model the basic concepts and content of redefining our perceptions of differentiation. As the reader continues through the reading, the chapters and discussions appear to be more thematic on specific topics. Individualized topics are beginning to be developed and expressed through resourceful forms and explanations. The conclusive four chapters intently focus on the four areas of differentiation presented on the cover: planning, assessing, grading, and communicating or reporting effectively. The content provided in chapters six through ten demonstrates how easy differentiation can be within a classroom and how to implement such materials to benefit all
Child Development Appropriate Practice
Previously I thought a teacher only needed to know if the child was developing correctly and all student where treated equally. Although there are still some of this in play I have now taken a different approach. One of the interesting issue I learnt from this week was Development Appropriate Practice. Using knowledge about a child development, abilities, development of key milestones to create a plan that is suitable for the age and stage of their development. Understanding what is culturally and socially acceptable as well as individual appropriateness are just as important. Children are individual and unique this approach considers the individual child to allow them to enjoy their learning. Development Appropriate Practice creates effective
Unit 18 Performance Activity 18
Performance Activity 18: Discuss with cooperating teacher how he/she uses on line resources such as video streaming, You Tube, or even in assessments, etc. to accomplish differentiated instructional objectives that enhance learning for each student.
Juvenile Justice System: The Attachment Analysis
Problem: As a society, we are beginning to see that biological parents are not taking an active role in the juvenile justice system, or simply not as active as one would hope they would accept and perform, which is presenting further problems and concerns within the system (Baker, et al., 2013; Greenwood, 2008). Due to parents not being as actively involved as what certain individuals may like to see, other concerns can arise, creating this sense of criticism, along with a flawed juvenile justice system to the untrained societal eye because parents are not home with their families, they are in out of home placements (Amandoala, 2009; Farrugggia, & Sorkin, 2009; Woods, Farineau, & McWey, 2013; Younes & Harp, 2007).
Hc 491 Case Study
You are the hospital CEO. Doctors on the capital budget committee can’t agree on which equipment to recommend for purchase and for how much. The total list of requests is way over the board’s guideline. Explain what you say to them. (“Doctors and the Capital Budget” in Health Services Management: Readings, Cases, Readings, and Commentary, 9th ed., A. R. Kovner, A. S. McAlearney, D. Neuhauser, Chicago: AUPHA/HAP 2009, p.
Piaget And Vygotsky Critical Analysis
In light of Piaget’s theory, there are four elements proposed to elaborate people gradually endeavor to interpret and interact with the world. To be precise, biological maturation, activity, social experience, and equilibration impinge on the development of thinking (Piaget,1970). In this regard, he came up with the view that people inherit two basic tendencies in thinking, namely organization and adaptation. Organization refers to constant arranging experience and information into psychosocial structure. Concerning adaptation, people are born to adjust the environment.
The Psychodynamic Theories Of Early Child Development
2. The psychodynamic theory is associated with, Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson. Theorists who support this theory state, early childhood experiences play a major part in later development of a child’s personality, even if it is buried in there unconscious. Psychodynamic Theorists also believe that children go through qualitatively distinct stages in their development. In my classroom, how I could apply this theory is by engaging the child on who they think they are, and how it will affect their future. Identity plays a major role in this theory, by engaging the child on who they think they are, I feel I will be able to assess their ability to learn.
Vygotsky Learning Theory
Learning theories are used every day in classrooms all over America, educational theorist Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Benjamin Bloom and Jerome Bruner introduced constructivism and social constructivism theories (cognitive development, social development, and developmental). The theories developed by Vygotsky, Piaget, Bloom, and Bruner share similarities and differences, and throughout the years have been compared for educational discoveries. Learning theories are extremely important for educators, because learning is an active process.
Differentiated Classroom Differentiation
Differentiation in the classroom begins with a teacher's understanding of scaffolding students academic levels to help students reach a common goal. Differentiation occurs in many ways, books like Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom, The Differentiated Classroom, and Learning by Choice have several ideas on how differentiation may look like in the classroom. Common topics among three books include learning stations, levels of tier, and communication and collaboration.
Benefits Of Direct Instruction
Direct instruction is known as the use of straightforward, explicit teaching techniques, usually to teach a specific skill. It is a teacher-directed method, meaning that the teacher stands in front of a classroom and presents the information. It emphasizes the use of small-group, face-to-face instruction by teachers and aides using carefully articulated lessons in which cognitive skills are broken down into small units, sequenced deliberately, and taught explicitly. Direct instruction is a theory of education which posits that the most effective way to teach is by explicit, guided instructions. This method of teaching directly contrasts other styles of teaching, which might be more passive or encourage exploration. It is a very common teaching strategy, relying on strict lesson plans and lectures with little or no room for variation. Direct instruction does not include activities like discussion, recitation, seminars, workshops, case studies, or internships. DI is probably the most popular teaching strategy that is used by teachers to facilitate learning. It is teacher directed and follows a definite structure with specific steps to guide pupils toward achieving clearly defined learning outcomes. The teacher maintains the locus of control over the instructional process and monitors pupils ' learning throughout the process. Benefits of direct instruction include delivering large amounts of information in a timely manner. Also, because this model is
Piaget Theory Of Cognitive Development Essay
Cognition is a process where different aspects of the mind are working together that lead to knowledge. Piaget’s cognitive development theory is based on stages that children go through as they grow that lead them to actively learn new information. Cognitive change occurs with schemes that children and adults go through to make sense of what is happening around them. The change that occurs is activity based when the child is young and later in life correlates to mental thinking. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development start from birth to adulthood and it begins with the sensorimotor stage, a child from birth to the age of 2 years old learns and thinks by doing and figuring out how something works. The second stage is the preoperational stage and in this stage children from ages 2 through 7 years are developing their language and they do pretend play (Berk, 2005, p.20). Concrete operational is the third stage and children ages 7 to 11 years old lack abstract but have more logic than they did when they were younger. The last stage is formal
Jean Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development revolutionized the study of children’s cognitive development and it has undergone some revisions over the years. It also provides a set of basic principles to guide our understanding of cognitive development that are found in most recent theories.
The Importance Of Differentiated Instruction
Differentiated instruction is a support or concept for effective teaching that involves showing students with different ways to learning. According to Bearne (1996). “ differentiated instruction corresponds to an innovative approach through which educators whatever their subject area, are able to bring modification to curricula, teaching methods, usage of educational sources and resources, learning events or activities as well as assessment and evaluation methods.” Differentiation in simple words means tailoring instruction to meet individuals needs that is student needs in the school context. Differentiated instruction is the way a teacher anticipates and responds to a variey of students need in class. According to Mary Ann corley, differentiated
Reflection On Diversity And Diversity
All students deserve to be treated fairly as individuals. When considering the diversity of the class members, we will celebrate the uniqueness that the differences contribute. Because I have high expectations that all my children can be successful, adjustments may be necessary because everyone is not the same (Burden, 2017, p. 115). It is vital that a spirit of understanding and edification is active amongst the students and from the teacher (Romans 14:19, King James Version) to produce fruits of mutual respect: reduced bias, positive academic outcomes, enhanced problem solving, and healthy group dynamics (Cousik, 2015, p. 54). For differences that stem from culture, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, the adjustments will involve bridging the cultural gap between the students’ diversity and the curriculum. For differences that result from cognitive abilities, learning styles, or developmental stages, the differentiation in delivery style and product styles support students’ academic, emotional, and social growth. Strategies that support diversity:
Variation Theory Literature Review
Lessons are designed according to students learning difficulties. Students’ prior knowledge is assessed through the pre-tests and interviews as assessment tools to inform the content of the lessons. According to Hodge (2010), the key component of an effective lesson is when the teacher understands and knows about the topic. As Variation Theory using learning study is collaborative in its nature, teachers gain more knowledge on the topic as they discuss and meet to share their past experiences about teaching the topic before proceeding to the
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What is Differentiated Instruction?
Differentiation is a teacher’s response to students needs, guided by general principles of differentiation such as respectful tasks, flexible grouping and on-going assessment and adjustment. “Differentiated Instruction is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all teaching. To increase student achievement, educators proactively plan varied approaches aligned to what students need to learn, how they will learn, and how they will show what they have learned.
How can teachers differentiate?
The knowledge, understanding and skills we want students to learn (the DoDEA standards).
How students come to understand or make sense of the content.
How students demonstrate what they have come to know, understand and are able to do after an extended period of learning.
What is the Role of Data in Differentiating Instruction?
Teachers gather and use data at many points of the instructional process. Initially the data collected may be the result of a pre-test in order to determine where students are in the learning process. Based on this data, the teacher may differentiate content, process or product. During instruction, teachers use formative assessments to gather data to assist them in the planning process and to determine if further differentiation is needed. The data gleaned from summative assessments tells the teacher if students have reached the learning goals.
Establishing Differentiated Instruction in our Schools.
Establishing Differentiated Instruction in our Schools
Start with quality curriculum and instruction
Develop differentiation as an instructional process
Build an equitable classroom learning environment
Build a culture of high performing schools
Examples of Instructional and Management Strategies Teachers Use to Differentiate:
Examples of Instructional and Management Strategies Teachers Use to Differentiate.
Varied supplementary materials
Small group instruction
Varied questioning strategies
Varied journal prompts
The Five Tenets of Differentiated Instruction:
The Five Tenets of Differentiated Instruction are:
Positive Classroom Environments
Ongoing Assessment & Data
Where are WE now?
How do you currently differentiate instruction in your classroom?
What seems to be working?
What successes can you share?
What will I change in my classroom?
What will “look and sound different?”
What will be my first step?
What will I do tomorrow?
Who can assist me with this?
DoDEA: Teaching the children of America's military families worldwide.
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Differentiated Instruction: A Primer
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How can a teacher keep a reading class of 25 on the same page when four students have dyslexia, three students are learning English as a second language, two others read three grade levels ahead, and the rest have widely disparate interests and degrees of enthusiasm about reading?
What is Differentiated Instruction?
“Differentiated instruction”—the process of identifying students’ individual learning strengths, needs, and interests and adapting lessons to match them—has become a popular approach to helping diverse students learn together. But the field of education is filled with varied and often conflicting definitions of what the practice looks like, and critics argue it requires too much training and additional work for teachers to be implemented consistently and effectively.
Differentiated Instruction Definition
The process of identifying students’ individual learning strengths, needs, and interests and adapting lessons to match them
Differentiation has much in common with many other instructional models: It has been compared to response-to-intervention models, as teachers vary their approach to the same material with different students in the same classroom; data-driven instruction, as individual students are frequently assessed or otherwise monitored, with instruction tweaked in response; and scaffolding, as assignments are intended to be structured to help students of different ability and interest levels meet the same goals.
Federal education laws and regulations do not generally set out requirements for how schools and teachers should “differentiate” instruction. However, in its 2010 National Education Technology Plan , the U.S. Department of Education lays out a framework that places differentiated teaching under the larger umbrella of “personalized learning,” instruction tailored to students’ individual learning needs, preferences, and interests. This framework assumes that all students in a heterogeneous classroom will have the same learning goals, but:
- “Individualization” tailors instruction by time . A teacher may break the material into smaller steps and allow students to master these steps at different paces; skipping topics they can prove they have mastered, while getting more help on those that prove difficult. This model has been used in iterations as far back as the late Robert Glaser’s Individually Prescribed Instruction in the 1970s, an approach which pairs diagnostic tests with objectives for mastery that is intended to help students progress through material at their own pace.
- “Differentiation” tailors instruction by presentation . A teacher may vary the method and assignments covering the material to adjust to students’ strengths, needs, and interests. For example, a teacher may allow an introverted student to write an essay on a historical topic while a more outgoing student gives an oral presentation on the same subject.
That distinction is accepted by some, though far from all, in the field.
The ambiguity has led to widespread confusion and debate over what differentiated instruction looks like in practice, and how its effectiveness can be evaluated.
For example, a 2005 study for the National Research Center on Gifted and Talented, which tracked implementation of “differentiation” over three years , found that the “vast majority” of teachers never moved beyond traditional direct lectures and seat work for students.
“Results suggest that differentiation of instruction and assessment are complex endeavors requiring extended time and concentrated effort to master,” the authors conclude. “Add to this complexity current realities of school such as large class sizes, limited resource materials, lack of planning time, lack of structures in place to allow collaboration with colleagues, and ever-increasing numbers of teacher responsibilities, and the tasks become even more daunting.”
Evolution of the Concept
Differentiated instruction as a concept evolved in part from instructional methods advocated for gifted students and in part as an alternative to academic “tracking,” or separating students of different ability levels into groups or classes. In the 1983 book, Individual Differences and the Common Curriculum , Thomas S. Popkewitz discusses differentiation in the context of “Individually Guided Education, … a management plan for pacing children through a standardized, objective-based curriculum” that would include small-group work, team teaching, objective-based testing, and monitoring of student progress.
Carol Ann Tomlinson, a co-director of the Institutes on Academic Diversity at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, and the author of The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners , 2nd Edition (ASCD, 2014) and Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom (ASCD, 2013) argues that differentiation is, at its base, not an approach but a basic tenet of good instruction, in which a teacher develops relationships with his or her students and presents materials and assignments in ways that respond to the student’s interests and needs.
Differentiated Instruction Strategies
In theory—though critics allege not in practice—differentiation does not involve creating separate lesson plans for individual students for a given unit.
Ms. Tomlinson argues that differentiation requires more than creating options for assignments or presenting content both graphically and with hands-on projects, for example. Rather, to differentiate a unit on Rome, a teacher might consider both specific terms and overarching themes and concepts she wants students to learn, and offer a series of individual and group assignments of various levels of complexity to build those concepts and allow students to demonstrate their understanding in multiple ways, such as journal entries, oral presentations, creating costumes, and so on. In different parts of a unit students may be working with students who share their interests or have different ones, and with students who are at the same or different ability levels.
During the 1990s, teachers were also encouraged to present material differently according to a student’s “learning style”—for example, visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. But while there have been studies that show students remember more when the same material is presented and reinforced in multiple ways, recent research reviews have found no evidence that individual students can be categorized as learning best through a single type of presentation.
Rick Wormeli, an education consultant and the author of Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom , instead suggests in a 2011 essay in the journal Middle Ground that teachers differentiate based on “learner profiles” : “A learner profile is a set of observations about a student that includes any factor that affects his or her learning, including family dynamics, transiency rate, physical health, emotional health, comfort with technology, leadership qualities, personal interests, and so much more.”
Impacts of Technology
Differentiated and personalized instructional models have also evolved with technological advances, which make it easier to develop and monitor education plans for dozens of students at the same time. The influence of differentiation on school-level programs can be seen in “early warning systems” and student “dashboards” that aim to track individual student performance in real time, as well as initiatives in some schools to develop and monitor individualized learning plans with the student, his or her teachers, and parents.
Advocates of hybrid education models, such as the “flipped classroom” —in which students watch lectures and read material at home and perform practice that would normally be homework during class time—have suggested this could help teachers differentiate by recording and archiving different lectures that students could watch and rewatch as needed, and providing more one-on-one time during class.
By any account, differentiation is considered a complex approach to implement, requiring extensive and ongoing professional development for teachers and administrators.
It required teachers to confront and dismantle their existing, persistent beliefs about teaching and learning ...
In the 2005 longitudinal study that found no consistent implementation of differentiation, researchers noted that “many aspects of differentiation of instruction and assessment (e.g., assigning different work to different students, promoting greater student independence in the classroom) challenged teachers’ beliefs about fairness, about equity, and about how classrooms should be organized to allow students to learn most effectively. As a result, for most teachers, learning to differentiate entailed more than simply learning new practices. It required teachers to confront and dismantle their existing, persistent beliefs about teaching and learning, beliefs that were in large part shared and reinforced by other teachers, principals, parents, the community, and even students.”
In the 2009 book, Professional Development for Differentiating Instruction , Cindy A. Strickland notes that most schools do not provide sufficient training for new and experienced teachers in differentiating instruction.
Ms. Tomlinson said that teachers can begin to differentiate instruction simply by learning more about their students and trying to tailor their teaching as much as they find feasible. “Every significant endeavor seems too hard if we look only at the expert’s product. ... The success of all these ‘seasoned’ people stemmed largely from three factors: They started down a path. They wanted to do better. They kept working toward their goal.”
Including students of disparate abilities and interests also requires the teacher to rethink expectations for all students: “If a teacher uses flexible grouping lesson by lesson and does not assume a student has prior knowledge because he is a ‘higher’ student but really assesses and groups, based on need sometimes and other times by interest, the students will get what they need,” Melinda L. Fattig, a nationally recognized educator and a co-author of the 2008 book Co-Teaching in the Differentiated Classroom , told Teacher magazine that year.
In practice, differentiation is such a broad and multifaceted approach that it has proven difficult to implement properly or study empirically, critics say.
In a 2010 report by the research group McREL, author Bryan Goodwin notes that “to date, no empirical evidence exists to confirm that the total package (e.g., conducting ongoing assessments of student abilities, identifying appropriate content based on those abilities, using flexible grouping arrangements for students, and varying how students can demonstrate proficiency in their learning) has a positive impact on student achievement.” He adds: “One reason for this lack of evidence may simply be that no large-scale, scientific study of differentiated instruction has been conducted.” However, Mr. Goodwin pointed to the 2009 book Visible Learning , which synthesized studies of more than 600 models of personalizing learning based on student interests and prior performance, and found them not much better than general classroom instruction for improving students’ academic performance.
Both in planning time and instructional time, differentiation takes longer than using a single lesson plan for a given topic, and many teachers attempting to differentiate have reported feeling overwhelmed and unable to reach each student equally.
In a 2010 Education Week Commentary essay , Michael J. Schmoker, the author of the 2006 book, Results NOW: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning , says attempts to differentiate instruction frustrated teachers and “seemed to complicate teachers’ work, requiring them to procure and assemble multiple sets of materials” leading to “dumbed-down” teaching.
Likewise, some advocates of gifted education, such as James R. Delisle, have argued that advanced students still are not challenged enough in a differentiated environment, which may vary in the presentation of material but not necessarily in the pace of instruction. He argues that “differentiation in practice is harder to implement in a heterogeneous classroom than it is to juggle with one arm tied behind your back.”
“There is no one book, video, presenter, or website that will show everyone how to differentiate instruction. Let’s stop looking for it. One size rarely fits all. Our classrooms are too diverse and our communities too important for such simplistic notions,” Mr. Wormeli said in an interview with Education Week blogger Larry Ferlazzo .
“Instead, let’s realize what differentiation really is: highly effective teaching, which is complex and interwoven; no one element defining it.”
A version of this article appeared in the February 04, 2015 edition of Education Week
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20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples [+ Downloadable List]
Reviewed by Allison Sinclair, M.T.
Engage and motivate your students with our adaptive, game-based learning platform!
- Game-Based Learning
1. Create Learning Stations
2. use task cards, 3. interview students, 4. target different senses within lessons, 5. share your own strengths and weaknesses, 6. use the think-pair-share strategy, 7. make time for journaling, 8. implement reflection and goal-setting exercises, 9. run literature circles, 10. offer different types of free study time, 11. group students with similar learning styles, 12. give different sets of reading comprehension activities, 13. assign open-ended projects, 14. encourage students to propose ideas for their projects, 15. analyze your differentiated instruction strategy on a regular basis, 16. “teach up”, 17. use math edtech that adjusts itself to each student, 18. relate math to personal interests and everyday examples, 19. play a math-focused version of tic-tac-toe, 20. create learning stations, without mandatory rotations.
As students with diverse learning styles fill the classroom, many teachers don’t always have the time, or spend additional hours to plan lessons that use differentiated instruction (DI) to suit students’ unique aptitudes.
Educator Carol Ann Tomlinson puts it beautifully in her book How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms :
Kids of the same age aren't all alike when it comes to learning, any more than they are alike in terms of size, hobbies, personality, or likes and dislikes. Kids do have many things in common because they are human beings and because they are all children, but they also have important differences. What we share in common makes us human. How we differ makes us individuals. In a classroom with little or no differentiated instruction, only student similarities seem to take center stage. In a differentiated classroom, commonalities are acknowledged and built upon, and student differences become important elements in teaching and learning as well.
This can involve adjusting:
- Content — The media and methods teachers use to impart and instruct skills, ideas and information
- Processes — The exercises and practices students perform to better understand content
- Products — The materials, such as tests and projects, students complete to demonstrate understanding
To help create lessons that engage and resonate with a diverse classroom, below are 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples. Available in a condensed and printable list for your desk, you can use 16 in most classes and the last four for math lessons.
Try the ones that best apply to you, depending on factors such as student age.
Provide different types of content by setting up learning stations — divided sections of your classroom through which groups of students rotate. You can facilitate this with a flexible seating plan .
Each station should use a unique method of teaching a skill or concept related to your lesson.
To compliment your math lessons, for example, many teachers use Prodigy to simplify differentiation . You’ll deliver specific in-game problems to each student — or distinct student groups — in three quick steps!
Students can rotate between stations that involve:
- Watching a video
- Creating artwork
- Reading an article
- Completing puzzles
- Listening to you teach
To help students process the content after they've been through the stations, you can hold a class discussion or assign questions to answer.
Like learning stations, task cards allow you to give students a range of content. Answering task cards can also be a small-group activity , adding variety to classes that normally focus on solo or large-group learning.
First, make or identify tasks and questions that you’d typically find on worksheets or in textbooks.
Second, print and laminate cards that each contain a single task or question. Or, use Teachers Pay Teachers to buy pre-made cards . (Check out Prodigy Education's Teachers Pay Teachers page for free resources!)
Finally, set up stations around your classroom and pair students together to rotate through them.
You can individualize instruction by monitoring the pairs, addressing knowledge gaps when needed.
Asking questions about learning and studying styles can help you pinpoint the kinds of content that will meet your class’s needs.
While running learning stations or a large-group activity , pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:
- Their favourite types of lessons
- Their favourite in-class activities
- Which projects they’re most proud of
- Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points
Track your results to identify themes and students with uncommon preferences, helping you determine which methods of instruction suit their abilities.
A lesson should resonate with more students if it targets visual, tactile, auditory and kinesthetic senses, instead of only one.
When applicable, appeal to a range of learning styles by:
- Playing videos
- Using infographics
- Providing audiobooks
- Getting students to act out a scene
- Incorporating charts and illustrations within texts
- Giving both spoken and written directions to tasks
- Using relevant physical objects, such as money when teaching math skills
- Allotting time for students to create artistic reflections and interpretations of lessons
Not only will these tactics help more students grasp the core concepts of lessons, but make class more engaging.
Prodigy Math Game , for example, is an engaging way to gamify math class in a way that worksheets simply cannot. 👇
To familiarize students with the idea of differentiated learning, you may find it beneficial to explain that not everyone builds skills and processes information the same way.
Talking about your own strengths and weaknesses is one way of doing this.
Explain -- on a personal level — how you study and review lessons. Share tactics that do and don’t work for you, encouraging students to try them.
Not only should this help them understand that people naturally learn differently, but give them insight into improving how they process information.
The think-pair-share strategy exposes students to three lesson-processing experiences within one activity. It’s also easy to monitor and support students as they complete each step.
As the strategy’s name implies, start by asking students to individually think about a given topic or answer a specific question.
Next, pair students together to discuss their results and findings.
Finally, have each pair share their ideas with the rest of the class, and open the floor for further discussion.
Because the differentiated instruction strategy allows students to process your lesson content individually, in a small group and in a large group, it caters to your classroom’s range of learning and personality types.
A journal can be a tool for students to reflect on the lessons you’ve taught and activities you’ve run, helping them process new information .
When possible at the end of class, give students a chance to make a journal entry by:
- Summarizing key points they’ve learned
- Attempting to answer or make sense of lingering questions
- Explaining how they can use the lessons in real-life scenarios
- Illustrating new concepts, which can be especially helpful for data-focused math lessons
As they continue to make entries, they should figure out which ones effectively allow them to process fresh content.
But if you're struggling to see the value of journaling in a subject like math, for example, you can make time specifically for math journaling. While you connect journaling to your own math objectives, students can make cross-curricular connections.
If you want to learn more, check out K-5 Math Teaching Resources for a detailed overview . Angela Watson at The Cornerstone for Teachers also has great math journal resources you can use in your own class!
An extension of journaling, have students reflect on important lessons and set goals for further learning at pre-determined points of the year.
During these points, ask students to write about their favourite topics, as well as the most interesting concepts and information they’ve learned.
They should also identify skills to improve and topics to explore.
Based on the results, you can target lessons to help meet these goals . For example, if the bulk of students discuss a certain aspect of the science curriculum, you can design more activities around it.
Organizing students into literature circles not only encourages students to shape and inform each other’s understanding of readings, but helps auditory and participatory learners retain more information.
This also gives you an opportunity to listen to each circle’s discussion, asking questions and filling in gaps in understanding.
As a bonus, some students may develop leadership skills by running the discussion.
This activity makes written content — which, at times, may only be accessible to individual learners with strong reading retention -- easier to process for more students.
Free study time will generally benefit students who prefer to learn individually, but can be slightly altered to also help their classmates process your lessons.
This can be done by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities.
Consider the following free study exercises to also meet the preferences of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners:
- Provide audiobooks, which play material relevant to your lessons
- Create a station for challenging group games that teach skills involved in the curriculum
- Maintain a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work
- Allow students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from the quiet space
By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners — not just students who easily process information through quiet, individual work.
Heterogenous grouping is a common practice, but grouping students based on similar learning style can encourage collaboration through common work and thinking practices.
This is not to be confused with grouping students based on similar level of ability or understanding.
In some cases, doing so conflicts with the “Teach Up” principle , which is discussed below.
Rather, this tactic allows like-minded students to support each other’s learning while giving you to time to spend with each group. You can then offer the optimal kind of instruction to suit each group’s common needs and preferences.
Instead of focusing on written products, consider evaluating reading comprehension through questions and activities that test different aptitudes.
Although written answers may still appeal to many students, others may thrive and best challenge themselves during artistic or kinesthetic tasks.
For example, allow students to choose between some of the following activities before, during and after an important reading :
- Participating in more literature circles
- Delivering a presentation
- Writing a traditional report
- Creating visual art to illustrate key events
- Creating and performing a monologue as a main character or figure
Offering structured options can help students demonstrate their understanding of content as effectively as possible, giving you more insight into their abilities.
Similar to evaluating reading comprehension, give students a list of projects to find one that lets them effectively demonstrate their knowledge.
Include a clear rubric for each type of project, which clearly defines expectations. In fact, some teachers have their students co-create the rubric with them so they have autonomy in the work they'll be completing and being assessed on. Doing so will keep it challenging and help students meet specific criteria.
By both enticing and challenging students, this approach encourages them to:
- Work and learn at their own paces
- Engage actively with content they must understand
- Demonstrate their knowledge as effectively as possible
As well as benefiting students, this differentiated instruction strategy will clearly showcase distinct work and learning styles.
As well as offering set options, encourage students to take their projects from concept to completion by pitching you ideas.
A student must show how the product will meet academic standards, and be open to your revisions. If the pitch doesn’t meet your standards, tell the student to refine the idea until it does. If it doesn’t by a predetermined date, assign one of your set options.
You may be pleasantly surprised by some pitches.
After all, students themselves are the focus of differentiated instruction — they likely have somewhat of a grasp on their learning styles and abilities.
Even if you’re confident in your overall approach, Carol Ann Tomlinson — one of the most reputable topic thought-leaders — recommends analyzing your differentiated instruction strategies:
Frequently reflect on the match between your classroom and the philosophy of teaching and learning you want to practice. Look for matches and mismatches, and use both to guide you.
Analyze your strategy by reflecting on:
- Content — Are you using diverse materials and teaching methods in class?
- Processes — Are you providing solo, small-group and large-group activities that best allow different learners to absorb your content?
- Products — Are you letting and helping students demonstrate their understanding of content in a variety of ways on tests, projects and assignments?
In doing so, you’ll refine your approach to appropriately accommodate the multiple intelligences of students . It's important to note, however, that recent studies have upended the theory of multiple intelligences. Regardless of where you stand on the multiple intelligences spectrum, the differentiated instruction strategy above remains valuable!
Teaching at a level that’s too easily accessible to each student can harm your differentiated instruction efforts, according to Tomlinson .
Instead, she recommends “teaching up.” This eliminates the pitfall of being stuck on low-level ideas, seldom reaching advanced concepts:
We do much better if we start with what we consider to be high-end curriculum and expectations -- and then differentiate to provide scaffolding, to lift the kids up .
The usual tendency is to start with what we perceive to be grade-level material and then dumb it down for some and raise it up for others. But we don’t usually raise it up very much from that starting point, and dumbing down just sets lower expectations for some kids.
Keeping this concept in mind should focus your differentiated teaching strategy, helping you bring each student up to “high-end curriculum and expectations.”
It has also grown particularly popular in the 2020s as educators have focused more on accelerated learning by "teaching up", as opposed to filling learning gaps.
As Elizabeth S. LeBlanc, Co-Founder of the Institute for Teaching and Learning, writes for EdSurge : "Accelerated learning approaches give a lower priority to repetition or 'skill-and-drill' uses of instructional technology. In other words, it’s not about memorizing everything you should have learned, it’s about moving you forward so you pick things up along the way. "
Differentiated Math Instruction Strategies and Examples
Some EdTech tools — such as certain educational math video games — can deliver differentiated content, while providing unique ways to process it.
For example, Prodigy adjusts questions to tackle student trouble spots and offers math problems that use words, charts and pictures, as well as numbers.
To the benefit of teachers, the game is free and curriculum-aligned for grades 1 to 8. You can adjust the focus of questions to supplement lessons and homework, running reports to examine each student’s progress.
Join over 90 million students and teachers using Prodigy's differentiating power today. 👇
Clearly linking math to personal interests and real-world examples can help some learners understand key concepts.
Working with 41 grade 7 students throughout an academic year, a 2015 study published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education used contextual learning strategies to teach integers and increase test scores by more than 44%.
Striving for similar benefits may be ambitious, but you can start by surveying students. Ask about their interests and how they use math outside of school.
Using your findings, you should find that contextualization helps some students grasp new or unfamiliar math concepts.
There are many math-related games and activities to find inspiration to implement this tactic.
Help students practice different math skills by playing a game that’s a take on tic-tac-toe.
Prepare by dividing a sheet into squares — three vertical by three horizontal. Don’t leave them blank. Instead, fill the boxes with questions that test different abilities.
- “Complete question X in page Y of your textbook”
- “Draw a picture to show how to add fraction X and fraction Y”
- “Describe a real-life situation in which you would use cross-multiplication, providing an example and solution”
You can hand out sheets to students for solo practice, or divide them into pairs and encourage friendly competition . The first one to link three Xs or Os — by correctly completing questions — wins.
So, depending on your preferences, this game will challenge diverse learners through either individual or small-group practice.
Provide differentiated math learning opportunities for your students by setting up unique learning stations across your classrooms, but forgoing mandatory rotations.
The idea comes from a grade 9 teacher in Ontario, who recommends creating three stations to solve similar mathematical problems using either:
- Data — Provide spreadsheets, requiring students to manipulate data through trial and error
- People — Group students into pairs or triads to tackle a range of problems together, supporting each other’s learning
- Things — Offer a hands-on option by giving each student objects to use when solving questions
Only allow students to switch stations if they feel the need. If they do, consult them about their decision. In each case, you and the student will likely learn more about his or her learning style.
Supplemented by your circulation between stations to address gaps in prior knowledge, this activity exposes students to exercises that appeal to diverse abilities.
Downloadable List of Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples
Click here to download and print a simplified list of the 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples to keep at your desk.
Differentiated Instruction Strategies Infographic
Here’s an infographic with 16 ideas from this article, provided by Educational Technology and Mobile Learning — an online resource for teaching tools and ideas.
With help from the downloadable list, use these differentiated instruction strategies and examples to suit the diverse needs and learning styles of your students.
As well as adding variety to your content, these methods will help students process your lessons and demonstrate their understanding of them.
The strategies should prove to be increasingly useful as you identify the distinct learning styles in — and learn to manage — your classroom .
Differentiated instruction strategies overlap in important ways with a number of other pedagogical approaches. Consider reviewing these supplementary strategies to find more ideas, combine different elements of each strategy, and enrich your pedagogical toolkit!
- Active learning strategies put your students at the center of the learning process, enriching the classroom experience and boosting engagement.
- As opposed to traditional learning activities, experiential learning activities build knowledge and skills through direct experience.
- Project-based learning uses an open-ended approach in which students work alone or collectively to produce an engaging, intricate curriculum-related questions or challenges.
- Inquiry-based learning is subdivided into four categories, all of which promote the importance of your students' development of questions, ideas and analyses.
- Adaptive learning focuses on changing — or "adapting" — learning content for students on an individual basis, particularly with the help of technology.
👉 Create or log into your teacher account on Prodigy — a game-based learning platform that delivers differentiated instruction, automatically adjusting questions to accommodate player trouble spots and learning speeds. Aligned with curricula across the English-speaking world, it’s used by more than 90 million students and teachers.
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What Is Differentiated Instruction?
Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction.
What You'll Learn
At its most basic level, differentiation consists of the efforts of teachers to respond to variance among learners in the classroom. Whenever a teacher reaches out to an individual or small group to vary his or her teaching in order to create the best learning experience possible, that teacher is differentiating instruction.
Teachers can differentiate at least four classroom elements based on student readiness, interest, or learning profile:
- Content – what the student needs to learn or how the student will get access to the information;
- Process – activities in which the student engages in order to make sense of or master the content;
- Products – culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit; and
- Learning environment – the way the classroom works and feels.
Examples of differentiating content at the elementary level include the following:
- Using reading materials at varying readability levels;
- Putting text materials on tape;
- Using spelling or vocabulary lists at readiness levels of students;
- Presenting ideas through both auditory and visual means;
- Using reading buddies; and
- Meeting with small groups to re-teach an idea or skill for struggling learners, or to extend the thinking or skills of advanced learners.
Examples of differentiating process or activities at the elementary level include the following:
- Using tiered activities through which all learners work with the same important understandings and skills, but proceed with different levels of support, challenge, or complexity;
- Providing interest centers that encourage students to explore subsets of the class topic of particular interest to them;
- Developing personal agendas (task lists written by the teacher and containing both in-common work for the whole class and work that addresses individual needs of learners) to be completed either during specified agenda time or as students complete other work early;
- Offering manipulatives or other hands-on supports for students who need them; and
- Varying the length of time a student may take to complete a task in order to provide additional support for a struggling learner or to encourage an advanced learner to pursue a topic in greater depth.
Examples of differentiating products at the elementary level include the following:
- Giving students options of how to express required learning (e.g., create a puppet show, write a letter, or develop a mural with labels);
- Using rubrics that match and extend students' varied skills levels;
- Allowing students to work alone or in small groups on their products; and
- Encouraging students to create their own product assignments as long as the assignments contain required elements.
Examples of differentiating learning environment at the elementary level include:
- Making sure there are places in the room to work quietly and without distraction, as well as places that invite student collaboration;
- Providing materials that reflect a variety of cultures and home settings;
- Setting out clear guidelines for independent work that matches individual needs;
- Developing routines that allow students to get help when teachers are busy with other students and cannot help them immediately; and
- Helping students understand that some learners need to move around to learn, while others do better sitting quietly (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999; Winebrenner, 1992, 1996).
Click the "References" link above to hide these references.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
Danielson, C. (1996). Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. ED 403 245.
Sternberg, R. J., Torff, B., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1998). Teaching triarchically improves student achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(3), 374-384. EJ 576 492.
Tomlinson, C. (1995). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-ability Classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. ED 386 301.
Tomlinson, C. (1999). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of all Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. ED 429 944.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Winebrenner, S. (1992). Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit.
Winebrenner, S. (1996). Teaching kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. ED 396 502.
Excerpted from: Tomlinson, C. A. (August, 2000). Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades. ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.
This article expresses how important it is to develop ways to meet our student's social and academic needs through differentiation.
Though it can be done in larger groups, one thing that I have learned is that differentiation works so much better in small group settings. Small group allows you more time to recognize student needs and learning styles. You can then differentiate instruction to meet individual needs.
Great article. The Breakdown was crystal clear.
Finding ways to support all students seems to be the best way to make sure everyone is being challenged and given an opportunity to be successful.
Very interesting and something I will reference in my classroom.
The article is very useful can be applied even at the secondary level with some tweaking.
Differentiated instruction works for all levels of student.
Differentiated instructions are very necessary to help ALL students learn and succeed. I teach 2nd grade and have students that are on 11 different levels in math and reading. This article does a good job explaining the importance of the learning benefits of differentiation.
This confirms what I know about differentiation and states it very clearly.
I found this article very informational. It's a great reminder of the items that I am doing and what I may need to attend more attention too.
Great practical ideas. Also the comments are so much rich to understand and implement differentiated teaching
Differentiated instructional techniques for each lesson Heightens interest and increases participation when children are grouped according to learning styles. By using the content provided in this article and searching the web division of students into groups of primary learning styles with an activity focused on the overall learning styles and examples printed or recorded for others seems to be more achievable with the block schedules used in upper grades.
It is nice to see how to give instruction effectively in different level
I teach at risk students who have been tested with the state required Dibbles system. If they score in the red they become my students. I then teach a program designed for them to learn the different sounds in the English language. Many students are Hispanic and speak little English. I use an interactive SMART board, magnetic boards, dry-erase boards, and note books with a hands on approach. The program works well and is user friendly. I highly recommend this program and students do well with great results. If you put in the work you get the reward. I have an average of over 60 students daily.
Good information! Homeschooling is differentiated instruction as well.
The articles are very useful in understanding the DI more.
A consideration when setting up varied instructions leading to 'doable' activities is knowing your learners, their learning styles and making the DI 'fit' as best you can. Giving them choices where they can be involved is good for their confidence too. keep it simple relevant and engaging, whatever it is. More focus on STT and way less TTT also helps, alot. Peace. Major Tom
This article is very important because it gives teachers strategies of differentiated teaching, which includes elements to help students learn and be successful. It is excellent how it explains the importance of learning.
Without going into detail, lets at least start with the idea of the uniqueness of each student. The we can realise that we have to tailor our teaching to create the best conditions for that student to learn. Of course it is difficult with more students in the class, but that is how we develop our professionalism. As someone mentioned, good , professional, skilled teachers adapt their teaching all the time.
I found this article very useful for my lower primary students. It will be highly appreciated, if you can share some more documents and applications.
Differentiated instruction is a wonderful strategy but with a class of ESE students it is difficult to use without an assistant to help. Each student requires one on one instruction.
i am a kindergarten teacher and am really struggling with this concept of differenciate teaching in a class of 35 students who are 4 yr old,without an aide.preparing work sheets is a challenge.Daily thinking of how to keep them motivated is taking a toll on my family life.
group them in flexible groups by below average, average, above average then address each IEP, yes, it is tracking but you have to meet every student where they are. You don't won't to over whelm them or talk over there head. Teachers cant afford to waste time teaching what kids already know as well what they are not ready to learn. I feel that is the easiest way to do the young kids
Differentiation helps the teacher better meet the needs of different students in the classroom.
In my years of teaching , I found that differentiated teaching shows so much enter action with the students. Because groups learn at different times, in different ways. I say this because I'm a vocal music teacher. Some hear tones better than those who read the notes.
Nice, this is quite a good job in giving out the minute details. Thanks. Please write more. A sample lesson plan can be of great help too.
Differentiated Learning is simply learning styles and social learning theory utilizing teacher pedagogy as the arbitrator and brain-based learning theory as the fundamental underlying outcome.
I just wanted to share an awesome site that allows you to print nonfiction articles at varying Lexile levels. As students work in groups, they can all read the same article but have it at their instructional level. They have current event articles that my students absolutely love. Hope this helps! www.newsela.com
Should a lesson be focusing on differentiating only one element for all students or can ONE lesson have different learning objectives for different differentiated-element tasks for groups of students?
Differentiated instruction can be effective if done correctly
Wow...quite the comments....I think the biggest problem with DI at this point in time is that we obviously are not in agreement on its practical definition. If when we try and implement a program we took the time to talk about the various ways this format has tried to be implemented, we could get a better handle on what we want it to look like. Personally, I think we need to make something sound easy and enticing to those that have to implement and for God's sake...let the teachers fail once in a while they're trying to grow themselves...That's a huge problem for teachers today...no mistakes, only success....ridiculous.
hellow.. differentiated instruction is not practiced in our school. I am planning to conduct a study about it's effectiveness in enhancing my students conceptual understanding and attitude in my subject since it's, well, considered by many as a hard science. Can i differentiate the teaching-learning process only (without changing the content of what they should learn and expect the same output/product for the whole class). Another question is, should i also differentiate the learning environment? By the way i want to differentiate my methods based from my students learning styles only..is it ok if i only consider the learning style??disregarding the other factors for learning. Help pls:) thanx
I love the information, it really demonstrated all the components of differentiated teaching. The ideals were great.
This article makes differentiating instruction very practical and specific.
Differentiated Instruction it alpply for every children? or just children w disabilities?
OK, jg and all of your supporters, yes, elementary teachers work hard too, but I have (as an administrator) seen elementary teachers who seem to think lesson planning consists of turning to the next page in the teacher edition - and I don't mean the night before - I am talking about doing that when it's time to teach the lesson, so HS teachers with yellowed lesson plans in a dusty cabinet don't have a monopoly on lack of planning. There are excellent and poor teachers at all levels, and none of them have an easy job. We do ourselves a disservice when we bicker back and forth about who has the toughest job. However, in this discussion, the number of students per day IS a valid concern. If you have the same 30 kids all day, even if it is for all possible subjects, you can get to know their learning needs and allow activities to flow from one to another, covering more than one topic in the same activity. You can use non-fiction reading materials for reading and science, you can teach a math and science combination lesson together with a writing assignment afterward, etc. The HS teacher has to stick to one topic and stop after X minutes to begin again with a new group - and every group is composed of different students with unique needs. In many states, and especially now with the Common Core, the sheer number of topics to cover during the course can be quite daunting, and teachers feel the pressure to cover the material. (I don't equate coverage with teaching - I am just saying there is a lot of pressure to cover all objectives.) And, I hate to burst your bubble, many HS teachers do have multiple subjects in a single day. However, even the year that I had four sections of geometry and one of another math (so only two preps), the four geometry classes were all different and had to be approached differently. Same topic with different kids does not mean that you can do exactly the same lesson. Differentiation is difficult but worthwhile, and it is not something you can do for every lesson every day, but excellent teachers find a way to do as much as they can to help all students achieve.
this article gave additional and simpler concept of differentiated instruction..very helpful for my exam!
help!! i am struggling with differentiation. i have a class of 36 prealgebra students and with so many (and they are very chatty!)i am finding it difficult. last year i only had 18 and it is almost impossible to do some of the same activities that i did with my smaller group last year. when i group them i have 9 groups! and my class is filled to capacity...! all advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Sometimes reviewing routinely pre-requisite skills consistently to ensure that students are not lacking or are brought up to the current skill is what is needed.
TK - I am so glad you can do it with 22 students but try over 100 without any teaching assistants. 22 students and an assistant - Only in a high school teacher's dreams.
Both Elementary and High School teachers are correct, both of their jobs create quite different problems. I have taught both Elementary and Middle/High School, in regular ed, as well as in the special education classroom. Each classroom presents its own types of challenges. Some classes just aren't condusive to DI, because of the student population you have, and numbers, and weather or not you have an aide. If you have a class with alot of behavior issues and you are the only one in the room, alot of group activities will fail because you can't turn your back on a certain student or two in that situation. We have been talking about DI since I began teaching in the mid 1980's we just didn't have a name for it, we called it teaching, and everyone knew that it was our job to try to reach every student, and use whatever means necessary to do so, now they have names for everything and DI has been around alot longer than the name for it. Also don't try to tell another teacher what they can and can't do in their classroom until you have sat in their specific classroom and witness and monitor the dynamics yourself, because as wonderful as DI is, it doesn't work for everything and isn't the cure all.
I have to give Diane Kudos too. Teachers have to be creative when differentiating large groups and subjects or level should not stop us.
I am actually differentiating learning activities of my students. It is really challenging especially if you have forty-five to fifty students in a class. Majority of these students have low English proficiency level and only 3% belong to near mastery level.Fortunately, I have already differentiated four skills in vocabulary: synonyms, antonyms, words with multiple meanings, and idioms. We had so much fun, learning, and everybody has a "voice".I would like to differentiate now skills in reading--noting details, getting the main ideas, making inferences, and determining the tone or mood. However, I am still groping what to do especially in noting details and getting the main ideas. Please advise me. I am a high school Filipino teacher who teaches English subject. my email address is [email protected] . God bless
Gayle Moore, if I can manage 22 four-year-olds and still differentiate for individuals, you can too! I assign mine to weekly groups which rotate through five small group activities each week (1 each day). When they first come in, they go to their table and start working quietly and independently. Once everyone arrives we break for circle time, then go back to those small group activities. During that second segment, I pull 2 or 3 kids aside who need help with a particular skill and work with them for 5-10 minutes. This seems to work well and the kids love when its their turn to work with me. The independent activities are overseen by my assistant.
jg....You are sooooo correct. I teach 4th and 5th grade. Meet the need of the student not the challenges of the student. Differentiated instruction is a lifesaver. Thank God for planning.
sounds very good for the type of classrooms that we are teaching in today.
It was a good feeling to read the article and realize that so many of the areas are being done. The area that I find the most challenging is the Learning Environment. Working with 5-6 year olds poses a tremendous challenge preparing the children to work independently for a period of time while the teacher is helping others. Routines are difficult in the beginning of the year.
I am an Art Teacher and find that various ways to approach a unit are necessary to maintain student interest.
Using differentiated reading materials is often difficult due to the lack of access to varying materials.
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Arts Integration and Differentiated Instruction Examine how arts integration offers “multiple and varied avenues to learning” consistent with the principles of differentiated instruction
“In arts integrated schools, students constantly move back and forth between different methods of inquiry and observation, symbolic languages, expressive modes, formal curriculum, and their own lives.” 1 –Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond
Through differentiated instruction “…students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn.” 2 – Carol Ann Tomlinson
“We have tried to be very clear about arts integration – that it is differentiated instruction.” 3 -- a participant in the Community/Schools Partnership for Arts, Sarasota, Florida
Classrooms are full of individuals that learn in different ways. For example, some students learn aurally, visually, or kinesthetically. Some learn quickly, others struggle, and still others fall somewhere between. Acknowledging this diversity, many educators are recognizing that it is no longer appropriate to approach teaching as a singular, one-size-fits-all endeavor. Recognizing the wide variance that exists within any group of learners, educators are recommending that teachers offer “multiple and varied avenues to learning.” 4
According to Carol Ann Tomlinson 5 , differentiated instruction is: “a way of thinking about teaching and learning that values the individual…” 6
“Differentiation doesn’t suggest that a teacher can be all things to all individuals all the time. It does, however, mandate that a teacher create a reasonable range of approaches to learning much of the time, so that most students find learning a fit much of the time.” 7
Arts integration offers a “range of approaches to learning” aligned with the principles of differentiated instruction. Specifically, arts integration helps students access content, process their learning, create products, and work in a productive and supportive learning environment in ways that take into account individual readiness, interest, and learning profile.
This article provides an overview of the core elements of differentiated instruction 1) beliefs about learning; 2) content, process, and products; 3) learning environment; and examines the alignment with arts integration.
Beliefs about Learning
Differentiated instruction draws support from research about how people learn and constructivist beliefs about learning. Tomlinson states:
Arts integration involves students in active learning, decision making, and problem solving through the creative process in which students construct and demonstrate their understandings.
Arts integration is also recognized for providing learning experiences that are engaging, relevant, and interesting, and as a result, meaningful and highly motivating. Creating in an art form is naturally engaging. When students bring their personal voice, vision, and interests to bear on their learning, it results in increased motivation, sense of ownership and pride in their work, and the development of valued habits of mind. 10
In Critical Evidence , Sandra Ruppert points to the link between the arts, motivation, and other outcomes valued for learning:
Rabkin and Redmond add further support to Ruppert’s statement:
Further, Tomlinson suggests that differentiated instruction is strongest when teachers use “concept-based teaching” in which they focus on essential and meaningful key concepts and principles rather than trying to cover many facts. Working with concepts, the “building blocks of meaning,” helps students to:
“(1) understand rather than memorize, (2) retain ideas and facts longer because they are more meaningful, (3) make connections between subjects and facets of a single subject, (4) relate ideas to their own lives, (5) build networks of meaning for effectively dealing with future knowledge” 13
Arts integration is an example of concept-based teaching. Big ideas are the focus of connections between an art form and another area of study. For example, conflict is examined through theater and history, pattern is examined through music and math, and transformation is examined through dance and science. Students learn and apply facts that support the big ideas. Teachers report that arts integration helps students build understanding, retain those understandings, and make meaningful connections to their own lives:
“I have seen that children who participate in arts integration showed longer retention of concepts and found deeper meaning in the curriculum presented. Children can synthesize basic information and infer deeper meaning as to why things happen, not just spew back rote information.” 14
Content, Process, and Products
According to Tomlinson, the primary intent of differentiated instruction is to “maximize student capacity.” 15 To accomplish this, teachers can differentiate their instruction related to three classroom elements: content, process, and products.
- Content— what is taught (information, ideas, skills) or access to what they should learn. 16
- Process—short-term activities that students engage to make sense of or process the content. 17
- Products—culminating projects that represent a student’s understandings and the application of those understandings gained across a longer learning segment (i.e., a unit, semester). 18
Each of the three elements can be further differentiated by a student’s readiness, interests, and learning profile. 19
Arts integration offers a range of languages and symbol systems that provide alternative ways to encode and access information. For example, teachers and students use the language and symbols of line, shape, color, texture, and form in the visual arts; the language of physical and vocal expression in drama/theater; the language of movement in dance; and the language of rhythm, melody, and pattern in music. The arts with their alternative languages and symbol systems engage all students, particularly struggling learners that are typically not reached through traditional teaching methods. 20
The arts also draw on a range of learning modalities (visual, aural, kinesthetic) and intelligences (e.g., bodily/kinesthetic, spatial, visual, musical). For example, drama communicates visually, aurally, and kinesthetically and draws on interpersonal, intrapersonal, and linguistic intelligences. Dance communicates visually, kinesthetically, and aurally (if music is used) and draws on bodily/kinesthetic, spatial, and musical intelligences.
The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities points to several reasons for the growing interest in arts integration, including:
“the compatibility of arts integration methods with newer research findings about learning including personalization , repetition and reinforcement through multiple modalities , fluency with symbol systems , and the continuum of stages from concrete to representational to abstract.” 21
Process and Products
Through arts integration , students use alternative ways (e.g., dancing, acting, writing, speaking, drawing, singing) to make sense of content they are learning and to demonstrate their understandings.
Arts integration offers in-process sense-making activities as well as culminating summative products. For example, during a unit, students may create short movement improvisations to make sense of the concepts of a planet’s axis and rotation in the solar system. If these improvisations are created at the beginning of the unit, they offer a way for the teacher to assess a student’s readiness/prior knowledge. When students create the improvisations within the unit, they demonstrate what they know, understand, and can do. These in-process improvisations are valuable formative assessments that teachers use to guide decisions about the additional level of support students need as well as the next instructional steps. For students, these in-process improvisations help them reflect on and clarify their understandings and to assess and revise their work so that it better demonstrates their understandings (in both science and dance). At the end of an arts integration unit, students create products that demonstrate their understandings of the concepts, knowledge, and skills learned across an entire unit. As such, these products provide summative assessments.
In all cases, students are engaged in the creative process. The creative process, by its very nature, is naturally differentiated. It allows varied degrees of sophistication in how students make sense of information. It is flexible; students can enter the creative process at different places and move within it at different rates. It can be adapted for different levels of readiness, interests, and types of participation. But, wherever a student is on a continuum of learning, and whatever his/her interests and learning style, the student can participate in meaningful ways, be given support, and challenged to move ahead.
A study about the impact of The Kennedy Center’s Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA) program, an arts integration program serving 16 schools in the Washington DC metropolitan area, indicated:
“Across all three years of this evaluation, more than 90 percent of the teacher survey respondents used arts integration most frequently to help students demonstrate understanding in different ways and to address a variety of learning styles .” 22
In arts integration, the quality of students’ work in the art form is as critical as the quality of their work in the other subject area. The teacher invests time to help students develop the knowledge and skills in an art form so that they can use it authentically to demonstrate their understandings. For example, before students write a song about a science concept, they learn the basic skills and vocabulary needed to create a quality song (e.g., musical form, rhythm and rhyme patterns). Before students create a dance to demonstrate their understanding of math concepts, they learn some basic dance skills and vocabulary (e.g., body, space, energy, time, choreographic structures). The investment in teaching a baseline of art form knowledge and skills results in more authentic work—higher quality products and communication that is more nuanced.
In other words, differentiated instruction that aligns with arts integration is not the same as differentiated instruction that aligns with arts-enhanced learning where learning objectives are met in the other subject area, but not in the art form.
For teachers to use arts integration as a strategy for differentiating instruction requires that teachers gain a baseline of knowledge about an art form. The authors of Third Space: When Learning Matters describe the results of a study of teachers’ attitudes about learning more about the arts:
“Teachers reported that they are motivated to take on the often challenging task of increasing their competence in an art form as part of their teaching because of the insights the arts give them into the individual differences of their students and the increased satisfaction that it provides them as teachers.” 23
In addition to focusing on beliefs about learning, and content, process and products, differentiated instruction also highlights the importance of a supportive classroom environment. Overall, in differentiated instruction, the teacher’s goal is to build a sense of community where each student is welcomed, feels safe and respected, and respects others.
“…the teacher leads his students in developing the sorts of attitudes, beliefs and practices that would characterize a really good neighborhood.” 24
Arts integration classrooms feel like supportive neighborhoods. They strive to be warm, welcoming, and safe places so that students can risk and try new things. Teachers encourage choice and honor the individual’s voice. In these classrooms, instruction focuses on what students can do.
“Learning in the arts helps students to develop a sense of self-efficacy, a feeling that they can be agents of their own learning and they can make positive change in their own lives and in their surroundings.” 25
Differentiated instruction places a premium on teachers getting to know their students. Arts integration provides a way for teachers to do that:
“Teachers … described learning about students through their art work as an illuminating and important outcome of the arts integrated units in their classrooms. The works that emerged made visible students’ backgrounds, understandings, and skills that often had been hidden, allowing teachers to see how they could build on what students know and to engage them more actively in learning.” 26
Neither differentiated instruction nor arts integration classrooms is chaotic. The classrooms are lively places full of orchestrated and disciplined energy. Teachers give careful attention to classroom management structures and routines that enable students to be active, engaged, and highly focused.
In both differentiated instruction and arts integration, the classroom’s physical environment is flexible. In arts integration, furniture is moved to allow for movement, theatrical or dance improvisations, or for various groupings. Students carry out routines for efficiently and quietly setting and re-setting furniture. Teachers organize materials and establish efficient routines for distribution and clean-up. The classroom reflects a student-centered focus with interesting displays documenting students’ creative process and the products they have created.
In both differentiated instruction and arts integration there is a dynamic interplay of challenge and support. In differentiated instruction, Tomlinson describes a “pervasive expectation of growth” 27 and a persistent, gentle push for students to tackle the next level of knowledge and skill, supported with appropriate scaffolds. 28 In arts integration, teachers expect students to meet evolving objectives in both the art form and the other subject area. This push to reach the next level of knowledge and skills is pervasive. The teacher often moves among the students, listening to their conversations, assessing their understanding, clarifying ideas, and offering support to push them ahead.
Arts integration is one of a range of approaches for differentiating instruction. Similar beliefs about effective learning—active learning, choice, problem-solving, engagement, and relevance—guide both arts integration and differentiated instruction. Both offer sense-making activities and opportunities to create products that help students construct and demonstrate their understandings. Both honor the range of learners that inhabit our classrooms by offering alternative avenues for learning that take into account students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles.
Lynne B. Silverstein
Editors & Producers
Amy Duma Kenny Neal
- Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond eds., Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century , (Chicago, IL: Columbia College Chicago, 2004), 128.
- Carol Ann Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 2nd ed., (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development/ASCD, 2001), 1.
- Arts Education Partnership, Creating Quality Integrated and Interdisciplinary Arts Programs: Report of the Arts Education Partnership National Forum, 2002. (Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership, 2003), 7.
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 9.
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 1. Carol Ann Tomlinson, Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades . ERIC Digest. www.ericdigests.org/2001/elementary.html
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 17.
- Lauren M. Stevenson and Richard J. Deasy, Third Space: When Learning Matters , (Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership, 2005), 28-36.
- Sandra S. Ruppert, Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement , (Washington DC: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 2006), 14.
- Rabkin and Redmond, Putting the Arts in the Picture , 134.
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 74.
- Comment by Laura Roberts, Abingdon Elementary School, Arlington Public Schools (VA), Kennedy Center/CETA Certificate of Study, 2011.
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms ,11.
- Readiness refers to the level of knowledge, skills, and understanding of a particular area of study. Interests refers to a student’s curiosity or passion to learn, and learning profile refers to the student’s preferred way of learning (i.e., how a student learns most effectively and efficiently).
- Rabkin and Redmond, Putting the Arts in the Picture , 8.
- President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future through Creative Schools , (Washington DC, May 2011), 40.
- Joan Isenberg, Jennifer McCreadie with Jennifer Durham and Bernadine Pearson, Changing Education Through the Arts: Final Evaluation Report 2005-2008 (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University, College of Education and Human Development, 2009), 17.
- Stevenson and Deasy, Third Space , 75.
- Tomlinson, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms , 21-24.
- Stevenson and Deasy, Third Space , 32-33.
January 14, 2020
Article arts integration resources.
This collection on arts integration draws from more than a decade of the Kennedy Center’s efforts to clarify arts integration principles and implement best practices.
- Arts Integration
Article Supporting Individual Needs
This collection of resources and articles is designed to help educators devise an approach for supporting individual needs in the classroom: from English Language Learners or students with disabilities, to conflict resolution and giving feedback.
- English Language Learners
- Diversity & Inclusion
Article Getting Parents Involved!
This collection of articles provides tips on involving and engaging parents in their students's arts education.
- Jobs in the Arts
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Kennedy Center Education
Generous support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; Annenberg Foundation; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Bank of America; Bender Foundation, Inc.; Carter and Melissa Cafritz Trust; Carnegie Corporation of New York; DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Estée Lauder; Exelon; Flocabulary; Harman Family Foundation; The Hearst Foundations; the Herb Alpert Foundation; the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The King-White Family Foundation and Dr. J. Douglas White; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation;
Music Theatre International; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; the National Endowment for the Arts; Newman’s Own Foundation; Nordstrom; Park Foundation, Inc.; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Prince Charitable Trusts; Soundtrap; The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; UnitedHealth Group; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Volkswagen Group of America; and Wells Fargo. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts.
The content of these programs may have been developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education but does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the federal government.
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Differentiating Instruction: A Modified Concerto in Four Movements
It’s much easier to differentiate instruction if we are experts in four areas: our students, the curriculum, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices. All four must be in play if we are to teach effectively.
There’s a great differentiated instruction analogy in a scene from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s movie, The Sound of Music. At one point, Maria Von Trapp (Julie Andrews) takes the seven children on a bike ride. As they ride, some children follow the teacher, some ride alongside the teacher, and some move ahead. One is carried piggyback style on Maria’s back because she can’t ride at all. Despite everyone’s different rate and competency with bike riding, the group is moving as a whole; everyone is on the trip, advanced and struggling bike riders, and no one is left behind. The teacher scaffolded the instruction for some of them, and she allowed the more advanced children to surpass the teacher in execution of the skill. Differentiated Instruction expert Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson puts it succinctly: ‘We might change the layout of the track, but all students are still in the race.’
Large student loads, limited time periods, and curricular mandates make it challenging to adjust instruction for the unique needs of today’s diverse learners. In the secondary levels, we factor in 160 morphing humans going through puberty with all its accompanying confusion, inconsistency, and high energy; we are overwhelmed. To survive, some teachers teach in a way that’s easiest for themselves and hope students get something out of it. That expends more energy in the long run, however, because those teachers are forced to go back and remediate students who never learned. In an era of standards, accountability, and NCLB, this is not acceptable.
Teachers can differentiate instruction successfully if they are experts in multiple facets of their jobs. To only know one’s subject doesn’t cut it with today’s diverse populations, and to know only what the basal textbook says about our topics doesn’t work either. As highly accomplished professional educators, we have to be multi-talented, highly trained thinkers, not just pseudo postal workers delivering someone else’s mail (i.e. state-mandated curriculum) and documenting those students who can’t make use of it.
It’s much easier to differentiate instruction if we are experts in four areas: our students, the curriculum, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices. All four must be in play if we are to teach effectively. If one of these is not a strength for a teacher, then it is suggested as the direction for professional growth in the years ahead.
Without expertise in what is developmentally appropriate for students of the age we teach, we cannot effectively apply any teaching approach, let alone differentiated instruction. Middle school teachers, for example, require an expertise in young adolescents, knowing their students are no longer elementary-age but are not ready for high school approaches either. In order for cognition and learning to take place, young adolescents require physical activity, opportunities for self-definition, structure and clear limits, meaningful relationships with adults, competence, and creative expression. (Turning Points, 2000) Information and skills do not go into to long-term memory unless these needs are satisfied.
Sometimes, then, we don’t adjust content, process, products or anything else; we just have to make sure students’ developmental needs are being met as we work. If they are, they can learn effectively. If we teach blind to the needs of our students, we’re wasting their time and our own, however, because cognition doesn’t happen if these needs are met. And sometimes what we modify as we differentiate instruction is in response to one of these missing elements in a particular group of students’ lives. These three students need more opportunity to define themselves, we think, and that’s what we change for them in order for them to maximize their learning.
We must be experts in our discipline as well. For example, as a math teacher, do I teach fractions first, or decimals’ And where do percentages fit into the sequence’ Do I ask students to turn to page 74 or page 174 in the textbook’ Some students require one sequence, but others would benefit from something different. As a subject expert, I can determine how one set of information serves as a foundation or subset of another. I can help students identify connections and teach for meaningful learning. Teaching isn’t telling, nor is it presenting. This is where mediocre teachers stop. Accomplished teachers tell and present in such a manner that students find the information and skills meaningful. We don’t say, ‘I taught it, now it’s up to students to learn it,’ and we don’t turn to the next page in basal text because it’s the next page in the basal text. We turn to whatever page makes the most sense based on what we know about our students and our subject.
Here’s an ineffective teacher’s curriculum presentation: cp rabc f bicn nmt v. The student sees it as incoherent. If he’s mature and supported by the adults in his life (neither one a sure thing), he buckles down and memorizes the information using a mnemonic device, but easily forgets the information once he’s played the game of school and jumped through artificial hoops (tests). Here’s a highly effective teacher’s curriculum: cpr abc fbi cnn mtv. It’s the same curriculum the first teacher had, but the teacher changed the pacing of its delivery so students could make sense of it and bring meaning to it. He used his subject expertise and knowledge of his students to re-group it. This is the teaching our communities desire, not a teacher-proof curriculum where everyone is on chapter nine at week twelve. What kind of society will we have if teachers are forced to subject students to such insensitive and ineffective lock-step fashion regardless of new knowledge and needs of students’ Not the kind that protects democracy.
It’s dangerous to say this to educators, but here it goes: What we teach is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what we teach. What matters is what students take with them when they leave us at the end of the year; this is our greatest testimony as educators. Do we teach in a way that is likely to be retained beyond just parroting information back on a test’ If we’re teaching for long-term retention, then we employ best practices and teach a developmentally appropriate curriculum. If the curriculum is the problem, we educate policy-makers to make changes. We do not teach something politically motivated but pedagogically unsound. As highly effective practitioners, we’re the ones with the expertise, and having such expertise gives us an implied mandate to lead our communities in the right direction.
Cognitive theory expertise
Solid expertise in cognitive theory is also vital. We can deftly apply differentiated instruction principles only as far as we understand how our students’ minds work. For example, nothing goes into long-term memory unless it’s attached to something already in storage. So, we create prior knowledge where there is none. If we’re teaching something of major importance on Wednesday, and it’s clear that seven students have no personal background with the intended concepts, we give the larger class an anchor activity on Monday, and we provide these seven students with the necessary background experience so they can fully participate and appreciate Wednesday’s learning to come.
With solid footing in cognitive theory, we can head off many potential hurdles to student success. Our ability to retrieve information and apply it such as students do on tests has almost everything to do with how it enters our minds the first time we experience it, not so much how we studied it down the road. In order to maximize learning, then, we structure information as students first receive it. For instance, we would never tell students to read chapter 15 and summarize it without first explaining the chapter’s structure or helping students to determine its structure:
‘This is a compare and contrast of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Their similarities and differences are examined in each of the following five areas: childhood, education, careers, struggles, and politics. Given this knowledge before we begin reading, how might we set up our summarizations’
Students set up Venn diagrams and other graphic organizers that allow them to compare and contrast the two figures. If a student asks, ‘What information from the chapter will be on the test” we don’t glibly reply, ‘Just read and learn every fact from the whole chapter. I reserve the right to choose anything I want from the chapter to put on the test. I’ll know whether or not you read it carefully.’ This isn’t teaching. This is playing the game of school. This teacher is out to document deficiencies, not teach so that students learn. To be clear, the goal is not for students to read every word of the chapter, which is what the teacher promotes as the goal to students. The goal is for students to learn the similarities and differences between Douglas and Lincoln in the areas listed. It requires repeated visits to what we consider essential and enduring in our lessons in conjunction with solid understanding of cognitive theory.
Differentiated instruction expertise
If we know only one model of instruction or one way to teach something, we’re setting our students and ourselves up for failure. Professor, author, and literacy expert, Kylene Beers freely admits that for years she had only two ways to differentiate instruction for students who struggled: teach louder and slower. Her experiences convinced her to move beyond such ineffective practices, however, and her students are now achieving at dramatically higher levels. She and other successful educators embrace the lexicon and practices of differentiated instruction as the first step to mastering this thing called, ‘teaching.’ Successful differentiated instruction teachers give themselves three or more years to really feel savvy with differentiated instruction practices, realizing it’s a journey, not a destination
Let’s make it compelling for teachers and administrators to explore differentiated instruction principles and practices such as scaffolding, tiered lessons, assessment informing instruction, respectful tasks, compacting curriculum, ‘What is fair is not always equal,’ readiness-interest-learning profile grouping, foundational versus transformational, structured versus open-ending, and flexible grouping. Let’s ask what our communities would be like if differentiated instruction for students every time they needed it, K to 12th grade, and what they would be like if we never differentiated instruction when they needed it, K to 12th grade.
Many teachers are parents, too. They hope their children’s teachers are experts in these areas, and that they successfully integrate that expertise to maximize learning for their students. In my own case, my children have occasionally needed differentiated approaches, for both advanced and early readiness levels. If I’m stuck for ideas on how to help my children at home with what they’re learning in school, I’ve contacted their teachers in search of advice, asking, ‘What are some of the ways you differentiate instruction for students with diverse needs like this” There’s no emotional inflection, no accusation — just a sincere interest in helping my child.
The question is usually met with silence on the other end. A moment later, the teacher asks, ‘Are you a teacher” I respond that I am, and I wait. Each time I have asked this question of my children’s teachers, however, I’ve been initially disappointed with the response. When my child demonstrated 100% proficiency on a pre-test on what’s going to be taught for the next five weeks, the teacher responded that the unit would be a good review. There was no mention of compacting the curriculum or extending my child’s exploration of the subject beyond the basal text. In one situation in which my child was struggling, the teacher said, ‘There’s just nothing else we can try at this point. We’ll have to hope he gets it over the next few years.’ Not one of the teachers has been able to verbalize how to differentiate instruction in general, let alone offer something specific for my child. The most common response was to work with the child after school one day next week.
‘Red flags’ should go off in our minds if a teacher can’t explain how to differentiate instruction, at least in general terms. As a parent, I worry about my child in such classes. Sometimes, though, it isn’t a lack of expertise, but a different lexicon that prevents teachers from responding. This is fine — they are differentiating instruction, but they are using different terms. If the teacher has no background in cognitive theory, differentiated instruction, their subject, or what is developmentally appropriate, however, they need to brush up on them.
What happens to the students in the mean time’ Being a parent who is also a teacher, I can walk the talk and advocate for my child ’ I know what’s going on and how to do it. Who’s going to advocate for all the children who have parents who are not teachers’ The classroom teacher. That advocacy is achieved only as teachers successfully incorporate their expertise with their discipline, their students, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices.
While most concertos have three distinct movements, the differentiated instruction concerto has four. Maria in The Sound of Music bike ride enabled her students to progress together, each in their own way and at their own pace because she successfully blended discipline (knowledge and skills), development appropriateness, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices. She knew what she was doing. With just one of these aspects missing from the concerto, the music would fall flat and one or more students would be left behind. As highly accomplished professional educators we can compose successful concertos with these four distinct movements, concertos worth performing with each new group of diverse students we serve.
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High impact teaching strategies in action: Differentiated teaching
Professional learning Communities (PLC) Regional Manager Shane Lockhart explains that differentiated teaching can marry perfectly to the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) improvement cycle and support continuous improvement in students.
Differentiation is a key high impact teaching strategy (HITS) used by teachers to craft lessons that provide the right amount of support and challenge for every student.
PLC Regional Manager Shane Lockhart explains how differentiated teaching can ensure that all students can master their individual objectives and continually grow even if they aren't necessarily at the same starting level.
'The whole purpose of differentiation is to look at the relevant skill levels of students and ask: "What are we going to do to increase depth, broaden, extend and improve upon the knowledge and the skill base of every student in the class, regardless of the starting point,"' explains Shane.
'It doesn't matter whether the student is at the top end of the academic spectrum, or whether the student requires additional support, such as a PSD-funding– it's relevant to their starting point.'
Differentiated teaching explained: Adjusting content, process and product
'Teaching isn't differentiated when a teacher sets the same task for every student, provides little variation, assesses all students against a general criterion, applies differentiated teaching techniques only for gifted students, and consistently establishes inflexible teaching groups,' Shane explains.
Differentiated teaching occurs when a teacher plans a lesson that adjusts either the content being discussed, the process used to learn or the product expected from students to ensure that learners at different starting points can receive the instruction they need to grow and succeed.
'A good differentiated teaching program means high quality, evidence-based instruction that meets students' needs within their zone of proximal learning development and has clear SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based) goals.'
Differentiating a lesson by adjusting content
By adjusting content, you deliver different parts of the curriculum to different students depending on their starting level and what you expect them to learn in that lesson.
Practically, this may mean refining foundational areas for students or supporting others to extend themselves deeper into the curriculum.
Differentiating a lesson by adjusting the process
When you adjust the process of a lesson, you are changing the methods you use to teach and how you expect students to learn. This adjustment could look like employing collaborative learning with excelling students and explicit instruction with others, or using modelled approaches or multimedia.
Adjusting the process allows you to construct a lesson that supports individual learners to meet their learning outcomes in a way that suits their specific needs.
Differentiating a lesson by adjusting the product
When you adjust the product of a lesson, you are changing the specific success criteria for students to demonstrate what they have learned.
Teachers can differentiate the product of a lesson by asking some students to teach another student how to complete the object of the lesson, or to use the specific learning outcome to complete an authentic task. This can be comparable evidence of success and achievement.
In each instance, when making use of student grouping, careful consideration should be given to how/when to use mixed ability groups (to foster peer learning, peer teaching, modelling etc.) and same ability groups (to hone in on an identified need).
In action: Examples of how teachers and schools implement differentiation strategies in everyday teaching
As suggested by Shane, there are many different ways in which teacher can differentiate instruction for students. Differentiation starts from the assessment of students' prior knowledge and skills and the setting of individual learning goals. As much as possible, the goals and the respective success criteria should be set with the students. This fosters metacognition and self-regulation, empowering students to monitor their own progress.
Some of the most common strategies are illustrated below:
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Generally implemented as a whole school implementation strategy, RTI is a highly effective differentiation strategy. This multi-tier approach to classroom learning enables teachers to identify the abilities of individual learners and provide additional instruction to learners who may benefit from support in smaller, more targeted settings.
For more information about RTI in action, see: Differentiated teaching at Carlton Gardens Primary School – In Our Classrooms
Explicit Teaching (HITS #3)
Explicit Teaching is one of the 10 HITS and it focuses on providing students with a sound and common understanding of the new knowledge and ideas, opportunities for group and independent practice.
The stages of the process, often simplified to "I do, we do, you do", provide multiple opportunities for differentiation.
During the "we do" phase, as teachers model the application of the new knowledge, they can assess the general level of understanding, provide feedback to the group, provide additional support to the whole class and plan for targeted interventions.
During the "you do" phase teachers can rove the room and provide individual feedback, set up small groups for additional and targeted instruction, or call individual students for conferencing.
As Shane suggests, one of the most common ways of differentiating learning is to differentiate the 'product'. By setting up multiple activities, teachers provide students with the opportunity to work on the same concepts and ideas, but at different levels of proficiency.
Students can therefore work within their zone of proximal development and, with the support and feedback of the teacher, gradually progress to the more challenging tasks.
Explore multiple activities in the classroom environment, see: Differentiation in Maths at Sunshine College – AITSL
Multiple tasks can also be used to provide opportunities for multiple exposure, group work, targeted feedback and extension. See this in action: Multiple activities to engage students at Humpty Doo Primary School - AITSL
Feedback plays a crucial role in differentiation. Timely and actionable feedback enables students to identify the next steps required to progress in their learning. In conjunction with clear learning intentions and success criteria, group and individualised feedback can promote self-regulation.
The use of peer-feedback can also assist students to deeply reflect on the success criteria and what their peer/themselves can do to improve their outcomes.
Watch an example of this teaching approach in action, see: Learning through feedback at Our Lady of Mercy College – AITSL
In a Flipped Classroom the direct instruction phase of the learning happens online and often at home instead of homework. Students can access the instructional content (usually in the form of videos prepared by their teachers) at any time.
This model provides great opportunities for differentiation as it frees up time in the classroom allowing the teacher to spend more time working with students (e.g. providing feedback, addressing group or individual needs). Students can also learn to self-regulate and forge ahead or use the recorded materials to revise content that needs revision or clarification.
See this tactic in action: The flipped classroom model - AITSL
Extra resources and models
High impact teaching strategies: differentiation.
Effective teachers use evidence of student learning readiness, learning progress, and knowledge of individual student learning profiles, to make adjustments for individuals so that all students experience challenge, success and improved learning.
Explore HITS: Differentiation Targeting student learning in your classroom
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In-person, blended, and online courses, differentiated instruction made practical.
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What you'll learn
- The theory and methods of differentiated instruction and how it can serve all learners
- The dispositions, skills, and actions for agile teacher decision-making
- Individual and group learning routines that meet the diverse needs of learners
- How to evaluate student needs, curriculum, and daily routines to assess where differentiation needs to occur and how it can be implemented
- How to adjust instruction, plan classroom routines, and choose help resources through the use of a practical four-step method
- The skills necessary to measure the impact of differentiated instruction on student learning and to ensure it is aligned with established standards in your system
By using a four-step teacher decision-making framework and implementing structured classroom routines rooted in research on cognition and motivation, you will increase equity, access, rigor, and engagement for all students. This program will prepare you with the agile thinking required to analyze problems of student learning and then make decisions to adjust and differentiate instruction within given time and curriculum constraints.
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Differentiated Instruction Theory
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Differentiate Instruction Theory There are so many individuals that have different abilities, experiences, and learning styles. Differentiated Instruction is a theory that will help teachers be successful in having all students be successful at learning at their fullest learning style ability. “Differentiated instruction gives a variety of options to successfully reach targeted standards.” (Gregory G.H. & Chapman C., 2007) This type of instruction will help the students meet where they are and offer challenging, appropriate options for them to achieve success. (Gregory G.H. & Chapmen C., 2007) This instructional method is based on research that was created by Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). “Sociocultural theory, drawing on the work of Vygotsky (1962), and later Wertsch (1991), has significant implications for teaching, schooling, and education (Tharp & Gallimre, 1988).” (Subban, P.) The four elements that teachers can differentiate are the following; the content, the process, and/or product as things that are differentiated in a classroom. With this ongoing assessment and flexible grouping it will ensure that this instructional approach can be successful (Readingrockets.org). “The content is what is taught. The way a learner interprets, adapts, and finds ownership is the process. The product shows the learner’s personal interpretation and what they know.” (Gregory G. H. & Chapmen C., 2007) Some examples of differentiating in a classroom is using variety of reading materials that fit each students level of reading, and presenting ideas through both auditory and visual means. Another example is having students work together in groups that have the same learning level and style. It does not matter what type of learning style they are or what type of disability they have, everyone benefits from this theory. Students don’t all learn the...
Literature review-differentiated instructions.
...“The relationship between Differentiated Instruction and Standardized Testing Outcomes” Tiffany R. Williams Argosy University June 14, 2012 Theoretical Framework Once the literature review was engineered, it was determined that there was sufficient research provided on differentiated instruction and standardized test outcomes. The theoretical framework consisted of different philosophies and theories on differentiation instruction, meeting the individual needs, and how differentiating instruction and standardized testing outcomes coexist. Differentiation is described as an educational strategy that cogitates that students’ learning profiles are different and that their highest learning capacity is reached when educators accommodate curriculum and instruction to meet individual needs. Other theorists have perceived differentiated instruction in their own ways and the purpose of this literature review is to validate the research study by aligning it with the findings of each point discussed. Literature Review Introduction Education is said to be the process of receiving systematic instruction; the delivery of knowledge and information between a student and a teacher; and the level of cognition. Before the embodiment of education that involves curriculum and assessments mandated by the government, it was merely a system that was in the hands of the state, parents, and church. During this time, schools focused on literacy and assessed students on the basis of......
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Differentiated Instruction: Multiple Instructional Method (Mim)
...Differentiated Instruction: Multiple Instructional Method (MIM) Emanuel Parker Saint Leo University Introduction Instruction is an important part of the development process for children when they are beginning to read. Many children do not learn or begin to read at the same level as their peers. Research suggests that reading problems are preventable for the vast majority of students who encounter difficulty in learning to read, if these students receive extra support in the form of an early intervention program (Goldberg, 1994). Interventions programs provide multiple methods of instructions that are particular to that student. Being able to determine if differentiated instruction is more effective than the use one method of instruction would be sufficient to change the way America teaches their children to learn. Every learner is different; however, instructors still use one method to instruct. Doing this does not facilitate learning for every learner. Using differentiated instructions would allow for instructors to enhance the learning experience for learners in attendance. The Multiple Instructional Method (MIM) allows the instructor to use various approaches to learning in order to affect every learner. Curriculum would be designed to enhance the learning experience for all learners by being flexible, strategic, and affective. Instructors are aware of how their students are learning; research will never be able to tell them......
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Arizona Statehood and Constitution
...for lessons is the many theories that are available for our use. Because of the fact that children learn and develop at different stages, it is important to evaluate each child and make sure the lessons we are planning to teach is at that child’s level. In order to ensure we have chosen the best pathway for the child’s learning experience it is also important for teachers to make themselves familiar with these theories and discover when and how to use them. One theory I found to be a good resource is Behaviorism which is also known as behavioral psychology; this theory is based on the fact that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. This conditioning can occur with the interaction of the environment. According to this theory behavior can be studied in a systematic and observable manner regardless of internal mental status (cherry, 2012). The two major types of behaviorism are classical conditioning, and operant conditioning. The classical conditioning theory is based on the act of placing a neutral signal before a naturally occurring reflex. For example you smell coffee and you want to drink a cup. On the other hand operant conditioning is considered instructional conditioning and it incorporates methods of learning through rewards and punishments for one’s behavior. There is an association between behavior and a consequence for that behavior (cherry, 2012). Another theory teachers need to become familiar with are cognitive theories. These...
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Special Education Philosophy
...year that I teach those students it will be my actions that will entice children to want to be in school and learn. I will be in the position not only in educating them, but to get to know them as individuals. I believe that by assessing each student for their individual qualities I will be able to provide differentiated instructions to connect with each student. My direction in education is to teach middle school science. I chose the subject of science because I feel that this subject can be difficult to understand and overwhelming. I know for me, I had to work hard to learn and understand certain topics in science. But because of my teachers and the way they taught; I began to love science. That is what inspired me to want to become a science teacher. I look forward to creating a curriculum that will challenge students to apply concepts and analyze results. I want to witness children not only learning, but becoming involved in their education. I see myself as a teacher following several theories immersed in education. One theory I accept as a true concept is the constructivism theory. Susan Doherty who is teacher and believed in the constructivism theory wrote: One key, I think, is to allow and encourage the students to ask and seek the answers to their own questions. In this way, students’ minds and hearts become active, leading them on a lifelong journey of inquiry and self-motivated learning. (Cooper & Ryan p. 308 2013). I believe in providing......
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...of a second language. Many things affect students learning such as factors that have to do with the individual, social and societal issues. These factors are language, language distance, native language proficiency, knowledge of the second language, dialect and register, language status, language attitudes, the learner, diverse needs, diverse goals , peer groups , role models, home support the learning process, learning styles, motivation and classroom interaction and quality of instruction(Walqui,2003). As an educator this essay writer needs to know what second language acquisition theories are important to use, knowing the previous afore mentioned theories and factors will help this writer as a teacher be able to meet the needs of my ELL students. We as educators must be able to use scaffolding, sheltered instruction, stages of language proficiency, sociocultural competence, and standard American English(Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004).. By using differentiated instruction it helps students learn most importantly. In reading the article The Impact of Experience and Coursework: Perceptions of Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom written by Mantero McVicker from the journal Radical Pedagogy in the spring of...
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Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Tribes
...Integrating Differentiated Instruction and TRIBES Table of contents Inspiration for Inquiry 1 Inquiry 1 Hypothesis 2 Tribes® 2 Evidence from Literature 4 Critical Analysis 7 Conclusion 9 Application 10 Reflection 11 References 14 Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Tribes® Inspiration for Inquiry Ventana Ranch Elementary School is completing its second full year of existence in the Albuquerque Public School system. An educational model known as Tribes TLC®: A New Way of Learning and Being Together was selected for the school by the principal (Gibbs, 2001). One of the conditions for employment at this school was to attend a twenty-four hour basic training course and then implement the process daily in the classroom. This process centers around four tenants known as agreements: Mutual Respect, Attentive Listening, Appreciations/No Put-downs, and The Right to Pass. These agreements are not only applicable to the classroom; they are also applicable school wide. The outcome of the process “is to develop a positive environment that promotes human growth and learning” (Gibbs, 2001, p. 21). The Albuquerque Public School District (APS), responding to President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is mandating that all teachers differentiate instruction in their classrooms in order to help all students learn and succeed in their school careers. . Even with this......
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...ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine if differentiated instruction had an effect on student achievement. The researcher sought to answer two research questions “Does differentiated instruction have an impact on student achievement?” and “Are there components of differentiated instruction that have a greater impact on student achievement than others?” The study followed a mixed method design and consisted of two parts. First, a quantitative analysis of test scores from the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) and teacher and student survey results were analyzed as a means to outline broad relationships from the data. Results from the quantitative findings directed the researcher on how to frame the qualitative design. Second, a qualitative analysis of classroom observations and interviews with teachers was conducted. The qualitative portion of this study followed a social interactionism orientation adopted by social interactionism theorist (Blumer, 1969). This approach allowed the researcher to analyze relationships between the differentiation variables. The quantitative data methods of surveys and test scores, qualitative techniques of classroom observations, and teacher interviews were triangulated. Triangulation of data was used to support research findings through independent measures to point to the same conclusions (Webb et al., 1965). The conceptual framework (Hall, 2004) served as the foundation in the identification of the differentiation......
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Writing a Philosophy of Education: Pragmatism
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Choice Words Book Report
...Choice Words, by Peter H. Johnston an instructional book I choose for my artifact from Dr. Rodriguez’s EDRE 4861 Integrated Language Arts & Social Studies Instruction K-8 fall class. This book provides many different resources I need in order to make my lesson plans beneficial for every student. When planning my lessons I will individually and collaboratively select and create learning experiences that are appropriate for curriculum goals and content standards, and are relevant to learners. I will consider every child’s background and tap into their prior knowledge when preparing my assignments. It is important for me to help my students meet their learning goals through strategic planning and instructions. It is vital for me to be organized and use content knowledge, curriculum, integrative strategies, and pedagogy to develop each lesson. I will intentionally remember my students’ background, and how they learn in order to create the most effective and meaningful instructions possible. Choice Words, allows me to make sure my lessons are flexible to accommodate all my student’s learning styles. I will develop my individual lesson plans that require attention in the areas of interdisciplinary skills, standards of learning, differentiated, assessment,...
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...Section 1: Mission and Vision Statement My mission statement: I will do everything as a teacher that I can to go above and beyond to teach and encourage my students. By using the latest and most age appropriate technology available, my students will leave my class with the confidence of being able to successfully use and employ each technology tool. Vision statement: I will teach my students what they will need in order to be successful in years to come, giving them a since of knowledge that they can productively improve the community they live in by using good communication, and technology skills. Section 2: Communications Plan The development of a plan to integrate technology into the learning environment in a classroom is a process that needs careful research and planning (Vanderlinde& Van, 2013). As a new educator I do feel confident that if set up for success this is possible. When it comes to communication it very important that teachers use technology as a tool to enable communication to take place easier and faster, with their students and parents. Being a teacher I find it necessary to allow all types of communication to be possible. When doing so it is proven that the parent and family involvement leads to better academic achievement (Kervin, Verenikina, Jones, & Beath, 2013). As a teacher I am a strong believer that communication from parent to teacher is a must for students be become stronger learners. Being a new teacher I need the help from......
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...Customized Learning Theory: Reflective-Constructivism Kylie-Anne Noreiga Liberty University EDUC 500: Advanced Educational Psychology Dr. Gary Smith October 8, 2014 Introduction An elementary school first grade classroom teacher has spent the last four months teaching his students concepts of basic addition and subtraction. Students continue to show progress in understanding of both addition and subtraction skills through direct instruction, guided practice, homework practice worksheets, and in-class assessments, both informal and formal. During in class station activities as an alternative to outdoor recess, Mr. Duncan pulls out several games/activities and a timer; students will rotate through game stations every 10 minutes to allow students to experience various stations. Two of the activity stations involve math games such as Monopoly Junior and Candy Land. As students delve into their activity stations, Mr. Duncan observers his students unknowingly performing algorithms, maybe without a true understanding of why they are doing so yet, but still – applying learned skills correctly to real-world activities. Later that same school year, students in Mrs. Robinson’s second grade class are reviewing the value of money. Zayne’s father gives him $1 for each chore completed during the week. Within a few weeks, Zayne earns and saves $30 dollars and decides to spend his money on a Snakeez, a portable cup with a lid......
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The Influences of Students’ Learning Habits on Their Academic Achievements in the Hanze International Business School
...& Wintergerst, A. C. (2005). Assessing and Validating a Learning Styles Instrument. System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics, 33(1), 1-16. Bodycott, P. (2012). Embedded culture and intercultural adaptation: implications for managing the needs of Chinese Students. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 34(4), 355-364. doi:10.1080/1360080X.2012.689199.Bruinsma, M. (2003). Effectiveness of higher education: Factors that determine outcomes of university education. S.l.: ICO. Buckingham, D., & Scanlon, M. (2004). Home learning and the educational marketplace. Oxford Review of Education, 30(2), 287-303. doi:10.1080/0305498042000215575.Cassidy, S. (2004). Learning Styles: An overview of theories, models, and measures. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 24(4), 419-444. doi:10.1080/0144341042000228834.Charlesworth, Z. M., Cools, E., & Evans, C. (2010). Learning in higher education ? how cognitive and learning styles matter. Teaching in Higher Education, 15(4), 2010. doi:10.1080/13562517.2010.493353.Chiou, H. H., & Chen, B. H. (2012). Learning style, sense of community and learning effectiveness in hybrid learning environment. Interactive Learning Environments, 1-12. doi:10.1080/10494820.2012.680971.Day, C., Schweisfurth, M., & Gu, Q. (2010). Learning and growing in a ?foreign? context: intercultural experiences of international students. Compare: A Journal of......
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...Development Jane Loevinger Washington University Evidence for the construct validity of the SenCompletion Test of Ego Development (SCT), some of it previously unpublished, is reviewed. The substantive component is substantiated both by intuitive plausibility and by the fact that rating skill can be communicated through written instructions. Internal consistency is shown by alpha coefficients of about .85. Evidence for sequentiality is provided by studies showing cross-sectional gains with age during adolescence, similar profiles of item scores for adjacent total protocol ratings, substantial correlations over long time spans, gains proportional to retest intervals during adolescence, gains following theory-relevant interventions of several months’ length, and better comprehension of lower than of higher stages. The SCT has substantial correlation with tests of related conceptions, such as Kohlberg’s test of moral maturity, and with measures of ego level applied to other behavior samples. Correlations with isolated traits characteristic of specific stages range from negligible to positive. Studies of external validity in general yield positive results, though theory does not sharply define what results should be considered positive. At lower ego levels there is behavioral evidence confirming the syndromes; at higher levels differential evidence lies in attitudes and ideas. Overall, the test has adequate validity for research purposes when administered and scored with......
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...Bobbitt’s students at the University of Chicago. Edward Thorndike (1910) Thorndike wrote that “psychology makes ideas of educational aims clearer. Psychology contributes to a better understanding of the aims of education by defining them, making them clearer; by limiting them, showing us what can be done and what can not; and by suggesting new features that should be made parts of them. When one says that the aim of education is culture, or discipline, or efficiency, or happiness, or utility, or knowledge, or skill, or the perfection of all one's powers, or development, one's statements and probably one's thoughts, need definition.” “Alignment is a very old concept in education. Much of the theory behind it was developed by Thorndike (1913) in his creation of the “identical theory of the transfer of training.” – Quote from Deciding What to Teach and Test, by Fenwick W. English The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education...
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Collaboration Case Study
...Collaboration Case Study |Teacher |Strategies |Reasoning |Opportunities |Challenges | |1 |Build Rapport: As a literacy coach, I would |Lillian is an experienced teacher which is why I |Collaborative Resource Management: Through|The biggest challenge I can identify in working with | | |work on building a rapport with Lillian as |chose the collaborative stance. Through validating|collaboration, the teacher and coach work |Lillian, is resistance to coaching suggestions, because | | |the first step. Because she is an experienced|her as a good resource for other teachers, |together to explore school resources, |she was not hired for the Literacy Coach position for | | |teacher, my approach would be in a way that |providing ideas of effective lessons and |discuss effective ways of how to implement|which she applied. Therefore, I feel it’s more important | | |is respectful to recognizing her expertise. |strategies, she will ideally be more open to |the resources, and discuss strategies. |to establish a rapport with Lillian initially. | | |Examples of this are: Initially I would |coaching and collaboration. In other words, if she|This will allow Lillian to......
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Faculty Conversation: Carol Tomlinson on Differentiation
In education circles, Carol Ann Tomlinson is known as the guru of differentiation. Her research-based work is in such high demand that she has made more than 700 presentations and keynote addresses to school districts and professional associations across the country and abroad since joining the Curry School in 1991. She has authored 17 books on the topics of differentiated instruction and curriculum, some of which have been translated into twelve languages.
In this Curry conversation, Tomlinson offers her take on what makes differentiation so important for students.
What is the essence of differentiation?
Tomlinson: Differentiation is an instructional approach to help teachers teach with individuals as well as content in mind. Differentiation really means trying to make sure that teaching and learning work for the full range of students, which really should be our goal as teachers. We’ve often taught as though all the kids in the classroom are wired exactly alike to learn, as though they should come in programmed to learn on the teacher’s schedule. Really, to me, differentiation is the common sense of saying, if we take on the responsibility of teaching, we accept the responsibility of making sure that every kid learns as well as he or she possibly can.
What Empirical Evidence Exists of the Effectiveness of Differentiation?
Tomlinson : The model of differentiation that I’ve been working with is sort of a Robin Hood model – it steals from lots of discipline areas and tries to synthesize what we know from many specialties into one specialty. Some of what we talk about in differentiation really comes from the work of special education and has been there for a long time. Some of it comes from gifted education. Some of it comes from the field of reading and how you work with students in developing literacy when they don’t master the skills right on schedule. There’s work that comes from the emerging and new science of the brain. And things that people have done in multicultural education.
What we’ve tried to do with this model is to synthesize a lot of those things so that it fits together as a whole and so the teachers don’t have to go to 14 places to find guidelines and strategies they need. The research that supports the principles and practices of differentiation comes from many specialties.
There is also newer research that suggests academic benefits to the model’s key principles and practices. There’s always the caveat that it’s easy to say you use a model and much harder to maintain fidelity to that model. What we find, not surprisingly, is when somebody differentiates effectively, the gains are really strong. The trick is always to help people understand that you can’t pick and choose pieces of a model, implement five percent of it and dismiss the other 95 percent.
What is the Strongest Argument for Differentiation?
Tomlinson : The strongest argument for differentiation to me is looking at the kids sitting in the classroom. It’s rare to go into a classroom where kids are all from the same language group, the same culture, the same socioeconomic status, the same background experience, the same wiring in terms of abilities, areas of weakness, that sort of thing. Realizing how seldom you go into a classroom and find virtually everyone fully engaged and participating in an optimistic way signals a need for instruction that addresses individual variance as well as common content requirements. We have way too many students who bring to school with them needs and differences that we just don’t take into account in our thinking and planning. And we fail many learners when we do that.
What Are Some of the Misconceptions Educators Hold About Differentiation?
Tomlinson : The model of differentiation is very multifaceted, but it can be boiled down to three student needs which call for differentiating instruction: student readiness, student interest, and student learning profile. Learning profile refers to preferred modes of learning and has four facets—gender, culture, learning styles, and intelligence preferences.
We find a good number of classrooms where teachers do some work with students’ learning styles, and they assume that they have therefore differentiated instruction. In essence, they have picked one fourth of one third of the information that we have about significant differences in learners for which they plan a response. In other words, they have neglected readiness differentiation, interest differentiation, how culture influences us, how gender influences us, and how intelligence preferences influence us and assume that if they’ve done something with learning styles they’ve done what needs to be done.
“Not to address readiness and to assume that a focus on learning styles is going to take care of everything, is generally way off base.”
We have such a huge range of readiness in classes that not to address readiness and to assume that a focus on learning styles is going to take care of everything, is generally way off base. In terms of both needs of learners and in terms of what research tells us, readiness is where we need to begin and focus, and then we can open things up by looking at those other categories.
Another misconception is that our current massive emphasis on testing speaks to a need for standardization—everybody needs to pass the same test under the same circumstances on the same day, with the same parameters. I think that whatever your learning outcome needs to be, even if you think it needs to be highly standardized, students will still learn at different rates. They need to be taught in different ways, and they need different materials or approaches to learning. So as paradoxical as it may sound, the need for differentiation is even more critical if you’re supposed to get everybody to the same point at exactly the same time—not less so. Differentiation doesn’t suggest changing the outcome for students, but rather finding different avenues to success with those outcomes.
Why Are Some School Leaders Reluctant to Integrate Differentiation in the Classroom?
Tomlinson : What I more commonly find is leaders who ask for or demand differentiation but don’t know how to support it fully or wisely enough. They are typically people who believe they are doing the right thing, but function in counterproductive ways. I hear really often, “We’re going to do differentiation in our school this year.” Differentiation is one of those things that people who are experts in the field of change call second order change. First order change is the kind of thing most teachers can implement with modest effort. Differentiation requires second order change. It really requires many teachers to change their approach to teaching as a whole—how we think about students and their capabilities, how we use assessment, how curriculum is crafted, flexible instruction to ensure that students go where they need to go. Perhaps most challenging, it asks teachers to learn to handle a classroom where two or three or four things are sometimes happening at the same time.
Second order change is demanding. It’s also much more promising.
People whom we find providing teachers with sustained and intelligent support understand that they are there for the long haul, that everyone needs to be immersed in the ideas, that they don’t ever go away, that they’re in the foreground all the time, that you can hear the drum beating constantly. I don’t find a whole lot of leaders saying, “No I don’t want to support this. This doesn’t make any sense.” What I find is people who support the transition to differentiation as though it were a first order change and don’t understand the depth of leadership required to facilitate second order change.
That Sounds Really Hard To Do. How Do You Make It Happen?
Tomlinson : It is hard to do. When you look at the literature on expertise, one of the differences between an expert and a novice is that experts see many different aspects of what’s going on around them, they know what those elements mean, and they know how to respond to them in targeted ways. They know what to dismiss and what to act on. Differentiation asks for that expert level of discrimination when observing and responding to students in a learning context. So the question becomes, “How do we help teachers develop expertise?”
Where we see differentiation really thrive, we see principals who understand the power of knowing and responding to students and who are willing to lead consistently and persistently in order to help teachers do so.
In any school you’ll find some teachers who realize that differentiation makes the classroom work much better for many more students. Those teachers will develop the skills of responsive or differentiated instruction on their own. To change a whole school takes a principal who has vision, understands where teachers are on a continuum toward achieving that vision, knows what to do to help or get help to support each teacher’s growth, and in effect, differentiates for the faculty.
Where leadership for differentiation is effective, you have leaders say, “Sure, it’s hard, but there’s a way to get there and we’ll work together to learn how to make all of our classrooms responsive to all of our students.” The leaders literally help teachers enact change in their own classrooms. They bring teachers together in teams to share insight and to support one another. It’s that sense of intelligent, persistent leadership that signals the difference between a school where a few teachers get better at attending to the learning needs of students and one where everyone is invested in that goal.
We see differentiation catching hold either in individuals or in little clusters of individuals where there is a really strong department chair or a really strong grade-level leader. When the school as a whole is focused on addressing the full range of learner needs, it’s inevitably the principal’s leadership that makes the difference.
What is the Secret to Managing Differentiation in the Classroom?
Tomlinson : One of the major obstacles for teachers in learning to differentiate instruction is figuring out how to handle a classroom where the teacher is not in front of the kinds all the time pulling the strings like a master puppeteer. We’re used to frontal control in classrooms. The differentiation philosophy indicates that students become stronger learners when they can accept more responsibility for their own learning and when they become more proficient in understanding their goals, their status relative to those goals, and how to adjust their approach to learning in order to achieve the goals.
The case that we’ve tried to make in our new book [ Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom , co-authored with Marcia B. Imbeau] is that there are two elements that teachers need to think through: leading people and managing details. Leading people involves asking students to consider what it feels like when the classroom doesn’t work for them or for their friends, to envision what a classroom would be like if it functioned in a way that helped each student grow as far and fast as possible—and to participate in developing that kind of classroom.
When you go into classrooms where teachers lead kids in that way, management is not the problem we tend to think it is, because kids feel empowered and interested and invigorated.
Still, however, there is the need to make sure the room doesn’t get too noisy or that the materials aren’t all over the place when students leave. There are plenty of details that need managing, but when teachers do that in the context of leading their students to help create a more effective place to learn, handling the details works much more smoothly and naturally.
by Lynn Bell
This article was originally published in the spring of 2011.
- Carol Ann Tomlinson
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Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach that tailors instruction to all students' learning needs. All the students have the same learning goal. But the instruction varies based on students' interests, preferences, strengths, and struggles.
begins with the presentation of a grounded learning theory to support the move to differentiated instruction. Following on from this, attention is focused on the factors that intensify a shift in instructional practice. Finally, the differentiated instruction model is presented as a response to addressing learner variance. SEARCH PROCEDURE
Differentiated instruction is a comprehensive approach to teaching whose essence, according to the educational advocate Ferlazzo, is this: "Recognizing that all of our students bring different gifts and challenges, and that as educators we need to recognize those differences and use our professional judgment to flexibly respond to them in our …
According to Rasheed and Wahid (2018), every student differs in his/her approach towards studies, even inside a single classroom, the thought process, the perception towards the content being...
Differentiated instruction is often compared to the learning styles theory, which posits that all students respond best to one of four learning methods. While research into learning styles is mixed, there are clear and measurable benefits to adapting your teaching methods to your students' needs. Benefits of Differentiated Learning for Students
Four ways to differentiate instruction According to Tomlinson, teachers can differentiate instruction through four ways: 1) content, 2) process, 3) product, and 4) learning environment. 1. Content As you already know, fundamental lesson content should cover the standards of learning set by the school district or state educational standards.
Differentiated Instruction: An Introduction > Module 1 > Reading: What Is Differentiated Instruction and Why Differentiate? Page | 2 _____ Differentiated instruction is a way of thinking about teaching and learning. It is also a model that guides instructional planning in response to students' needs.
According to Tomlinson and Strickland (2005), teachers usually differentiate instruction by adjusting one or more of the following: the content (what students learn); the process (how students learn); or the product (how students demonstrate their mastery of the knowledge or skills).
The purpose of this literature review is to explore the nature of differentiated instruction in education. Through the duration of the graduate course Interpreting Educational Research, I ... knowledgeable in the theory and research of contemporary education (Tomlinson, 2015a). Tomlinson also stated, "Differentiated instruction is a ...
Differentiated instruction can be known as an organizing framework in teaching and learning which calls for a major restructuring in the classroom and syllabus, if done in the proper way, its benefits will transgress the costs. According to Tomlinson (2004), Differentiated instruction is "a philosophy of teaching that…show more content…
Part 1: Overview: Differentiated Instruction Differentiated Instruction: Theory to Practice Module 1: Why Differentiate? Part 1: Overview: Differentiated Instruction Welcome to Differentiated Instruction: Theory to Practice. The educational field has used this term for nearly two decades since Carol Ann Tomlinson first introduced the concept.
The theory of differentiated instruction is based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms (Tomlinson 2001). The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to be flexible and adjust the curriculum and presentation of information to learners.
"Differentiated instruction"—the process of identifying students' individual learning strengths, needs, and interests and adapting lessons to match them—has become a popular approach to helping...
In a differentiated classroom, commonalities are acknowledged and built upon, and student differences become important elements in teaching and learning as well. This can involve adjusting: Content — The media and methods teachers use to impart and instruct skills, ideas and information
Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction. What You'll Learn How to vary the level of content you present
Differentiated instruction and assessment, also known as differentiated learning or, in education, simply, differentiation, is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing all students within their diverse classroom community of learners a range of different avenues for understanding new information (often in the same …
Arts integration offers a "range of approaches to learning" aligned with the principles of differentiated instruction. Specifically, arts integration helps students access content, process their learning, create products, and work in a productive and supportive learning environment in ways that take into account individual readiness ...
It's much easier to differentiate instruction if we are experts in four areas: our students, the curriculum, cognitive theory, and differentiated instruction practices. All four must be in play if we are to teach effectively. There's a great differentiated instruction analogy in a scene from Rodgers and Hammerstein's movie, The Sound of ...
On this page . . . Differentiation is a key high impact teaching strategy (HITS) used by teachers to craft lessons that provide the right amount of support and challenge for every student. PLC Regional Manager Shane Lockhart explains how differentiated teaching can ensure that all students can master their individual objectives and continually ...
The theory and methods of differentiated instruction and how it can serve all learners; The dispositions, skills, and actions for agile teacher decision-making ... The skills necessary to measure the impact of differentiated instruction on student learning and to ensure it is aligned with established standards in your system;
Differentiate Instruction Theory There are so many individuals that have different abilities, experiences, and learning styles. Differentiated Instruction is a theory that will help teachers be successful in having all students be successful at learning at their fullest learning style ability.
Tomlinson: Differentiation is an instructional approach to help teachers teach with individuals as well as content in mind. Differentiation really means trying to make sure that teaching and learning work for the full range of students, which really should be our goal as teachers.