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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.

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This article talks about how many teachers struggle to adapt lessons that include differentiated instruction. Different strategies/suggestions are presented in this article on how you can have more differentiated instruction in the classroom.

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"Differentiated instruction"-both the term and the idea-can carry a lot of baggage in teaching circles.

But I think it's so important that we can't talk too much about it, so today's post kicks off another series on how teachers can implement it.

Two of today's contributors were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

'Give Each Student What They Need'
Andrea Castellano serves as an elementary teacher in New York City's public school system. She also supports teachers as an instructional coach and PBL curriculum writer and staff developer:
Although traditional schooling relies on one-size-fits-all instruction where all students receive the same instruction and complete the same tasks, each student is totally unique. You'd be hard-pressed to find a group that shares the exact combination of abilities, needs, and interests. Differentiation is tailoring instruction to give each student what they need. It's also the key to teaching diverse groups of learners; without it, someone will always be left out or left behind.

Even if they understand why differentiation is important, many teachers struggle to adapt lessons that include multiple learning goals, citing concerns with lack of resources, planning time, and support with classroom management. Here are some suggestions for getting differentiated instruction up and running in your classroom:

1. Establish a culture of learning through routines and clear communication.

When shifting away from the one-size model, it's important to keep in mind that students may not have much experience working autonomously. That kind of independence has to be taught explicitly via modeling, practice, and maintaining clear and consistent expectations.

In my 3rd grade class, we mix it up between whole group, collaborative small groups, and stations. In September, after the "teach" part of the lessons instead of pulling small groups as I normally would, I walk around, observing and making suggestions. I make sure to answer all questions before I send them off and always post directions in a visible location in case they forget what to do. When we finish, we have a class circle to discuss how it went and to brainstorm solutions and strategies for next time.

Over time, they learn to hold themselves and their peers accountable. Doing this consistently every day means that by October, we've evolved from a single instructional small group to multiple small groups doing multiple things. Because I set my students up for independence, I am able to assign different tasks, offer a variety of resources, and trust them to do their work while I focus on the group that's scheduled for the day.

2. Know your material and use your resources.

Knowledge of content is essential in order to differentiate instruction. But scaffolding instruction requires planning and preparation that sometimes goes beyond the parameters of the typical scripted lesson plan. Luckily, there are a plethora of resources available online, including curriculum maps, scope-and-sequence plans, and digital curriculum resources. I request access to 2nd and 4th grade resources for any program I'm mandated to teach. If students need remedial support, I should have familiarity with the prerequisite skills, including those from the grades below. If students have mastered the content and need a challenge, I have to have a deep understanding of the material as well as an ability to draw from advanced content and make it comprehensible for students as they become ready for it.

I also maintain connections with teachers in other grades in case there's something I don't know. Talking to other teachers about how they reinforce concepts in fun and engaging ways is actually one of my favorite things about lesson planning.
Get to know your students.
Regardless of class size, teachers should know their students well enough to anticipate and plan for differentiated activities. Learning about your students on a personal level can be done through beginning-of-year interest surveys, icebreaker activities, and one-on-one conversations whenever possible.

Getting to know your students on an academic level is done through a holistic series of formal and informal assessments designed to paint a picture of the individual as a learner. Once you start to notice trends, it will become easier to anticipate questions and misconceptions and choose activities that will support students in reaching the learning targets. In any given math lesson, for instance, if I know a student understands a concept but needs more practice, I'll have a worksheet printed for them in advance. Fast finishers always have a basket of multistep word problems waiting for them, and students who need a reteach know to come straight to my table and I'll have another example ready for them.

In my classroom, knowledge of my students as well as their knowledge of self is what drives the instruction throughout the lesson.

'There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach'
Isabel Becerra is the multilingual-services consultant for Region 10 in Texas. She was born in Bolivia and has been an educator since 1992. She is a passionate advocate for emergent bilingual learners:
Just as everyone has a unique fingerprint, every student has an individual learning style. It's most likely that not all students learn in the same way or share the same level of ability. It is our job as educators to find ways to meet the different learning needs of our students in order to ensure that learning is happening.

Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach that is used to adjust curriculum and instruction to maximize the learning of all students; average learners, English-language learners, struggling students, students with learning disabilities, and gifted and talented students. Differentiated instruction is not a single strategy but rather a framework that teachers can use to apply a variety of strategies. In other words, differentiated instruction is simply tailoring instruction to meet a learner's needs. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for instruction.

Research says that "differentiated instruction is an instructional practice that involves a teacher who proactively plans varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they can express what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can as efficiently as possible" (Tomlinson, 2003, p. 151).

Teachers who practice differentiation in the classroom may modify assignments to meet the needs of the students, assess students frequently to determine their readiness levels, use data to adjust instruction, provide a variety of scaffolds (visuals, graphic organizers, sentence stems, word banks, etc.) to support student learning, strive to make lessons engaging and meaningful, implement different grouping formats for instruction (e.g., whole class, small groups, independent instruction), and use flexible grouping.

So, what does differentiated instruction look like in the classroom? When differentiation happens in the classroom, students have constant access to learning materials of varying levels of difficulty, and students can advance their learning at their own pace by having choice in assignments and using personalized learning methods. In addition, teachers build lessons around their students' individual skills and customize teaching to suit multiple forms of intelligence. Everyone is learning in a differentiated classroom, including the teacher.

If you are like me and have a background in teaching English-language-learners in a dual-language or ESL classroom setting, you know how important it is to differentiate instruction for learning to happen. We must find effective ways to teach these emergent bilingual students in order to give them access to comprehensible content and develop English-language proficiency at the same time.

Some starting activities to differentiate instruction that are interactive, engaging, motivating, and make learning fun for students are:

1. Give instructions in several formats, such as books, videos with closed captions, worksheets, and projects. These options will accommodate their learning styles, and they will help them practice reading, writing, and listening in English.

2. Provide opportunities to use English as much as possible, such as through group work, classroom discussions, and partner sharing. The more they verbalize it, the more they will internalize the language and content.

3. Incorporate active learning with manipulatives, movement (TPR), gestures, and games. This will allow for students to remember words, concepts, and skills, as many are visual and kinesthetic learners.

4. Use leveled reading materials to help students explore the same content. You must be able to meet the students at their level to take them where they need to be by scaffolding what they need to learn.

5. Create learning centers that give students self-paced practice time in hands-on ways. Tell me and I forget; teach me, and I may remember; involve me, and I learn.

6. Form learning groups and use a tiered approach, with each group mastering content or skills at various speeds.

7. Foster a safe learning environment where students can feel included, cared for, and be opened to new learning material.

8. Allow students to choose how they'll present their work: Write a paper, give a presentation, create a video, etc. Giving students choice will help them engage in the learning process.

Implementing differentiated instruction can be challenging, but it is worth the effort. It may not be possible to apply differentiation all the time; however, what is important is to practice it often to incorporate it in daily instruction procedures so that with time, it can become second nature to all educators. Differentiated instruction in the classroom is one of the keys to success.

'It's the Approach...'
Kara Pranikoff is the author of Teaching Talk: A Practical Guide to Fostering Student Thinking and Conversation (Heinemann, 2017). She consults with schools to center student voices and ideas across inquiry-based social studies and literacy instruction:
Differentiating Instruction is a concept in education that sounds like it should have a special formula. As if you could plan a lesson, whiz it through a magical machine, and receive a plan that is ready for each individual student. Don't let that official descriptor be a boundary. Even if you are at the very start of your career, you have already differentiated on instinct. You know that you have a room full of learners who have a variety of needs and that your instruction cannot simply be one-size-fits-all. Any time you make shifts and changes in response to the learners in front of you, you are providing differentiated instruction.

Every teacher aims to connect with their students. Have you ever considered sharing content in a range of ways (video, read aloud, independent reading, etc.)? Have you provided a choice about the method by which students share their understanding (written, illustration, etc.)? Have you planned strategically when making partnerships or seating arrangements? That is differentiation.

Differentiation is not just about the students in your classroom that have identified learning needs, it's the approach you take for ALL students. It's the foundation of equity in our teaching. Everyone gets the things they need to do their very best learning. Is there any other way to educate?

As you accumulate years in the classrooms and gain experience with a wide variety of types of learners, you develop a repertoire of shifts you can make so that all students find engagement with your content. There are also professional frameworks that can help you know what to consider when differentiating curriculum.

· What are the ways our plan allows all students to have agency?

· What are the ways our plan allows all students to access content?

· What are the ways our plan allows all students to expresstheir understanding?

Remember, we are making plans that fit the needs of ALL students. So, what does this look like in action? Here is an example:
Michelle Shory is a veteran language educator with 26 years of experience in five states. She is currently an ESL teacher and instructional coach at Seneca High School in the Jefferson County public schools in Louisville, Ky. Michelle also works as an adjunct instructor for Eastern Kentucky University and Indiana University Southeast for their ESL endorsement programs:
Differentiation provides students with the agency to learn, access content, and consider how they can best express their understanding. Our flexibility in these areas creates equity. By keeping differentiation as the norm in our planning, we can create a classroom where all students can thrive. Anything that you can do to help meet the needs of your students will help them meet their goals. That's just good teaching.

Universal Design for Learning

A few years ago, my interest in UDL was sparked, significantly enhancing my understanding of student-centered differentiation. While differentiation and UDL both aim to address learner variability, I prefer UDL because of its proactive approach. By implementing UDL, I found that I was better able to plan lessons that offered choices in engagement, representation, and expression, empowering students to become proficient learners with specific goals-and flexible pathways to achieve them.

In terms of engagement, I brainstorm how to captivate student interest and establish the relevance of what they are about to learn. I incorporate various media such as images, videos, articles, or podcasts that provide background knowledge. Recognizing that each student has distinct needs and interests, I encourage them to choose the most intriguing formats and appropriate levels of complexity. One of the strategies I particularly admire, which I learned from Holly Clark, is the implementation of an Explore Board to build background knowledge. To illustrate, I've provided an example I developed specifically for English-learners.

Regarding representation, I thoughtfully assess the materials I utilize. I frequently incorporate images, translations, simplified directions, or audio to enhance accessibility. By planning for learner variability, I ensure that students can access the necessary support they require. This may involve simply providing videos or text-or spending more time modifying the text to make it comprehensible for all learners. The point is to offer the content in a range of formats and levels of complexity. Here is an example demonstrating how I adapt texts for English-learners.

My interest in UDL has changed how I approach every unit and lesson. UDL has enabled me to adopt a proactive approach, planning lessons that empower students to become expert learners with clear goals and flexible pathways. I ensure that students' diverse needs are met by incorporating choices in engagement, representation, and expression. Through strategies like Explore Boards and adapting texts for English-learners, I captivate student interest and provide accessible materials. Additionally, I prioritize student expression, allowing various proficiency levels and formats while focusing on mastery. UDL has genuinely made me a more inclusive educator.
What does "differentiating instruction" mean to you, and what does it actually look like in the classroom? Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 11 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.
Thanks to Isabel, Andrea, Kara, and Michellefor contributing their thoughts!

Today's post is the first in a series answering this question:

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What Does Successful Differentiated Instruction Look Like in the Classroom? (Opinion)

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Many teachers struggle to adapt lessons, believing they lack resources, planning time, and classroom-management support. They don't need to.

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This article explains common strategies teachers can use to promote differentiation and choice for students. It lists the 4 main categorial strategies, as well as 20 examples of how you can promote them in your classroom. These examples range from ways to take in information, apply it, and demonstrate understanding. This website also explains the 4 different ways to differentiate: content, product, process, and learning enviornment.

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Differentiated instruction is an inclusive approach that acknowledges and accommodates the diverse needs, interests, and readiness of students. Implementing differentiated instruction strategies in the classroom involves making intentional adaptations to ensure all students can access and engage with the curriculum.

Essential Differentiated Instruction Strategies

Differentiation can come in as many forms as there are learners, but a few key differentiated instructional strategies can be useful for effective planning and implementation.

Assess Student Needs: Using ongoing assessment, progress monitoring, and observation to understand the needs, interests, and readiness of students will help you determine when differentiation is needed.

Prepare a Bank of Activities: Designing a range of instructional activities that cater to different learning needs will provide you with options to choose from for differentiation. See the examples section below for some ideas.

Establish Grouping Criteria: Implementing flexible grouping strategies will ensure that students are grouped in ways that support their learning. This may include whole-group instruction, small-group work, peer tutoring, or individualized instruction, depending on the task and student needs.

20 Differentiated Instruction Examples That Will Maximize Learning

The following list provides examples of differentiated instruction that you can use to ensure students have choices for the way that they learn new information, practice skills, and demonstrate understanding.

1. Choice Boards

Choice boards are visual organizers that present a variety of activities or tasks related to a particular learning objective that students can choose from based on their preferences, interests, or readiness levels. During a unit on the Revolutionary War, for instance, a choice board could present the following options for students to choose from to demonstrate their learning:

Create a newspaper article reporting on a major event from the Revolutionary War.

Design an infographic highlighting key figures, battles, and events.

Write a diary entry from the perspective of a soldier or civilian during the war, describing your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

Create a map of the 13 colonies and surrounding areas during the war with labels for important cities, battle sites, and geographic features.

Act out a skit depicting a scene from the war with historically accurate dialogue and character development.

Try our game board of learning options that you can use for classroom centers, early finishers, and even homework assignments. Students roll a die to determine which activities to complete. We've even included a blank game board option, so you can fill in your own activity ideas if you prefer. You can also check out our choice boards for differentiating instruction and our math choice boards for elementary school.

2. Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-tac-toe organizes tasks in a grid for students to choose from. Activities vary in complexity and format, and students choose which tasks to complete-based on their interests, strengths, or areas of growth-to achieve a "tic-tac-toe" (three tasks in a row).

3. Think-Pair-Share

Think-pair-share is a routine that allows students to engage with material at their own pace and in a supportive learning environment. Students individually consider a question or prompt, discuss their thoughts with a partner, and then share their ideas with the whole class.

4. Small-Group Instruction

Small-group instruction involves breaking the class into smaller groups based on students' learning needs, interests, or skill levels, and providing targeted instruction or activities to each group. Flexible grouping is essential to meet students' ever evolving needs. For example, analysis of formative assessment data may show that some students in a small group have mastered long vowel sounds and are ready to move on, while others need more intensive instruction. This would indicate a need for regrouping.

5. Tiered Assignments

Tiered assignments offer learners multiple versions of a task, allowing them to work toward the same objectives, but with different levels of support or challenge. For example, the following three assignments all have the same learning objective (students will demonstrate understanding of the life cycle of a butterfly), but with different levels of support:

Students receive pre-cut images and labels of each stage of the butterfly life cycle to paste on a diagram.

Students receive a diagram with blank spaces for each stage for them them to label.

Students create a life cycle poster for a butterfly, including drawings or images and written descriptions for each stage.

6. Jigsaw Method

The jigsaw method allows students to work together in small groups to master specific content or skills, while also providing opportunities for individualized learning. Students are divided into small groups, and each group is assigned a different aspect of a larger topic to become experts on. For example, when learning about ecosystems, students could be divided into the following expert groups: food chains, climate zones, species interactions, human impact, and survival strategies. Then, students from the different groups would come together to share their expertise and develop a more complete understanding of ecosystems together.

7. Curated Content

Curated content empowers teachers to personalize learning experiences by thoughtfully selecting, organizing, and adapting instructional materials to meet student needs related to skill level, interest, accessibility, inclusivity, and relevance. For example, to curate content by skill, a teacher could organize sets of practice problems on fractions into different levels of difficulty, ranging from basic operations to more complex problems involving mixed numbers. This would allow students to practice at their skill level and move forward when they are ready. To curate content by relevance, a teacher might organize case studies of innovative technology by industry and allow students to explore how technology impacts their lives and future career interests.

8. Learning Contracts

Learning contracts are agreements between teachers and students that outline specific learning goals, tasks, and expectations. Students may negotiate aspects of their learning, such as the pace, mode of assessment, or topics of study.

9. Personal Agendas

Personal agendas are task lists written by the teacher that include work for the whole class as well as personalized work that addresses the needs of individual learners.

10. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are visual tools that help students organize and understand information. They can be flexibly implemented to meet various needs. For example, some learners may benefit from concept maps or diagrams, while others may prefer outlines or charts. Use the Venn diagram organizer below to help students find similarities and differences between two topics. Explore our collection of graphic organizers, along with these templates for guiding multilingual students in writing, comprehension, and more.

11. Peer Teaching

Peer teaching leverages students' interactions to enhance learning. Pairs or groups may consist of students with similar abilities working together to reinforce and deepen concepts, or they may include students with different skill levels to providing peer support and scaffolding.

12. Scaffolded Instruction

Scaffolded instruction follows a gradual release model, where teachers initially provide more support and guidance and gradually transfer responsibility to students as they gain confidence and mastery. The level of support or time spent in each stage can be adjusted based on student needs.

13. Varied Timing

Varied timing is an adjustment to the pace of instruction, assignments, or assessments. Some students benefit from extended or flexible timing to complete assignments with support while other students benefit from time to independently explore topics in greater depth.

14. Flipped Classroom Model

The flipped classroom model reverses the traditional instructional approach. Students learn new content outside of class through pre-recorded lectures, readings, or other instructional materials, typically accessed online. Class time is then used for activities, discussions, and collaborative projects to reinforce and apply the learning. This model allows for greater flexibility, personalized learning experiences, and targeted support for students with diverse needs.

15. Self-Assessment with Goal Setting

Self-assessment with goal setting empowers students to reflect on their progress, identify areas of strength and growth, and set personalized goals for improvement. Teachers can help students set achievable goals and provide guidance and resources to help them work towards their objectives.

16. Multisensory Learning

Multisensory learning engages multiple senses (such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile) to help students process and retain information more effectively. Offering multiple pathways for integrating sensory information-such as providing an audio recording of a passage in addition to the text-reaches more learners than providing a single sensory experience.

17. Educational Technology

Educational technology can give teachers a snapshot of student progress: how well they're grasping concepts and where they need help. Teachers can then use this data to differentiate instruction. Here are some examples of HMH programs that include differentiated practice:

Waggle: This program for Grades K-8 automatically assigns personalized practice and differentiated ELA and math instruction based on each student's performance.

Writable: This writing program for Grades 3-12 provides teachers with grouping recommendations, feedback, follow-up practice suggestions, and lots of options for differentiating lessons.

: This program for Grades K-5 uses each student's assessment results to place them into 1:1 reading tutoring. For those who also subscribe to HMH Into Reading for Grades K-6, Amira makes content recommendations based on students' assessment and tutoring data.

18. Flexible Seating

Flexible seating involves setting up the classroom to include spaces designated for quiet work, as well as spaces for student collaboration, to be used when best suited to particular learners or tasks.

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Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples for Teacher and Student Success

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Here we provide differentiated instruction strategies and examples that teachers can use to ensure students have choices for the way that they learn new information, practice skills, and demonstrate understanding.

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This article taught me how it is easier to help students and more ideal to have groups for differentiation due to the challenge of not being able to meet one-on-one, BUT also that the groups need to change with the students changes. Additionally a tip for differentiating, was to focus on previous standards and master those to help with the standard they are struggling on. Additionally, varying questions types/changing how you ask questions depending on the level of students is also a good form of differentiation

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Differentiated ELA Instruction Ideas and Activities - GRASPhopper Learning

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Chances are that you are no stranger to the word differentiation, and you have likely been asked to differentiate your ELA instruction. In education, this word is thrown around a lot, but what exactly does it mean to have differentiated ELA instruction? How do you plan a differentiated lesson? What is differentiation? Before we can talk about […]

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This article talks about the views many teachers have on differentiated instruction. This article specifically says that differentiation only needs to include one thing, a clear focus on the students academic and emotional needs. This article goes on to give some tips on how to do this. These tips include focus on growth not loss, offer empathy not interventions, plan instruction that is equitable not equal and assume positive intent.

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When I wrote my article "Why We Need Differentiation Now More Than Ever" for an ASCD newsletter in May of last year (Westman, 2020), remote learning was new. It was just weeks after the initial school closures due to COVID-19, and everyone's emotions were raw. As our school systems (and many of us) were in survival mode, remote learning had become our lifeline, but certainly not our lifestyle. At the time, one question I kept getting asked was, "How do I differentiate for students virtually?" My advice at that time was for teachers in all grade levels and content areas to make their essential question to students, "How do you feel?" and use their responses as a form of formative assessment for figuring out what they needed most.

Now, with a year under our belts of some combination of remote, hybrid, or in-person learning with social distancing restrictions-and (hopefully) a bit of time this summer to relax and restore-we are ready to take on the 2021-2022 school year. This time the question on everyone's mind is, "What will our students need?" And, once again, the idea of differentiation is taking center stage.

Many are looking to differentiating instruction as a means to undo "learning loss." In fact, a Google search of the terms "learning loss and differentiation" returns over 55 million results. Schools are grateful for additional funds to address learning loss, quickly amp up professional learning, focus on assessing where students are, and firm up differentiation practices and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). But differentiating is not a new approach or program-in fact, MTSS and differentiation are hot topics almost every school year, whether we're in a pandemic or not. Veteran educators have likely heard about this approach many times in their careers, though they might still be confused as to how to do it, and novice teachers have likely read about it in their studies but not had any practical experience implementing the approach successfully.

As a consultant who works with school systems internationally on differentiation, I frequently hear comments like, "Oh, we tried differentiation a few years ago. It didn't work." Or "I used to differentiate for my students, but I just don't have time for that now."

Sadly, this is the case for many educators. And even more disheartening is that fact that we often throw in the towel because we hold a flawed view of what differentiation is and what it is not. We assume that differentiation must have this or must have that, when really differentiation only needs to include one thing: a clear focus on students' academic and social-emotional needs. When we are responsive to our students' needs, any action we take to meet those needs is differentiation.

The tricky piece here is adequately answering the question, "What do our students really need?" Surely, each student will need different things. And teachers need effective and sustainable strategies to meet these needs. So, where do we start?

1. Focus on growth instead of loss

Educators have been anticipating "learning loss" for the past 18 months. But focusing on "loss" assumes something was "had" in the first place. If students "lost" their learning, did they ever really have it? Instead of focusing on "loss," let's focus on determining whether or not students have met learning targets. The way we do this is through instructional clarity: having clear goalposts of what learning looks like and centering your planning process around success criteria and formative assessment. Ensure that for every lesson and unit of study:

The focus standard is clearly identified.

Learning intentions are clearly defined (these are the discrete skills and/or concepts derived from the standard).

The success criteria are clearly identified (these are the indicators that the student has mastered the learning intention. Collectively they indicate proficiency in the learning intention).

For the success criterion, there are formative assessments. Evidence from these formative assessments is then regularly used to inform instruction. And with that data we. . . .

2. Offer empathy, not interventions

In the June 2021 issue of Psychology Today, the table of contents includes a teaser for the feature article in the "Treatment" section of the magazine. It says, "[pg.] 34-Addiction: Interventions Don't Work. This might." When you turn to page 34, you find an article by Peg O'Connor (2021) titled "Empathy over Ambush."

While this article is about interventions for people struggling with an addiction and not struggling learners, the same premise holds for our schools.

The antithesis of empathizing with students is shaming them (inadvertently or not). When students feel shame, it renders them incapable of learning and may likely lead to other adverse behaviors. When we pull students from their classes (whether for remediation or extension), we run the high risk of inducing shame in them.

Instead, we can structure our lessons to provide additional instruction and practice to students at their readiness level while simultaneously exposing them to grade-level content and skills if we. . . .

3. Plan instruction that is equitable, not equal

While in college, I worked at a day camp. At the time, I had never heard of the term "differentiation," but what I learned from how the camp ran their swimming program taught me so much about two differentiation mainstays: flexible grouping and student choice and voice. The camp had nine "swim levels," each with very clear criteria. Once a student could meet the criteria, they switched groups to the next level.

However, in the first 15 minutes of swim time, all students were introduced to the day's skill, for example, treading water. Even the students who had not yet demonstrated proficiency to go into the deep end were still exposed to the new skill and then given scaffolds (water wings or floaties) or the option to work on a deep-end skill in the shallow water for this "whole group" part of the lesson. Then, during small-group instruction time, the swimmers were given additional direct instruction and practice of the prerequisite skills they needed.

Pulling a small group to reteach prerequisite skills is an example of a "tier-two" intervention during tier-one instruction time. It allows all students to be exposed to "where they are going" and hone the skills they need to get there with targeted instruction.

This model works in the classroom, too. Pulling a small group to work on phonics skills necessary to decode text while other groups dive into comprehension questions for a text would be one example. How can students comprehend text if they can't decode? During the whole-group portion of this lesson, the "floaties" might be listening to an audio recording of the text or reading a smaller passage of text to demonstrate a specific comprehension skill.

This leads me to another common misconception about differentiation. Often times, educators believe that you cannot have whole-group direct instruction as part of differentiation. You surely can-the differentiation can and should be embedded in this context. In addition, educators often believe they need to see all small groups of students every day for the same number of minutes. This is equality. Equity is when you see students in small groups based on needs (academic and social-emotional), so that students with the greatest needs are seen more frequently and/or for a greater number of minutes than students who have less needs. All students receive the amount of small-group instruction appropriate for them, with zero minutes being suitable for no one.

4. Assume positive intent

As educators, we are obliged to be responsive to the children and young adults in front of us. We have a choice to respond to students in punitive and judgmental ways or in compassionate ways that give them the benefit of the doubt.

Take cheating, for instance. Cheating was a hot topic of conversation during remote learning since teachers had less oversight and control over how students were completing work. Even strategies that allowed teachers greater oversight were doubted in the face of the freedom students had during remote learning.

For example, a teacher I worked with last year used Google Slides in a super creative way to mimic, in a virtual way, walking around the classroom and looking at your students' work (you can see every student in real time when you view Slides in "grid" view). I loved this teacher's idea so much that I shared it with another team of teachers. This team, however, was concerned that since the students could see each other's answers, they would "cheat."

I said, "Well, the great thing about this format is you can see if any of your students are looking at slides other than their own. If you see a student on another student's slide, what would you do?"

One teacher said, "I would give them a zero."

I countered: "What if you assume positive intent?" I went on to ask that teacher to assume the student isn't looking at another student's work to "cheat," but instead because he or she is confused. Instead of failing the student, make a note of students who look at other students' slides and use that as one piece of formative assessment evidence that those students may require additional instruction. Then pull those students as a small group and check their understanding. This mindset is critical to differentiated instruction and will be particularly helpful as students return to schools this year.

The same premise applies to our personal professional practice. There will be some strategies that we try that will work. There will be others that are lackluster. This is simply formative assessment evidence for us to reflect on and hone our practices. If you find yourself saying things like, "I tried it, it didn't work," think about extending empathy and assuming positive intent for yourself as well as your students. In the words of meditation teacher and author Jack Kornfield, "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete" (Kornfield, 2018, p. 28.) When it comes to differentiation (and all instruction), please be compassionate to yourself, your students, and each other. Remember that both you and your students can always take something you learned today and refine it tomorrow-it's a marathon, not a sprint.

As we adjust to teaching and learning in this post-pandemic world, a genuine understanding of what differentiation is (anything we do to meet the needs of our students so they continue to learn and grow academically and socially) will certainly redirect our focus from fear of the loss to celebration of the gains.

Reflect & Discuss

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What Differentiated Instruction Really Means - ASCD

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When I wrote my article "Why We Need Differentiation Now More Than Ever" for an ASCD newsletter in May of last year (Westman, 2020), remote learning was new. It was just weeks after the initial school closures due to COVID-19, and everyone's emotions were raw.

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This article discusses different strategies for differentiation and how to implement them in the ELA classroom. I enjoyed the article because it discusses how to implement and explores why and how differentiated instruction is beneficial. One of the biggest tips in the article is providing students with choices and pulling on their specific learning types.

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Differentiated Instruction and How to Implement It | Learning A-Z

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Our K-6 products help teachers differentiate literacy instruction and practice to meet each student’s individual learning needs.

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This article explores differentiation for the "middle of the pack" student who causes no problems and goes unnoticed by teachers daily. It encourages teachers to meet the student where they are, providing different routes to the same desired learning outcome. It provides examples such as giving extended time, scaffolding the activity from medium to easy, and finally allowing students to redo their work.

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Making Decisions

Which students miss out most? It is the student in the middle who doesn't cause problems, who obeys, conforms, and never demands attention. We rarely give her the time of day in our race to take care of the extremes.

I had one of those students in my classroom. He was in my intermediate Spanish class and always sat in the middle. He never said a lot, and he did his work quietly. He wasn't the best in the classroom, and he wasn't the worst. I remember that he did struggle with rolling his rs. One day, he didn't come to class, and we got word that he had committed suicide. Not that I could have done anything to prevent this, but you always have the nagging doubt that perhaps you could have made a difference. In that moment, I vowed to never assume the quiet ones were OK.

Yet even with that, we are pressured to give the students with more needs more attention than those students who have less needs. The largest conflict about differentiated instruction boils up inside of us when we try to assign a grade to that differentiated instruction.

How can we justifiably give the students the same grade when the quality, quantity, or content of the performance is different? I have yet to read a truly compelling argument to answer that question. Most people mumble something about grades being a relative measure of student performance and designed for communication of progress only.

So, this is my attempt to make sense of this dilemma and perhaps calm a few nervous hearts in the process. In my prior post, I discussed the idea of intrinsic differentiation and the role of active learning and active teaching. Now, I want to discuss designed differentiation a bit.

Meeting Students Where They Are

Designed differentiation is the deliberate act of modifying instruction or an assignment in order to customize the effect to match the particular developmental level and skills of a student or group of students. The ideal is to provide equivalent learning activities that cater to the students' strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective. On one end of the spectrum is the one-size-fits-all learning activity, while on the other end is the completely individualized learning plan for each student. Although I believe it is time for the latter, realism demands that teachers deal with something that hovers around the middle of the continuum.

The best teachers throughout time have always found ways to reach individual students. Teachers today are no different. We have all sorts of designed differentiation strategies that help teachers offer variety and choice to students of different skills and needs. We can

vary the length or quantity of the assignment.

extend or curtail the duration of the assignment.

change the language of the assignment.

scaffold the learning activity from hard to medium to easy.

compact the activity and teach only what they don't know.

give them learning activities that let them perform the same learning objective with multiple mediums like summarizing a story they have read through narrative, drama, song, poetry, art, or design.

Allow for Do-Overs

There is also a strong movement of simply allowing students to work at their own pace through computer-aided instruction, or SRA-type curriculum. There is one more type of designed differentiation method I believe is underutilized -- the rough draft.

When a student is given a learning assignment to turn in, is it really a learning assignment if they have only one chance at meeting the mastery-level standard? Clearly identified standards of performance are necessary to make this work, but when a student submits a substandard piece of work, rather than assign a grade immediately, we can provide personalized, individual feedback to that student, which includes providing suggestions for improvement and giving it back to the student for revision.

Is there a limit to the number of times this can be done to help a student overcome a particular learning obstacle? Some students might be able to do it right the first time, while others need several revisions. This strategy is the ultimate in designed differentiation.

Typically, we see this kind of opportunity only in English and social studies classes. Why not math and science? After all, if the student eventually gets the concept, isn't that what counts? The thing I like about this approach is that no student is left out -- not even the quiet, no-problem kids.

What are your successes with designed differentiation? What are your challenges? Please share your thoughts.

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Differentiated Instruction Allows Students to Succeed

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Which students miss out most? It is the student in the middle who doesn't cause problems, who obeys, conforms, and never demands attention. We rarely give her the time of day in our race to take care of the extremes. I had one of those students in my classroom.

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This article explains what differentiated instruction is and how to implement it in the classroom. Adding on, it compares differentiated instruction with other approaches and discusses how differentiated instruction may also be used with special education students or in a special education classroom. I found it interesting that the article points out the differentiated instruction is helpful, but may not work in every classroom. If it is not done correctly, it may cause extra distractions instead. However, if educators monitor students and ensure that students continue to improve, educators may successfully incorporate differentiated instruction into their lessons.

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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:

1. Content: Figuring out what a student needs to learn and which resources will help

2. Process: Activities that help students make sense of what they learn

3. Projects: Ways for students to "show what they know"

4. 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.

About the author

About the author

Geri Coleman Tucker is a freelance writer and editor and a former deputy managing editor for

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Kylah Torre is an instructor in the department of special education at Hunter College.

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Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach that tailors instruction to all students' learning needs. Read about how differentiated instruction works.

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This article talks about the different dimensions of differentiation. It goes into different types and different ways to use differentiation in the classroom. The different dimensions it talks about are content, instructional strategies, the classroom, products, and the teacher. The article goes into great detail about the different dimensions and examples of using it in the classroom.

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This article talks about what differentiation is and why it's important. It provides common myths that people have about differentiated instruction, as well as facts. It explains the four types of differentiated instruction and how they can be used in the classroom, as well as giving teachers ways to use differentiated instruction.

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A classroom where every student gets the individualized support they need is one with higher engagement, better student outcomes, and happier learners. But, providing this individualized support can be challenging. With limited planning and instructional time, how can teachers meet the wide range of needs in their classrooms? Enter the strategic use of differentiated instruction.

Today, we're answering the question, "What is differentiated instruction?" and looking at how you can differentiate certain areas of your classroom instruction to support students in ways that help them learn best!

What is differentiated instruction?

Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach or process that allows educators to tailor instruction to their students based on data and observations about their learning readiness and interests. It helps teachers respond to variance among learners in the classroom.

Differentiation helps educators move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. It fundamentally encourages educators to teach to the students in front of them. Ultimately, differentiation can motivate students to learn all material-even topics that don't excite them-in a way that meets them where they are.

Why is differentiated instruction important?

All teachers have the same goal: Help their students build skills so they can master standards, no matter their readiness levels. Differentiation is the key to reaching that goal because it allows educators to determine a student's strengths and areas of improvement and tailor instruction to support each child's growth. This method benefits all students. Positive effects of using differentiated instruction include:

Providing students with flexibility when encountering information and class materials.

Helping students learn faster and more effectively.

Supporting English language learners (ELLs) to help them understand content and concepts while learning a new language.

Supporting students with individualized education programs (IEPs) by considering how they can work and learn within a greater classroom environment.

Creating more engaged and focused student learning environments leads to fewer disruptions, distractions, and discipline problems in the classroom.

4 types of differentiated instruction

One of the benefits of differentiated instruction is its flexibility in meeting students where they are and across their various needs. Student needs vary:

To address all of these areas, educators and authors Carol Ann Tomlinson and Susan Dimirsky Allan identified four areas where you can differentiate instruction. They include:

1. Content

Content is the information students need to learn. Leveling readings is one way to provide different access points to the content students are mastering. In classrooms where students have varying reading levels and learning needs, leveling texts, especially to help build background knowledge, can be a game changer.

According to educator and thought leader Timothy Shanahan, different levels of text will help students meet different learning goals.

For example, suppose you want students to grow their literacy skills and comprehension strategies. In that case, reading complex texts at or above grade level in teacher-guided reading instruction and small peer groups can help. If you want students to build background knowledge on a topic or read independently with fluency and accuracy, reading less complex texts at a reading level that's just right for them could be a helpful option.

When you can assign leveled versions of the same text in class, it allows all students, regardless of reading ability, to participate in the same discussions and share ideas.

2. Process

Process is any activity a student does to engage with, make sense of, or master content. Examples of differentiating a process include:

Using tiered activities that teach the same skills with different levels of support. Students at the lowest level receive the most support and those at the highest level receive more challenges.

Varying the time students have to complete a task, such as providing extended windows for formative assessments.

Offering manipulatives or hands-on support for certain activities.

3. Products

Products are the projects, tools, or assessments that challenge students to extend their learning or show and apply what they know. Differentiating a product could look like:

4. Learning environment

The learning environment is how the classroom looks, works, and feels. Differentiating your learning environment may look like:

To make your differentiated learning environment "work," explain to your students how some people need quiet, distraction-free spaces to learn and others need collaborative, noisy environments instead. Then, at different times throughout instruction, you can create these types of learning environments for your students to help those with different needs learn best.

Student characteristics to consider when differentiating instruction

When choosing what area or areas you want to differentiate, the first thing you do is consider how it's going to benefit your students. To do that, you can look at two key areas of their education and personalities. Then, you can group students by these three key areas to make differentiation easier. The characteristics include:

Readiness

Readiness is a student's knowledge and skill level for any given subject or topic. Background knowledge, life experiences, and previous education can all affect students' readiness levels.

Readiness levels can vary across or even within subjects. For example, in social studies, students may have deep knowledge of the American Revolution but not the Seven Years' War. Therefore, their readiness level for understanding American Revolution content would be higher.

In contrast, some students may have a high readiness level in all areas of math but a low level for all areas of social studies if they lack background knowledge on the topics. To find students' readiness levels for a specific topic or subject, you can look at:

Interests

Interests are the subjects, topics, and skills that students like or are curious about. For example, some students might like science better than ELA. Or, they might be more excited to learn about the animal kingdom than how electricity works. Interests can also include what they like to do outside of school, such as sports, hobbies, or the content they consume.

Knowing your students' interests can help you make content and in-class topics more exciting and relevant for them, where applicable. For example, if you're trying to help students work on silent reading fluency and give them various text choices for reading, you may include ones about Taylor Swift, , or if those things interest your students.

To learn more about your students' interests, simply ask. Have them complete ice-breaker activities at the beginning of the school year or new quarter. You can also have them keep an ongoing interest journal where they can write or draw about their current fascinations.

Myths and facts about differentiated instruction

With so much information available, how do you know what's true and what isn't about differentiated instruction? Explore some of the myths and facts around the discipline and what they mean for implementing differentiated instruction in your classroom.
Get started
Myth: Differentiated instruction requires too much work.

If you're new to differentiation, it can feel like there's too much work to do to align your lessons and teaching methods with best practices. That's not true, especially not when you have the right tools and administrator support.

Worthwhile differentiated instruction requires strategic work, like targeted lesson planning, but that doesn't mean more work. It just means more thoughtful work. When starting differentiated instruction in your classroom, set realistic goals or expectations. For example, you may incorporate differentiation into your lessons one class or assignment at a time. Then, you can take what you learned from those first few lessons and apply them strategically to others more easily.

Once you understand how it works and get to know your students and their needs, differentiating can start to feel second nature. Using timely assessment data and helpful edtech and instructional tools can streamline the process.

Myth: Differentiated instruction can replace special education support.

Differentiated instruction does not replace special education supports, like an IEP or intervention. Instead, it's a tool you can use with these additional supports to ensure students get the help and scaffolds they need to reach their education goals.

Differentiation takes into account classroom accessibility so that students with and without disabilities can learn the same information, interact and engage with the same resources, and enjoy the same services without roadblocks.

When you account for differentiation in content, process, product, and learning environment, you can also consider how to make these areas more accessible. For example, offering texts in other languages for ELLs or making screen readers or other technology-assistive devices available in the classroom are both differentiation and accessibility accommodations.

Myth: There's insufficient research about differentiated instruction to justify using it in the classroom.

Though there are more heavily researched-backed frameworks that you may use in your classroom, like the science of reading in ELA, that doesn't mean that differentiation is baseless.

Educational psychologist Lynn McQuarrie and colleagues have found that differentiation strategies designed to help smaller groups of students-like ELLs, struggling readers, and gifted students-are actually applicable across the classroom to help all students learn. The same study found that students with learning disabilities benefited more from differentiated instruction than their grade-level peers.

Another study found that reading differentiation for elementary school students helped new readers improve their literacy skills compared with students who didn't receive differentiated instruction.

Fact: Professional development can help teachers get better at differentiating instruction.

As new differentiation research and best practices become available, teacher training and professional development (PD) can help you improve your instructional practices. You can request formal PD sessions from your administrators to ensure all teachers in your school or district get the same training. You can also sign up for solo courses or to boost your individual differentiation knowledge and skill sets.

How can teachers use differentiated instruction in the classroom?

Educators are most successful with differentiation when they follow best practices for implementing it in their classrooms. One overarching strategy is to be flexible! Flexibility in a differentiated classroom makes it easier to adjust many elements simultaneously to promote individual and whole-class success. Other ways educators can implement differentiation in the classroom include:

1. Setting your lesson objectives early

When you set your lesson objectives early in the planning process, it's easier to see exactly what you want your students to learn. Then, you can figure out how to challenge them appropriately to reach end-of-lesson or end-of-unit mastery through differentiated content, processes, products, and learning environments.

Sharing the learning objectives with students also helps set their learning goals. When they know what they need to do by the end of a lesson or unit, they can take some responsibility for their learning. Students can practice self-monitoring to see if they're reaching their goals and can adjust (with your support) if necessary.

2. Creating assignments with varied tasks and materials

When teachers modify lesson activities and content, such as providing all readings in both text and audio formats, they find key opportunities to meet learners where they're at. It lays the foundation for scaffolding and growth as students work through appropriately challenging assignments.

With varied tasks and materials, you can differentiate for students at different readiness levels while still teaching the same topics-and sometimes even the same content-to everyone, but in a way that's most accessible to each of them.

3. Introducing information using multiple modalities

Not all students learn best by listening. Or reading or watching videos. If students have only one method to learn information, not everyone will succeed. When you provide multiple modality learning aids throughout a lesson, you can share and reinforce concepts in different, more accessible ways. Some of these aids could include:

4. Choosing student working groups intentionally

Using a combination of whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction gives students access to a wide variety of learning opportunities with classmates at the same and different readiness levels. You can use flexible grouping to best address the learning needs of all students at all times. This includes adding grouping methods like:

Whole-group: Entire class

Small-group: Between two and six students

Pairs: Two students, sometimes three if you have an odd number in your class

Independent: Students work alone

In homogeneous groups, students with similar needs can focus on specific content or skills. Heterogeneous groups, with students of varied needs or dissimilar interests, can learn and work together to improve.

It's important to consider all these factors when setting up groups. First, decide what you want students to accomplish by working in groups. If you need them to practice certain skills with extra scaffolding, homogenous small groups may work best. But if you want students to teach and learn from each other, heterogeneous pairs, small groups, or whole-class instruction may be best.

Group assignments can be fluid for each lesson, depending on the learning objectives.

5. Trying reciprocal learning

Invite students to teach and learn from each other with reciprocal learning. In this flipped classroom method, students learn deeply about a topic and share what they've learned with the whole class in their own words using their own methods and examples. Giving students ownership increases student engagement. A jigsaw activity is a perfect way to try reciprocal teaching.

In a jigsaw lesson, students work with their classmates to learn more about niche areas of a larger topic. Then, they combine what they have learned, like a jigsaw puzzle, which is how the activity gets its name. You can assign each student a subtopic that connects to a greater content topic in your lesson.

For example, if you want students to learn about the branches of government, you may assign students subtopics like the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Students work independently to research their subtopics. Then, they come together with their larger group to share information and fit their pieces together. These small groups typically also do a performance task to share information about the greater topic with the rest of the class.

6. Encouraging student choice and agency

Adding student choice opportunities to a lesson challenges students to become more independent learners. Their choices also provide more data about the best ways to differentiate future instruction.

While you likely can't cover students' personal interests in every lesson-such as letting them read about Beyoncé instead of the New Deal-you can still provide choices in other ways. Using text sets may be a way to do this. It gives students options for reading texts on the same topic or theme but still having a say in what they read.

Choice and agency may also involve letting students choose how they complete a performance task, such as writing an essay or drawing a diagram.

7. Use ongoing formative assessments

You can use ongoing formative assessments all year to evaluate your students' needs and adapt instruction to meet them. Frequent knowledge and skills assessments help you get the data and information you need to differentiate instruction in the moment. You can give formative assessments before, during, or after a lesson to get the data you need to help differentiate at any time.
Read more about formative assessments
Newsela makes differentiated instruction easy

Newsela's products make it easy to differentiate instruction in any subject. Here are just a few of the ways you can use our tools to differentiate in the classroom:

Ready to try these features for yourself? Sign up for Newsela Lite and start your 45-day trial to experience the best of Newsela ELA, Newsela Social Studies, And Newsela Science for free.

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What Is Differentiated Instruction? 4 Types of Modifications

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Discover what differentiated instruction is and four different ways you can modify instruction to better suit the needs of all students in your classroom.

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This article talks about what makes effective differentiated instruction. It talks about how to make every student seen and challenged on the right level all at one, which sounds like a daunting task. It also focused on waiting for student readiness, which helped me reframe how I think about students who are behind the benchmark of the class. Students need to be scaffolded and ready to learn each skill. The article broke down the benefits of differentiation as well as various strategies to implement it. What is most common between the suggested strategies is flexibility and choice that takes into account student preferences, both interests and learning styles/environments. The article called for good classroom management to successfully implement differentiation. This helped me think about what sort of classroom management strategies allow for students to experience the most flexibility and choice in their learning. This article taught me about the connection between true classroom management and how it allows for a classroom where students experience choice and flexibility so they can all be challenged and seen for their interests and preferred learning styles.

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How to Implement Effective Differentiated Instruction in Your Classroom

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Imagine a classroom where every student feels seen, understood, and challenged at just the right level. Differentiated instruction can make this vision a reality, transforming education to meet the diverse needs of today’s learners. In a world where one-size-fits-all teaching methods fall short, personalized approaches are becoming increasingly essential.