• When differentiating your classroom, don’t leave out the gifted students.  Be cautious that you are assigning open-ended rich inquiry activities instead of more work or always using peer-tutoring and mentoring relationships.  Differentiating should allow ALL students to be enriched.  Differentiating is NOT adjusting the workload assigned based on ability levels or grading differently based on perceptions of students’ capabilities. 

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/minimize-lecture-workshop-model.shtml

and student led learning is imperative. 

Lawson (2012) 

http://theeducatorsroom.com/2012/10/the-mathematical-workshop-model-how-data-differentiation-and-classroom-management-combine-in-an-elementary-classroom/

assessments each day. You can decide which

activities to count as an assessment for certain students.

Benefits different learning styles by having a variety of assessments. Also workshop gives each student time to practice skills before being assessed. Rather than just teaching and handing out a worksheet, they are able to practice using a variety of different methods. -Angela Bunel (2009)

http://blogs.scholastic.com/3_5/2009/03/the-workshop-model-assessment-strategies-that-work.html

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/di_meeting.phtml

while allowing time to meet students on an individual basis. -Andrew Miller 2012

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-strategies-pbl-andrew-miller

 The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement
Updated on Apr 30, 2014

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Teacher_s_Guide/?page=3

not to create completely different lessons but adapt each lesson

Differentiation is more than just the lesson, it also can be the assessments,

materials, process, and activities.

differentiation is modified instruction that helps students with diverse academic needs and learning styles master the same challenging academic content. -— The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement
Updated on Apr 30, 2014

Very important!

Helps all students learn

Many different methods , grouping allows for multiple styles of learning to be done.

No one has the same abilities or learns the same way, grouping allows for a students best area to shine through

All students have the right to demonstrate growth

Maryland Spicer and Shelby Looney (n.d)

http://literacyinstructions.wikispaces.com/Utilizing+Differentiation+in+Writers+Workshop

The Cafe Book 

Reading with Meaning

Kate Garnett (2010)

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-are-classrooms-students-learning-disabilities

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.

It seems to me that the only educators who assert that differentiation is doable are those who have never tried to implement it themselves: university professors, curriculum coordinators, and school principals. It's the in-the-trenches educators who know the stark reality: Differentiation is a cheap way out for school districts to pay lip service to those who demand that each child be educated to his or her fullest potential.

The sad truth is this: By having dismantled many of the provisions we used to offer to kids on the edges of learning (classes for gifted kids, classes for kids who struggle to learn, and classes for those whose behaviors are disruptive to the learning process of others), we have sacrificed the learning of virtually every student. In the same Fordham Institute report cited earlier, 71 percent of teachers reported that they would like to see our nation rely more heavily on homogeneous grouping of advanced students, while a resounding 77 percent of teachers said that, when advanced students are paired with lower-achieving students for group assignments, it's the smart kids who do the bulk of the work.

James R. Delisle (2015)

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/01/07/differentiation-doesnt-work.html