So what is differentiated instruction (DI)? It is an instructional method that adjusts the curriculum to meet students where they are. It is a method that does not expect all students to learn the same material from same presentation. The method takes into account that students approach each lesson differently. DI provides options for students to interact with the content/curriculum from their strengths and current knowledge base. There are three areas that can be modified to allow for options; content, process and products.

Ideally it would be great to modify content to meet each child’s needs. But in our reality the content is decided by state departments of education in the form of frameworks or standards. We can only modify the content to go beyond the frameworks, this is good for our more advanced students. For our weaker students we can not add to or change the content we must teach what is mandated.

In the classroom what can be modified the most is the process. How material is presented, the activities that occur in the classroom, the projects, group or individual work. This is were we as teachers get to shine. I’ll get in to this more later.

In a classroom where DI takes place students have options to express what they have learned, to produce products that demonstrate their successes. They can use traditional testing, presentations, models or reports to name a few. In the state of Massachusetts, where I teach, the ultimate products are the MCAS exams. These are not differentiated, there are no options here. All students must be able to show what they know through these tests. Students need to be able to answer multiple choice, short answer and open response questions. This has caused a second stream in the curriculum to develop, how to take these tests, it is a skill all students must master.

As classroom teachers there is much that we can not control about the learning process. But we can control what happens in our rooms each day. I have worked with some terrific teachers who are masters of their craft. They create wonderful learning experiences for their students with lots of options, and varied assigned that take into account learner differences. I hope in the future to share some of their successes.

DI is for all students, everyone should be challenged in the classroom from the weakest and the strongest student. Developing these lessons can take a lot of time and resources. Sometimes it might be best to take it a lesson at a time. It is also good to share success with each other, no point recreating the wheel if you neighbor down the hall has some great activities or the neighbor your meet in cyber space.