Dare to Differ?

Refer to http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

What Is Differentiated Instruction?

By: Carol Ann Tomlinson

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.

 At the elementary level, teachers may:

1. Use reading materials at varying levels according to student proficiency levels;
2. Using audio and written texts;
3. Using spelling or vocabulary lists at readiness levels of students;
4. Presenting ideas through both auditory and visual means;
5. Using reading buddies; and
6. Meeting with small groups to re-teach an idea or skill for struggling learners, or to extend the thinking or skills of advanced learners

Excerpted from: Tomlinson, C. A. (August, 2000). Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades. ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.