This article first appeared in Classroom Connect magazine, February, 2003.  I reproduce it here with their kind permission.

Differentiated Instruction 

Differentiating instruction is something that all teachers do, pretty much all the time. Good teachers do not “teach to the middle” or believe that “one size fits all” (http://www.gp.k12.mi.us/ci/diff/resources.htm). All teachers recognize that there are different learning styles and levels among the students in any and every given class, so they customize the content of their lessons and their pedagogical techniques in order to reach all students. Teachers do this naturally, and most of the time with little effort. We do this willingly, fully accepting our role in an educational system and philosophy which is based on the premise that, among other things, teachers will and can “successfully work with students of widely differing abilities, preparation, and home lives in the same classroom” (http://www.weac.org/kids/1998-99/march99/differ.htm). Differentiating instruction intentionally, deliberately, with a plan – a reason, an objective, a goal, accompanied by some understanding of learning theory and process – is a different story, though: most teachers that I know do not differentiate their instruction so consciously. There are many good reasons for doing so, however, and in this article I will discuss the some of those reasons, explain how they can be executed in the classroom effectively and efficiently, point out resources readily available online that advocate and elucidate differentiating instruction, and draw from some examples using online resources that I have used in my own teaching. Please note three things up front: that this is only one teacher’s experience and viewpoint on a very large and complex subject; I will attempt to cover just a part of it here with an introduction, an overview, and some examples, with an emphasis on the resources available to all teachers and students on the internet. Second, differentiated instruction is a multifaceted subject related to other topics of high interest to educators: Multiple Intelligences, the education of gifted and talented students, learning styles, and others. Here we will keep our focus narrow; information on other matters is easily found both online and elsewhere. Third, the literature on differentiated instruction that is available on the internet is excellent, but it does not compare to that offered in books. Any teacher who is serious about using differentiated instruction pedagogy and practices in her own classroom will want to purchase Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, by Susan Winebrenner, and consider investing in the video that accompanies the book, as well.  

Let us leave aside, for the moment, any discussion which tries to contrast or favor one or the other side of heterogeneous vs. mixed-ability classrooms. I teach in a public high school where tracking exists: honors, college, etc. But every teacher in that school and, I assume, in schools elsewhere, knows that such tracking is broad and blunt at best. The classes within those tracks are still very much mixed-ability, with students having a wide variety of preparation, readiness, talents, skills, and interests. (See http://www.weac.org/kids/1998-99/march99/differ2.htm for a brief discussion of “so-called homogeneous classes.”) 

Carol Tomlinson, an eloquent advocate and spokesperson for differentiated instruction in mixed-ability classrooms, defines the term very broadly as “doing whatever it takes to ensure that struggling and advanced learners, students with varied cultural heritages, and children with different background experiences all grow as much as they possibly can” (http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/tomlin99book.html#foreword). She then goes on to clarify what differentiated instruction actually is by citing “hallmarks of differentiated classrooms.” In such classrooms teachers:

In an earlier article (http://ericec.org/digests/e536.html) Tomlinson cautions that practicing differentiated instruction is not easy. It takes time, commitment, mastery, and effort on the part of the teacher, and challenges all students to perform at their highest level. (The teacher who wants to assess her own inclination and readiness for applying differentiated instruction can fill out an interactive survey online at http://www.ascd.org/pdi/demo/diffinstr/l1act.htm.) Just as students vary in regard to readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles, so much teachers master and offer variety to the class: “(1) a variety of ways for students to explore curriculum content, (2) a variety of sense-making activities or processes through which students can come to understand and "own" information and ideas, and (3) a variety of options through which students can demonstrate or exhibit what they have learned.” (For a strong statement linking variety in teaching with “authentic,” constructivist education, pedagogy and practice, and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, see Ted Sizer’s article, “No Two Are Quite Alike,” http://www.ascd.org/pdi/demo/diffinstr/sizer.html).  

How exactly does the teacher differentiate instruction in her own classroom? By varying the content, process and product (http://www.ascd.org/frameedlead.html).  

As teachers continue the process of differentiation, they will find that some students will require what is called curriculum compacting. Students qualify for compacting when they demonstrate a certain level of mastery of the subject that the teacher is about to commence teaching. This qualification is determined by offering students a pre-test on that content. The students who volunteer to take that pre-test and score above a predetermined level are then rewarded with time on their own to pursue other interests on her own during that time that she “bought,” or to do nothing at all. The issue of control arises here, along with pacing and time flexibility: the teacher has to cede some control over the student’s time and allow her to do what she wants, including nothing. Alternatively, the teacher can accumulate resources in a section of the classroom, and can encourage this achieving student to access those materials during the time purchased. The wired teacher will perceive an opportunity here: instead of collecting books and manipulables, the teacher can “collect” web sites and guide the student to these at one of the computers in the small cluster at the edge of the room. Many students will find the internet-connected computer preferable to the stack of printed material, especially if the teacher can recommend sites that are interesting as well as educating. I have found that www.howstuffworks.com is a wonderful site for students to go to on their own; a similar online resource, even more fun (while it slips in lots of concrete information) is Cecil Adams’s excellent site, The Straight Dope (www.straightdope.com). For some easy-to-take lessons on physics, suggest Sodaplay to your students (www.sodaplay.com); it is absolutely addicting, and also teaches about gravity and friction. For the student interested in words and meanings, the Visual Thesaurus (http://thesaurus.plumbdesign.com/index.jsp) will knock their eyes out with its cutting-edge Flash animations, showing complex relationships among words and themes. For the Social Studies classroom, the History Channel (http://www.historychannel.com/index2.html) will keep any student engaged while providing sound educational content at the same time. Make sure to connect the headphones when the student is ready to go to this site so that she can listen to live broadcasts of famous speeches (http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/); what student would pass up a chance to earn an opportunity to listen to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, or Lou Gehrig’s farewell, or Orson Welles’s famous “War of the Worlds”? Dozens of others are there, from Lenin to Lennon, Monroe to Morrison (the site with the broadest variety of speeches: Earthstation1 [www.earthstation1.com], where you can also find Orson Welles’s complete “War of the Worlds” and the famous “Oh, the humanity!” [http://www.earthstation1.com/hindnbrg.html]). This site, like the others, is a reward, not a task, or a burdensome – and, in effect, punitive -- unit of “extra credit” for the student who has pre-tested at a high level. Such students “become passionately interested in specific topics,” according to Susan Winebrenner (http://cc.ysu.edu/~mkdove/educategiftedtoo.htm), so what could be better than for the teacher to turn that student loose on the internet, at designated sites such as the above, or, alternatively, on their own, to do independent research on a subject that interests them? And – to pose another rhetorical question to which the correct answer is “none” – what better research tool is there for a motivated, independent student than a computer hooked up to the internet? 

As the tech-savvy teacher progresses in differentiating instruction and curriculum compacting, she will find that the opportunities for both teachers and students to use various software and the internet for this work are endless (http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm; http://www.lakelandschools.org/EDTECH/Differentiation/six.htm). Some of my favorites are described in the paragraph above, but there are software tools for every discipline and subject, and content both broad and deep beyond description available in every corner of the internet for every topic imaginable. The teacher who is using the new media classroom resources is probably more inclined to fit the mold of “guide by the side” than “sage by the stage” already. Differentiating instruction suits that style of educating perfectly. “In a differentiated classroom,” Tomlinson writes, “the teacher becomes more of a facilitator of time and space, an assessor of students, a person who helps kids learn to plan and learn to assess the effectiveness of their planning” (http://www.ascd.org/pdi/demo/diffinstr/l1v3t.html).