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DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

Teaching a Class With Big Ability Differences

Techniques for meeting the needs of students with diverse abilities and interests.

By Todd Finley

April 13, 2017

Engaged students at work in a classroom

How do you teach the same concepts and skills to students with diverse abilities and interests? Different
learning profiles? And how do you do that in real classrooms, with limited time to plan?

Differentiated instruction is one answer that has been extensively documented (see “Recommended
Resources” at the end of this post). I want to share two fundamental tenets of DI before describing
specific tactics:

Differentiation is a method of instruction designed to meet the needs of all students by changing what
students learn (content), how they accumulate information (process), how they demonstrate knowledge
or skills (product), and with whom and where learning happens (learning environment).

Differentiation is not an assortment of instructional recipes. Rather, it is “a way of thinking about

teaching and learning” to ensure that children receive appropriate classroom experiences, writes
differentiation expert Carol Tomlinson.

With that in mind, here are specific techniques you can use to meet the needs of students with a range
of abilities.

1. START SLOW

Experiencing comprehensive student-centered instruction for the first time makes some kids uneasy. I’ll
never forget the high school girl who ate an entire roll of cherry Tums the day I introduced my choice-
based syllabus. Gradually integrate a student-centered curriculum, says Dr. Kathie Nunley, by asking
learners to “choose between two or three assignments” that can be completed before the end of class.

2. INTRODUCE COMPACTING FOR HIGH ACHIEVERS

Compacting curriculum lessens the tedium that elite achievers experience when they master concepts
faster than their peers. The Gifted Program at the University of Connecticut recommends using pre-
assessments to determine how these learners can skip specific chapters or activities. Then offer “mini-
courses on research topics” or “small group projects” as alternatives in a compacting contract.
3. PROVIDE CHOICE

Choice is motivating and empowering. Let students choose:

how they learn with others—individually, in pairs, in small groups, or with the whole class.

the difficulty levels of assignments, using menu-based tools like choice boards, tic-tac-toe boards (see p.
14–15), or activity menus. The digital version, Interactive Learning Menus, provide links to in-depth
assignment descriptions, examples, and rubrics. Content can also be curated and remixed into Learning
Playlists with online tools like MentorMob and BlendSpace.

what content they study. With Literature Study Circles, an entire English class can investigate and
discuss “gender and identity” by selecting one of several books hand-picked to address that theme.

what quiz questions they answer. Page one of a test might say, “Pick three of the following five
questions that you’re most confident answering.” Students can also vote on when to complete an exam.

what, where, when, and how they learn, via individual learning contracts. Be forewarned that students
need intensive instruction and patience as they compose their own contracts.

4. BAKE ASSESSMENTS INTO EVERY CLASS

Student-centered instruction is only as consequential as its assessment. Teachers need to know where
kids are in their academic journey, how they learn best, and what interests them. These assessments
can help:

Educator Chandra Manning recommends two graphic organizers, “Who I Am” and “All About Me
Gazette,” for collecting information about students’ interests.

Kids complete the “3-Minute Pause” reflection protocol after a lesson concludes.

Teacher-student conferences can quickly help teachers determine how learners are progressing and
what further support they need.

Differentiation expert Deborah Blaz reports that student-created rubrics help instructors identify
schema strengths and gaps. For advanced learners, Blaz adds an extra column with challenging criteria
to her rubrics.

When creating tests, include different question types that might address students’ preferences: multiple
choice, short answer, timelines, matching, true or false, graphic organizers to label, and sentences that
are partially completed.

Have students visually document their academic progress “by creating a ‘benchmark timeline’ of weekly
tasks. Each Friday, students initial the timeline, indicating where they are in the task sequence.”

Professor Helen Barrett defines the learning portfolio as “a purposeful collection of student work that
exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas.”
5. PROVIDE HIGH- AND NO-TECH SCAFFOLDING FOR READING

Rewordify, a text compactor, simplifies and shortens readings so that students with diverse
comprehension abilities can comprehend and discuss the same article.

To find readings that are adjusted for high, medium, or low Lexile levels, use the informational texts in
Newsela, the Smithsonian’s Tween Tribune, or News in Levels—the latter also provides audio versions of
the articles for additional support.

Distribute Comprehension Bookmarks (see pp. 13–26) to readers who might struggle with a complex
text.

6. OFFER TARGETED SCAFFOLDING FOR YOUNG WRITERS

For academic writing, temporarily supply a word bank of transitions, an essay structure graphic, or
sentence frames.

The free SAS Writing Reviser, which integrates beautifully with Google Docs, analyzes essays for
sentence economy, variety, power, and identifies clarity and grammar issues. Ask advanced writers to
analyze and assess their compositions’ sentence variety and use of passive voice, while struggling
writers can use the SAS tool to diagnose fragments, run-on sentences, and dangling modifiers.

If learners haven’t adapted to our classroom, classroom instruction should adapt to learners by
experimenting with student-centered strategies.

....................

Portrait of a Turnaround Principal

What does it take to turn a low-performing school around? A principal finds success by focusing on both
love and high expectations.

By Bekah McNeel May 16, 2019

The rest of her wardrobe is no-nonsense, but Principal Sonya Mora usually wears high heels. If she
doesn’t, some of the fifth graders at Samuel Houston Gates Elementary in San Antonio tower over her.
But not even her five-inch pumps slow her down as she beats a brisk path between classrooms, where
she’s constantly observing, modeling instruction, and offering one-on-one support for students at risk of
falling behind.

Mora gives plenty of hugs. She’s not cuddly, but she exudes a durable affection that her students need,
greeting them as they come in every morning and often telling them she loves them because she knows
they need to hear it—these students live with high rates of toxic stress, trauma, and chronic poverty.

Mora embodies a point that Pedro Martinez, San Antonio Independent School District’s superintendent,
made when he came to the district in 2015, the year Mora took over at Gates. When he began talking
about a culture of college-level expectations, some pushed back, saying that for kids with the issues
facing the district’s students, the primary need wasn’t ambition but love.

“Absolutely, let’s love them,” Martinez said, “but let’s love them all the way to Harvard.”

In four years of Mora’s leadership, Gates has gone from being one of the lowest performing schools in
the state of Texas to earning an A in 2018. Her methods, she says, are not revolutionary or novel: Being
“all about the kids” and “data-driven,” and focusing on curriculum and instruction, aren’t buzzy new
things. But they’re working for Mora, who is relying on master teachers to bring students up to grade
level and beyond. These master teachers work closely with their fellow teachers and campus
administrators, and together they all pay close attention to granular, weekly data tracking student
progress.

STUDENTS WITH ACUTE AND LONG-TERM TRAUMA

Mora’s work is complicated by the highly mobile population she serves. About half of the students at
Gates walk to school through a drug corridor known as The Hill. The rest are living in the old, often
dilapidated homes surrounding the school, often with their grandparents or other extended family
members. They bounce back and forth to parents who may or may not live nearby. Some don’t have
homes at all.

Poverty is endemic: This year Gates has 212 students, only six of whom don’t meet federal criteria to be
counted as “economically disadvantaged.”

“You do feel bad for the kids, but what we all know is that in order for them to get out of this cycle of
poverty, they have to have an education and they have to think critically,” Mora says. “They have to be
able to advocate for themselves.”The conditions she found when she arrived at Gates four years ago—
low morale, low expectations, kids spending a lot of time out of class for disciplinary reasons—made
Mora feel as though society had already written off most of her students, 97 percent of whom are black
or Hispanic. Their backgrounds and discipline records seemed to point to a continuing cycle—a cycle
Mora has been determined to break.

THE VIEW FROM THE ‘WAR ROOM’

Mora has a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, and she wants teachers to deliver the highest
quality content available in whatever instructional context necessary—small group, one-on-one,
whatever the students need.

Making that work, for Mora, is all about the details—details she tracks in a converted classroom she calls
her “war room.” The walls are covered in data that is scribbled, graphed, and color coded to show how
students are performing week by week.

The numbers on the walls have changed considerably during Mora’s four years at Gates. When she
arrived in the fall of 2015, it was the lowest performing school in San Antonio ISD, among the bottom 4
percent of schools in Texas, and at risk of closure by the Texas Education Agency. The campus has
improved every year since, and after state assessments in spring 2018, Gates earned an A, making it the
most dramatic turnaround campus in the city. Overall performance on the state assessments went from
39 to 77.

Texas also gives a rating for “closing performance gaps” between high- and low-performing ethnic
groups. In 2015, Gates earned a 20. In 2018, it earned a 100.

Enrollment has dropped as the East Side of San Antonio has been flooded with charter schools; San
Antonio ISD has opened some choice schools as well. Gates’s reputation has been hard to overcome,
Mora says in explaining the falling enrollment. Parents assume they’ll be better served elsewhere even
though Gates is, Mora says, “the only A school on the East Side.”

A BOOST FROM THE DISTRICT

In 2016, San Antonio ISD won a $46 million federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant to place master
teachers across its highest-need campuses. Gates has eight master teachers—half the teaching staff—
including some teachers who were already there and were promoted. They’re paid more by the district
—up to $15,000 more per year—and at Gates they teach an extra 45 minutes per day.

The year Mora started, more than a quarter of the teachers left the school, on par with turnover from
previous years—Gates was a tough place to work. Some were not replaced because of declining
enrollment, so at the start of Mora’s first year, 15 percent of the teachers, including some of the master
teachers, were new to Gates. But since then, the campus has not hired a single new teacher—Mora’s
teachers are staying. The only losses have been due to declining enrollment and internal promotions.

IN THE WORK TOGETHER

All administrators at Gates participate in the teachers’ professional learning communities, and work with
teachers on lesson planning, strategizing interventions for struggling students, and coming up with ideas
on how to challenge students who are already excelling.

Mora regularly visits classrooms to teach a lesson, demonstrating the kinds of strategies she wants
teachers to try. She also sits with teachers to review student data and get feedback on the interventions
they’ve tried. Teachers say she keeps track of the reading, math, and classroom management issues
they’re facing, as well as the ways they’ve tried to solve those issues. Because of that tracking and the
close communication, Mora never suggests something that teachers have already tried or something
that doesn’t make sense for a particular student—suggestions that can feel condescending, her teachers
say.
In disciplinary situations, the teachers know that Mora prefers that they do what they can to keep kids in
class—when Mora arrived, disciplinary exclusions were bogging down instruction. Kids just weren’t in
class as much as they needed to be, she says: “You can only punish so much and so long.”

A page of Sonya Mora's schedule is packed with meetings with student to discuss personal and family
issues, conflicts and inappropriate language, and crisis counseling.

Bekah McNeel

The school counselor’s schedule is packed with meetings with students to discuss serious personal and
family issues, an indication of the difficulties students face.

Mora was prepared for an argument with her teachers on this issue, she says, as there are educators
throughout the country who oppose the approach out of a belief that it creates chaos for the other
students. But as instruction improved and kids began to be engaged and challenged in class, she saw
discipline numbers go down in tandem.

First-grade master teacher Veronica Saenz, who has been at Gates for 13 years, appreciates Mora’s
approach. The only data that really mattered to previous administrators, she says, were the
standardized test numbers. They’d look at end-of-year data and respond, but it was too little, too late.

Saenz says that Mora intervenes frequently throughout the year, never letting things get too far off-
track before stepping in to help. Seeing her commitment to student progress, even in the grades that
don’t take state tests, “builds trust,” Saenz says.

NEXT STEPS

This year the campus received a $1 million innovation grant from the Texas Education Agency,
administered through the district, for tech upgrades and flexible seating, but Mora places more weight
on another strategic move: Gates is set to become an in-district charter.

San Antonio ISD allows campuses that can muster buy-in from 67 percent of teachers and parents to
apply for an internal charter, which gives a school freedom to modify the curriculum in an attempt to
better serve students. Mora has more than the support she needs to adopt balanced literacy, guided
math, and blended learning curricula that differ from the district’s. The charter, she feels, will keep
Gates’s progress from stalling.

“Even though we’re highly successful,” Mora says, “we still know we have room to grow.”

She’d like to see writing and reading scores rise out of the 60s and 70s on state assessments. Part of her
A rating came from the speed of Gates’s improvement on those assessments. In states like Texas, where
growth measurements have become part of the rating system, it can be difficult to keep up the pace.

The culture inside Gates has changed radically, but outside the doors of the school, things are just as
tough as they were four years ago. The neighborhood is not gentrifying like other parts of the district.
The housing stock is small and cheaply built—it was never intended to attract the middle class. The
neighborhood always has been, and likely will remain, a low-income area where kids face the challenges
of poverty. As such, Mora says, the work of teaching at Gates will always be to provide tools to meet
those challenges.

“We don’t complain about it,” Mora says. “We just make it work, because we don’t have a choice but to
make it work.”

Giving students several seconds to think after asking a question—and up to two minutes for some
questions—improves their learning.

By John McCarthy

January 10, 2018

How long do you think teachers pause, on average, after asking a question?

Several studies from the 1970s on have looked into the effect that the amount of time teachers pause
after asking a question has on learners. In visiting many classrooms in the United States and other parts
of the world, I’ve found that, with few exceptions, these studies are still accurate. For example,
according to work done by Mary Budd Rowe in 1972 and Robert J. Stahl in 1994, pausing for three or
more seconds showed a noticeable positive impact on learning. Yet the average length that teachers
pause was found to be 0.9 seconds.
Wow.

I’ve observed this phenomenon in many classrooms, and there is a real need to increase the time
granted to students to process what they know and to make sense of what they do not understand.

In differentiating instruction, process and learning preference are the keys. Process is how learners make
sense of ideas, compose their thinking, and prepare a thoughtful answer. Learning preference, in the
case of questions posed to the whole class, refers to how some students prefer to silently process the
content, keeping their own counsel (Internal Thinkers), while others prefer to talk or express their
thinking with an audience as a sounding board (External Thinkers).

The External Thinkers, those go-to students who can be counted on to talk within the first three
seconds, may be shaping their ideas as they talk—they haven’t had sufficient time to fully process but
speak out anyway. Meanwhile, the Internal Thinkers have also had insufficient time to process, but don’t
feel comfortable responding.

One solution is for teachers to pause for five to 15 seconds before calling on students. The silence for
some may feel unbearably long. Yet consider that the fastest male and female 100-meter sprinters in
the world run at or under 10 seconds. The world record is under 10 seconds, which goes by quickly. Why
not offer a similar amount of time for students to consider their responses to questions that require
deep thinking?

STRATEGIES FOR PROVIDING STUDENTS WITH TIME TO THINK

Provide wait time: Give students five to 15 seconds to formulate a response to a question for which they
should know the answer. Not every learner processes thinking at the same speed. Quality should be
measured in the content of the answer, not the speediness.

I count in my head to 15. Most times, I get responses by 10 to 12 seconds. If you don’t get responses
within 15 seconds, you can call on students, instead of asking for volunteers.
Give think time: Give students 20 seconds to two minutes to make sense of questions that require
analysis to synthesize concepts into a different construct or frame. You can aid this by encouraging
journaling, silent reflection, or partner discussions. Giving such chunks of time honors the work being
asked of students. Quick responses probably mean that the question did not stretch the learners’
understanding. After the allotted time, any student can be called on to share their response.

Teach reflection: Coach students on the value and practice of reflection. Educators and students may
appear to be uncomfortable with silence, hence the typical one-second pause time. Silence may be
equated with nothing happening.

In reality, when students are provided with structured ways to practice thinking and specific directions
about what to accomplish within the silent time, they can become more productive during reflection.
Think From the Middle is a collection of approaches for students to hone their thinking processes during
reflection and collaborative communication.

Teach students how to manage a conversation: It’s a beautiful thing to witness students running
thoughtful conversations around topics that combine curriculum and real-world connections. Establish a
culture for students to engage in such conversations, and they’ll soon be doing most of the heavy lifting
during the lesson.

One powerful example I’ve witnessed in Michigan and Texas uses a guide for student-led conversation
prompts called Talk Moves. This list of conversation stems provides students with communication tools
for participating in and sustaining discussions. I’ve witnessed their use in science classes using the Next
Generation Science Standards, and they’re equally useful in all subject area courses.

Students choose the starter stem that best supports the topic to be discussed. Teachers use the Talk
Moves to coach and guide students to different levels of complex thinking by directing them toward
different sections of conversation prompts. The intent is for students to own the conversation, which
empowers their ability to process concepts for understanding.

PLACING STUDENTS AT THE CENTER OF LEARNING

We want students to become independent learners who can navigate challenging material and
situations. Students learn at different paces, which seems less about intelligence and more about the
time barriers put in the path of learning. There may be a place for timed responses and answering
questions under the pressure of a clock, yet there are no standards that say that students should master
concepts in less than one second.

Most people need adequate time to process their thoughts if they are expected to contribute to a
conversation. Life is not a 30-minute game show with rapid-fire questions that require low-level
answers, plus commercial breaks. Even if it were, one would need time to develop and master the
processing skills to compete.

53 Ways to Check for Understanding

1.Summary Poem Activity

List ten key words from an assigned text.

Do a free verse poem with the words you highlighted.

Write a summary of the reading based on these words.

2.Invent the Quiz

Write ten higher-order text questions related to the content. Pick two and answer one of them in half a
page.

3.The 411

Describe the author’s objective.

4.Opinion Chart

List opinions about the content in the left column of a T-chart, and support your opinions in the right
column.

5.So What? Journal

Identify the main idea of the lesson. Why is it important?

6.Rate Understanding

Clickers (Response System)

Teacher Observation Checklist

Explaining

Explain the main idea using an analogy.

Evaluate

What is the author's main point? What are the arguments for and against this idea?

Describe

What are the important characteristics or features of the main concept or idea of the reading?

Define

Pick out an important word or phrase that the author of a text introduces. What does it mean?

Compare and Contrast

Identify the theory or idea the author is advancing. Then identify an opposite theory. What are the
similarities and differences between these ideas?

Question Stems

I believe that ________ because _______.

I was most confused by X.

Mind Map
Create a mind map that represents a concept using a diagram-making tool (like Gliffy). Provide your
teacher/classmates with the link to your mind map.

Intrigue Journal

List the five most interesting, controversial, or resonant ideas you found in the readings. Include page
numbers and a short rationale (100 words) for your selection.

Advertisement

Create an ad, with visuals and text, for the newly learned concept.

5 Words

What five words would you use to describe ______? Explain and justify your choices.

Muddy Moment

What frustrates and confuses you about the text? Why?

Collage

Create a collage around the lesson's themes. Explain your choices in one paragraph.

Letter

Explain _______ in a letter to your best friend.

Talk Show Panel

Have a cast of experts debate the finer points of X.

Study Guide
What are the main topics, supporting details, important person's contributions, terms, and definitions?

Illustration

Draw a picture that illustrates a relationship between terms in the text. Explain in one paragraph your
visual representation.

KWL Chart

What do you know, what do you want to know, and what have you learned?

Sticky Notes Annotation

Use sticky notes to describe key passages that are notable or that you have questions about.

3-2-1

Three things you found out.

Two interesting things.

One question you still have.

Outline

Represent the organization of X by outlining it.

Anticipation Guide

Establish a purpose for reading and create post-reading reflections and discussion.

Simile

What we learned today is like X.

The Minute Paper

In one minute, describe the most meaningful thing you've learned.

Interview You

You’re the guest expert on 60 Minutes. Answer:

What are component parts of _______?

Why does this topic matter?

Double Entry Notebook

Create a two-column table. Use the left column to write down 5-8 important quotations. Use the right
column to record reactions to the quotations.

Comic Book

Use a comic book creation tool like Bitstrips to represent understanding.

Tagxedo

What are key words that express the main ideas? Be ready to discuss and explain.

Classroom TED Talk

Podcast

Play the part of a content expert and discuss content-related issues on a podcast, using the free
Easypodcast.

Create a Multimedia Poster with Glogster

Twitter Post
Define _______ in under 140 characters.

Explain Your Solution

Describe how you solved an academic problem, step by step.

Dramatic Interpretation

Dramatize a critical scene from a complex narrative.

Ballad

Summarize a narrative that employs a poem or song structure using short stanzas.

Pamphlet

Describe the key features of _______ in a visually and textually compelling pamphlet.

You've Got Mail

Each student writes a question about a topic on the front of an envelope; the answer is included inside.
Questions are then “mailed” around the room. Each learner writes her answer on a slip of scratch paper
and confirms its correctness by reading the “official answer” before she places her own response in the
envelope. After several series of mailings and a class discussion about the subject, the envelopes are
deposited in the teacher’s letterbox.

Bio Poem

To describe a character or person, write a poem that includes:

(Line 1) First name

(Line 2) 3-4 adjectives that describe the person

(Line 3) Important relationship

(Line 4) 2-3 things, people, or ideas the person loved

(Line 5) Three feelings the person experienced

(Line 6) Three fears the person experienced

(Line 7) Accomplishments

(Line 8) 2-3 things the person wanted to see happen or wanted to experience

(Line 9) His or her residence

(Line 10) Last name

Sketch

Visually represent new knowledge.

Top Ten List

What are the most important takeaways, written with humor?

Color Cards

Red = "Stop, I need help."

Green = "Keep going, I understand."

Yellow = "I'm a little confused."

Quickwrite

Without stopping, write what most confuses you.

Conference

A short, focused discussion between the teacher and student.

Debrief
Reflect immediately after an activity.

Exit Slip

Have students reflect on lessons learned during class.

Misconception Check

Given a common misconception about a topic, students explain why they agree or disagree with it.

3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do

Every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners.

By John McCarthy

July 23, 2014         Updated August 28, 2015

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and crew are so intimidated by the Wizard’s enigmatic personality that
they struggle to talk with him on equal footing. Fear and frustration overwhelm them as they blindly
accept a suicide mission to slay the Witch of the West. In return, they each receive a treasured prize: a
heart, a brain, courage, and a way home. Ironically, they already have these gifts—which they only
discover after unveiling the man behind the curtain posing as the grumpy wizard.

Differentiated instruction (DI) casts a spell on educators as to how it meets all students’ needs. The skill
set required to differentiate seems mystical to some and incomprehensible to others in this
environment of state standards and high-stakes tests. Where does one find the time? The reality is that
every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners. I address some of
these elements, such as assessment fog, in other Edutopia posts.
The DI elements were first introduced to me in How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability
Classrooms by Carol Tomlinson, and my understanding later deepened thanks to my friend and mentor
Dr. Susan Allan. The core of differentiation is a relationship between teachers and students. The
teacher’s responsibility is connecting content, process, and product. Students respond to learning based
on readiness, interests, and learning profile. In this post, we’ll explore the teacher’s role for effective
planning of DI, and in the next three posts, we’ll look at how students respond.

learner relationship chart

Image Credit: John McCarthy

Content, process, and product are what teachers address all the time during lesson planning and
instruction. These are the areas where teachers have tremendous experience in everything from lesson
planning to assessment. Once the curtain is removed for how these three areas can be differentiated,
meeting students’ diverse needs becomes obvious and easy to do—because it’s always been present.

DIFFERENTIATING CONTENT

Content comprises the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students need to learn based on the
curriculum. Differentiating content includes using various delivery formats such as video, readings,
lectures, or audio. Content may be chunked, shared through graphic organizers, addressed through
jigsaw groups, or used to provide different techniques for solving equations. Students may have
opportunities to choose their content focus based on interests.

For example, in a lesson on fractions, students could:

Watch an overview video from Khan Academy.

Complete a Frayer Model for academic vocabulary, such as denominator and numerator.

Watch and discuss a demonstration of fractions via cutting a cake.

Eat the cake.

This example should reassure teachers that differentiation could occur in whole groups. If we provide a
variety of ways to explore the content outcomes, learners find different ways to connect.

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DIFFERENTIATING PROCESS

Process is how students make sense of the content. They need time to reflect on and digest the learning
activities before moving on to the next segment of a lesson. Think of a workshop or course where, by
the end of the session, you felt filled to bursting with information, perhaps even overwhelmed.
Processing helps students assess what they do and don’t understand. It’s also a formative assessment
opportunity for teachers to monitor students’ progress.

For example, having one or two processing experiences for every 30 minutes of instruction alleviates
feelings of content saturation. Reflection is a powerful skill that is developed during processing
experiences. Some strategies include:

Think-Pair-Share

Journaling

Partner talk

Save the Last Word (PDF)

Literature Circles (which also support content differentiation)

Of these three DI elements, process experiences are least used. Start with any of the shared strategies,
and see long-term positive effects on learning.

DIFFERENTIATING PRODUCT

Product differentiation is probably the most common form of differentiation.

Teachers give choices where students pick from formats.

Students propose their own designs.

Products may range in complexity to align to a respectful level for each student. (I discuss readiness in
another post.) The key to product options is having clear academic criteria that students understand.
When products are cleanly aligned to learning targets, student voice and choice flourish, while ensuring
that significant content is addressed.

For example, one of my favorite practices is providing three or four choices in products. All but the last
choice are predeveloped for students who want a complete picture of what needs to be done. The last
choice is open-ended, a blank check. Students craft a different product idea and propose it to the
teacher. They have to show how their product option will address the academic criteria. The teacher
may approve the proposal as is or ask for revisions. If the proposal is too off-focus, the students work on
developing a new idea. If they can’t come up with an approved proposal by a set due date, they have to
choose from one of the predetermined products.

REACH HIGHER

Content, process, and product are key elements in lesson design. Fortunately, educators have many
instructional tools that can differentiate these core areas of instruction, such as these 50+ social media
tools, which set the stage for students to respond through the next three DI elements in this series:

Learner readiness

Learning profiles

Learner interests

I do an activity where I ask participants to stand and reach as high as they can. Then I ask them to reach
even higher. They do. When considering your students’ needs, reach even higher in your practice—that
extra stretch is inside us all—and students will benefit.

Differentiating by Offering Choices

Elementary students have a better chance of showing what they’ve learned when they have a choice
about how to show it.

By Katie Usher

April 10, 2019

Most classrooms are filled with students of varying academic abilities. Even within a gifted and talented
classroom like mine, the ability levels can range drastically. As teachers strive to meet each student’s
individual needs, differentiation is key because it’s about giving more opportunities for students to grow
to their highest potential, and it is beneficial for all students.

In the digital era, we can provide all of our students with technological ways to enhance their learning,
no matter their academic label. Every student is different and needs to be offered a variety of ways to
show what they’ve learned in a way that reflects their individuality.

One way to differentiate within the curriculum is to provide students with choices for completing an
assignment. Students learn in various ways, and we can let them show their learning in various ways.
When I give my students a choice on how they’ll complete a project, they have to meet certain criteria,
but I allow them to find an outlet they find most enjoyable, such as creating a Google Slides
presentation, a trifold board, or a pamphlet. Giving students a choice allows them to take ownership of
their learning as well as create a product that feels authentic to them. They work on something that
they’re good at creating, or try something they want to get better at.

An excellent way to ensure differentiation is to have each student create an e-portfolio—a technology-
based assessment tool that collects a student’s authentic work samples, providing a quick way for a
teacher to assess growth and skills. In a sense, the e-portfolio is a window into a student’s learning, one
that allows the student to choose what to include.

An e-portfolio can follow the student across grades, too. And once the time is spent creating one, the
process of adding content becomes easier and quicker as the student adds to it in later grades. Since e-
portfolios offer a way for students to show authentic learning, they allow students to exhibit their
individual growth through their academic experiences.

DIFFERENTIATING BY GIVING CHOICES

The best way to differentiate instruction is to give students a choice in how they show their learning. All
students learn in their own way, and they need to be able to show their individual skills and interests. As
long as they’re able to demonstrate a certain skill, assessment should be more about the process than
the product.

Giving choices may seem like more work for the teacher, and it can be, but it’s also worthwhile because
it encourages more students to take more ownership of their learning.
Adding a technology component to an assignment can drastically increase student engagement,
especially if they haven’t been given such options in the past. Using a novel app, such as Flipgrid, adds
an element of fun while also giving students practice with tech skills.

But technology is not the only way to provide choice—try using choice boards, which provide students
with many options for presenting content. Students may present the water cycle stages in a song, for
example, or create a comic that lays out those stages. Such choices can be fun for the students, and can
show teachers hidden talents their students possess that they wouldn’t see otherwise.

DIFFERENTIATING WITH PORTFOLIOS

Few applications offer the opportunity for students to reflect on their learning, but pushing students to
do that is important in getting them to think about how they learn best and take an active role in their
own learning. Quick assessment applications such as Flipgrid and Kahoot allow for student reflection,
but the e-portfolio—which showcases an individual student’s personality—is even better.

With e-portfolios, students reflect on their learning while putting their own mark on their assignments.
Students are able to showcase their learning and the process they used to create their final product
while individualizing it with their likes and interests.

A teacher may require some items to be present—such as name, class section, pictures of hobbies, or
content-related materials—but seeing the ways that students make the e-portfolio their own is what a
teacher wants. The e-portfolio is a tool that students can use to express their thinking in a way that is
unique to them.

Teachers can assess e-portfolios to measure growth and skills instead of just knowledge of course
content. Students are able to take ownership of what they have learned, choose how they present the
content, and take control of their learning.

Differentiating allows students to have their voice heard, which can lead them to become self-motivated
learners. And that in turn can help increase both their learning growth and their self-awareness of that
growth.