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Waterford School District

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Differentiated Instruction

The Differentiated Instruction is the approach to teaching that has resulted from the growing research on learning. It draws information from the best instructional practices used in special education, gifted education, multi-age classrooms, as well as the recent research on the brain and how individuals learn.

Essentially, the aim of differentiated instruction is to maximize each student's growth by meeting each student at the right level and helping the student to progress. In practice, it involves offering several different learning experiences in response to students' varied needs.

Teachers may give more complex thinking questions to challenge the student who is ready to think deeper about a subject matter. She may help students make personal connections between the lessons and their own personal interests. Or the teacher may design lessons that present information in a variety of ways, ensuring that students have access to information in a way that best suits their learning styles. 

The foundation drives a teacher's work when differentiating to meet students' needs includes:

• Building a classroom where the teacher and other students accept and respect the similarities and differences of all students.

• Planning and adjusting learning tasks according to how students are progressing.

• Designing work that is challenging, meaningful, interesting, and engaging for students.

• Assisting students in becoming self-reliant learners.

• Collaborating with students to set class and individual goals.

• Grouping students to work together for a variety of reasons such as similar/different academic ability, similar/different interests or similar/different learning styles.

• Offering students choices about topics they wish to study, ways they want to work, and how they want to demonstrate their learning.

• Assessing students learning in a variety of ways to get a deeper understanding of what students really know and are able to do.

"An obvious feature of the differentiated classroom is that it is student centered, shifting the emphasis from the 'teacher and instruction'  focus to the 'student and learning.'"

-Carol Ann Tomlinson