Differentiated Instruction: What It Looks Like

What does differentiated instruction look like? Find out how to best meet the needs of your students who have gifted characteristics or need early childhood education that is differentiated.

Teachers regularly utilize differentiated curriculum instruction to effectively teach students with intellectual giftedness.

Formal or informal assessment tools should be used regularly throughout units of study to drive instruction.

Many of the same tools that are good for gifted students are good for all learners, particularly English language learners.

For example, just as teachers of gifted students differentiate through quantity of tasks, reducing the number of questions for ESOL learners is beneficial.

When a teacher adapts reading comprehension activities to meet the gifted student's needs, offering a choice to struggling students, and designing lessons to support English language learners, this is differentiated instruction.



Differentiation can also help your classroom management.

When children are actively learning at appropriate levels, they become focused and disruptions are significantly reduced. Their creativity and intellectual giftedness are being addressed.

Consider differentiated instruction for all students who need it, not just a few.

What Does Differentiated Instruction Look Like?

Students who display high intellectual levels of giftedness and those who are high achievers will benefit from differentiating the instruction.

Strategies that can be used are discussed below.

1. Tiered Assignments

When assignments are tiered, that means they are designed to provide different levels of complexity. Assignments can range from the knowledge aspect of Blooms Taxonomy all the way up to synthesis and evaluation. For example, at the comprehension level a student might illustrate the main idea, but at the evaluative level a student would conduct a debate with another over the possible solutions presented to the problem in the story.

2. Interest Centers/Groups

Allow students to choose their own sub-topic within a framework the teacher provides. A center is usually geared towards primary students, while an interest group is generally for intermediate. An example would be in math a center could focus on multiplication and showing it through designing arrays with tiles, drawing pictures, and creating word problems with objects. A group would have activities that could research how multiplication applies to statistics, art or engineering.

This is an excellent application of brain research and learning.

3. Compacting the Curriculum

This is when a teacher adjusts the amount of instruction a student receives based on assessments of prior knowledge. After assessing the student's needs, a plan is created for what needs to be studied and mastered, as well as enrichment plans for accelerated study. I apply this on a regular basis in my own room through pre-assessing every math chapter. Students who show they do not need my instruction for most of the chapter (if any!) are then given an individual compact that states explicitly what they need to work on, what lessons I expect them to join the class with, and what activities will replace the regular classroom criteria.

4. Choice Boards

A choice board is an organizing tool that can be as simple as a tic-tac-toe board. It has a variety of activities on it that are geared towards different levels of Blooms Taxonomy. Students are to choose a set number of activities to complete. These activities are skills they need to work on or can be to develop a product. For example, if you are studying a science unit on Rocks and Minerals, there would be an inquiry activity such as sorting a variety of unknown materials by specific qualities, designing a new mineral to fit specific criteria, researching the history of Fool's Gold, or watching a video of how diamonds are mined and explaining the steps in the process.

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