Differentiating Instruction in Practice

Having looked at the elements of the learning experience that can be differentiated as separate parts, this final post is about putting all the elements back together as we plan to make learning more meaningful and accessible for all students. Differentiating instruction requires that teachers develop a range of professional skills and approaches to their craft…

Teacher Skills for Differentiating Instruction

• Identifying and articulating core concepts and skills. This is the “hard target” that you are aiming for all students to “hit”. It is critical to be clear about what that is.
• Understanding typical learning progressions in core concepts and skills. This is necessary in order to provide a variety of “entry points” for students with differing prior experience, and then scaffold learning from basic to more complex.
• Developing flexible learning and assessment activities that develop core concepts and skills. This is the visible element of differentiated instruction. If you do the hard work above, this is the fun and creative part of your job.
• Locating a variety resources that support the development of core concepts and skills.
• Using formative assessment strategies to guide instructional moves. The teacher needs feedback from students to identify where they are in relation to the “hard target” in order to scaffold them to the next step. And students need feedback from the teacher in order to develop their own learning strategies.

Admittedly, this list looks overwhelming even to experienced teachers. So, here are my three “top tips” to make differentiating instruction more meaningful and accessible to you…

• Notice how prevalent “core concepts and skills” are in the list above. Start there. The rest follows with time and practice.
• Plan by unit. Planning differentiated elements in every lesson becomes too much too quickly. Plan a unit at a time, and incorporate a number of differentiated elements into each unit. In time, as you become comfortable with the process, you will probably start incorporating a greater number of differentiated elements in each unit, leading to something “showing up” in most lessons. But in the meantime, a few per unit will make a big difference.
• Do it with a colleague. Their will be mutual benefit as you share ideas and complementary strengths and weakness, encourage one another and celebrate “small wins” (and big ones!) as you go.