Sibonga Community College

Poblacion, Sibonga, Cebu

486 – 8232

TMG: TEACHING MULTI-GRADE CLASSES

Module 3
Topic: Differentiated Instruction

What is Differentiated Instruction?

 To differentiate instruction is to recognize students varying background

knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning, and interests and
react responsively.

 To maximize each student’s growth and individual success by meeting each

student where he or she is, and assisting in the learning process.

Key Elements of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction is based on the modification of four elements: content,

process, product, and affect/learning environment. This modification is guided by
the teacher’s understanding of student needs—the students’ readiness, interests,
and learning profile.

Let’s take a closer look at some key vocabulary related to differentiation.

What Can Teachers Differentiate?

Content

Content means the knowledge, understanding, and skills (KUD) that students need to
learn (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010). It’s important to remember that these learning goals
should nearly always remain the same for all students in the differentiated classroom.
What teachers can differentiate in terms of content is the “methods that students use to
access key content”.

For example, students can acquire new information and ideas through reading
independently or with a partner, reading a novel or listening to it on tape, doing online
research or communicating with experts, participating in group demonstrations, or
engaging in small-group instruction (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010). Or the teacher can
present content in several ways in the classroom—for example, by showing students
images of concrete objects illustrating math concepts as a first step in teaching these
abstract concepts.

To address individual student needs, teachers also provide appropriate scaffolding when
working with content—by teaching prerequisite content to some students, allowing
advanced students to move ahead of the class, or even changing the content for some
students based on their individualized education programs (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010).

What the student needs to learn or how the student will get access to the information.

Other examples of differentiating content:

1. Using reading materials at varying readability levels;
2. Putting text materials on tape;
3. Using spelling or vocabulary lists at readiness levels of students;
4. Presenting ideas through both auditory and visual means;
5. Using reading buddies; and
6. Meeting with small groups to re-teach an idea or skill for struggling learners or
extend the thinking or skills of advanced learners.
Process

Tomlinson and Imbeau (2010) define process as “how students come to understand and
make sense of the content”. By differentiating process, they understand creating sense-
making activities that help students “own” the content—by allowing them to “see how it
makes sense, and realize how it is useful in the world outside the classroom”.

Differentiating process is all about practice based on the content. This involves students
trying to figure things out, asking questions, and making mistakes. At this stage, says
Carol Ann Tomlinson, “Almost always students will need to work at different speeds, with
different kinds of support, in different groupings, and in different modes. And that’s a
very important stage because this really is the point where learning happens with kids.”

Activities in which the student engages to make sense of or master the content.

Examples of the differentiating processes:

1. Using tiered activities;
2. Providing interest centers;
3. Developing personal agendas (task lists written by the teacher and containing both
in-common work for the whole class and work that addresses the individual needs of
learners);
4. Offering manipulatives or other hands-on supports; and
5. Varying the length of time a student may take to complete a task.

Product

Products are ways for students to “demonstrate what they have come to know,
understand, and be able to do after an extended period of learning” (Tomlinson &
Imbeau, 2010, p. 15). According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, “a synonym for a product is
an authentic assessment,” which gives teachers fertile ground for differentiation.
“Students can propose the way they’d like to show us something, or we might offer them
two choices—with the notion that they can make a deal with us to do the third one,” she
says.

Even multiple-choice or true/false tests can be differentiated, says Tomlinson: “I am

seeing some districts do an interesting thing, especially where they have a lot of second
language learners: They’ll have the regular version of the test, and then one that one
district called „the plain-English version.‟ It’s exactly the same thing, but they write it in a
more streamlined way—simpler vocabulary, and more white space. Kids still have to
understand and be able to work with the same things; they’ve just made the format of it
more accessible to them.”

Examples of differentiating products:

1. Giving students options on how to express required learning;
2. Using rubrics that match and extend students' varied skills levels;
3. Allowing students to work alone or in small groups on their products; and
4. Encourage students to create their product assignments as long as they contain the
required elements.

Tools for High-Quality Differentiated Instruction: An ASCD Action Tool by Cindy

Strickland (2007) includes the following suggestions for differentiating content,
process, and product:

Content Process Product

  Leveled or topical readers  Opportunity to work  Product options that
 Books on tape alone, in pairs, or in small respond to varied
 Highlighted text groups interests or learning
 Group roles when in small profiles
 Varied topics for research
groups  Varied timelines or check-
 Independent study
 Literature circle roles in points
options
 Varied journal prompts  Varied criteria for success
 Interest centers
 Choice of review activities (e.g. from novice to
 Optional mini-lessons on professional)
a specific topic or skill  Supportive technology
 Varied audiences (in age,
 Compacting the  Amount or kind of teacher
background knowledge,
curriculum help available
size, etc.)
 Online readings at varied  Various types of graphic
 Varied roles in a
levels of difficulty organizers and supporting
performance assessment
 Demonstrations documents (vocabulary,
formulas, key dates, etc.)  Some choice of questions
on tests and quizzes
 Homework options (“Do
this section if you need
more practice on…” or
“Do this section if you feel
ready for a challenge”)

Source: Strickland, C. (2007). Tools for high-quality differentiated instruction: An ASCD

action tool. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Reprinted with permission.

Affect/Learning Environment

Affect/learning environment—the effect of students‟ emotions and feelings on their

learning—is another element of differentiated instruction. Our emotions and feelings,
which are created by our past experiences and our reactions to current experiences,
influence our self-concept, as well as motivation to learn and ability to collaborate. All
these factors play a key role in the learning process.

Differentiating student affect means modifying the learning environment to meet student
emotional needs. For example, “we differentiate by student affect when we have kids
who need a little bit more attention to be able to stick with the task, or when

we understand that this kid really, really likes to have someone acknowledge that he‟s
made a great step forward,” says Tomlinson, “whereas this kid is kind of modest and
would prefer really that attention not be called to him or her, but rather to the group
because it‟s a cultural thing that the group needs to be acknowledged.”

Addressing students’‟ affective needs should be taken into consideration when planning
such aspects of instruction as respectful tasks and flexible grouping, explains Tomlinson.
“We [may] have some kids who don’t work especially well in groups because they have
emotional challenges, and we try to help develop groups and help them develop
 mechanisms for working in those groups to be successful.”

For some students, modification of the learning environment is needed to ensure

effective learning, says Tomlinson. “There are some kids who simply cannot sit still for an
extended period of time, so we make it possible for them to move around the room more.
Or we have some kids who just really can’t work with noise and so when kids are
working in groups we give them earplugs to work with,” she explains.

Examples of differentiating learning environment:

1. Making sure there are places in the room to work quietly and without distraction, as
well as places that invite student collaboration;
2. Providing materials that reflect a variety of cultures and home settings;
3. Setting out clear guidelines for independent work that matches individual needs;
4. Developing routines that allow students to get help when teachers are busy and
cannot help them immediately; and
5. Helping students understand that some learners need to move around to learn,
while others do better sitting quietly.

How Can Teachers Differentiate?

Content, process, product, and affect/learning environment are key elements that
form classroom instruction. To effectively address student needs, teachers in
differentiated classrooms strive to make these elements pliable, explains Tomlinson.
What drives the modification of these elements is a teacher’s assessment of students in
terms of three characteristics: readiness, interest, and learning profile.

By Readiness

Tomlinson and Imbeau (2010) define readiness “a student‟s current proximity to

specified knowledge, understanding, and skills” (p. 16). They warn that readiness
differs from ability; for example, high-quality teaching leads to regular changes in
readiness.

The goal of readiness differentiation is to make the work a little too difficult for students at
a given point in their growth—and then to provide the support they need to succeed at
the new level of challenge.
By Interest

Interest is defined as “that which engages the attention, curiosity, and involvement of a
student” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 16). When people are interested in something,
their motivation to learn about it increases, enhancing learning outcomes as a result.

The goal of interest differentiation is to help students engage with new information,
understanding, and skills by making connections with things they already find appealing,
intriguing, relevant, and worthwhile. Such things, write Tomlinson and Imbeau, are
“typically linked to a student‟s strengths, cultural context, personal experiences,
questions, or sense of need” (p. 17).

By Learning Profile

A student's learning profile is “a preference for taking in, exploring, or expressing content”
(Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 17). Four factors help form a learning profile:
1) gender; 2) culture; 3) learning style, such as working solo or collaboratively, in a quiet
atmosphere or when listening to music, while sitting still or moving around, in a bright or
dark room; and 4) intelligence preference—verbal-linguistic, logical- mathematical,
bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical-rhythmic, spatial, or naturalist
preference for learning or thinking (Gardner‟s intelligences); or creative, analytical, and
practical preference (Sternberg‟s intelligences).

The goal of learning profile differentiation is to teach in the ways students learn best—
and to extend ways in which they can learn effectively. Many experts in a variety of fields
caution against using learning styles surveys to assess students‟ preferred modes of
learning and against assigning students to a particular learning styles category over time.

Assessing Student Variance

To assess students‟ readiness, interest, and learning profiles, Tools for High-Quality
Differentiated Instruction: An ASCD Action Tool by Cindy Strickland (2007), suggests
looking for the following:

Readiness Interest Learning Profile

 Attitude toward school,  Passions  Learning styles: visual,
subject, or topic  Hobbies auditory, kinesthetic,
 Experience with topic or  Family interests or whole-to-part versus part-
an aspect of it pursuits to-whole, concrete versus
 Knowledge, abstract, sequential
 Affiliations—after-school
understanding, and skills versus random, etc.
clubs, extracurricular
in topic prerequisites or activities  Intelligence preferences
related topics  TV viewing preferences  Environmental
 Misunderstandings about preferences: temperature,
 Vacation destinations
topic or discipline light, availability of food
 Music preferences and drink, presence or
 Overgeneralizations
about the topic or  Choice of friends absence of background
discipline  Elective choices music, etc.
 Sophisticated use of  Gender- or culture-based
related vocabulary preferences: competition
versus collaboration,
 Evidence of skills in the
emphasis on the
discipline
individual versus group
 Insightful connections
 Group orientation: work
between the current topic
alone or with others,
and other topics in the
focus on peers versus
discipline or in other
focus on adults
disciplines.
 General communication,
thinking, reasoning and
other pertinent skills

Source: Strickland, C. (2007). Tools for high-quality differentiated instruction: An ASCD

action tool. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Reprinted with permission.

Effective teachers wisely ask their students questions and pay attention to what their
students say and do, as well as talk to the students‟ parents to help them know their
students as learners.

Even more important, asking students questions and paying attention to anything that
students say or do, as well as talking to students‟ parents, can help teachers to get to
know their students as learners.
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