DIFFERENTIATION

How to Start

Four planning steps set the stage for effective differentiated instruction. First, teachers must have a thorough understanding of the academic content or skill they want their students to learn. Second, they must determine how much their students already know—and what they do not know—about that content. Then they must decide which instructional methods and materials will most successfully address those needs and, finally, design ways to adequately assess student mastery of what is taught. Taking stock of student knowledge and understanding is a key first component of successful differentiation. While end-of-year tests provide some information that can help differentiate instruction, regularly used, classroom-based assessments are much more effective in achieving this purpose. These assessments help teachers accurately measure their students’ academic strengths, weaknesses, and interests on a day-to-day basis and provide a roadmap for next steps in instruction. An initial skills assessment can be conducted at the beginning of the school year, but teachers also should gauge student knowledge and needs before introducing a new concept, starting a new unit, or when developing lessons to review or expand on topics already covered. These assessments can be formal, such as diagnostic tests that evaluate specific skill levels, individual student performance notebooks in which teachers keep track of objectives or skills the student has or has not mastered, or student surveys and questionnaires that determine interests and preferences. But skills assessments also can be informal. Teachers can review existing student work such as writing samples or test results, conduct conferences with students, or observe them to get a sense of their current skill level. (See The Center’s December 2006 newsletter,Using Classroom Assessment to Improve