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Differentiated Instruction is an educational term for a system of teaching-learning in which students in the class may choose the path to learning that best suits them individually. In the interests of avoiding a long discourse on the topic here, I hope the reader will forgive that grossly inadequate definition. Teachers are using differentiated instruction when students have some choice in the way they want to learn the material and show they know it. The choice is based on how they learn best. From my perspective, the choices need to be equally difficult (or be worth different credit depending on difficulty level), all students need to be responsible for the basic, common assessments (regular tests and essays), and the student needs to have help developing consciousness of what the different ways of learning are and which works best for him or her.

There are four common ways to differentiate instruction:

Differentiation can occur in the content (what I want them to learn), process (how I want them to learn it), product (how they show they know) or environment in the classroom (creating an environment that offers opportunities to different ways of learning).

Students sometimes have choice in what they are to learn. Students sometimes all experience the lesson in multiple ways such that one of the ways may work best for them. Sometimes everyone has to do the same thing. Reading and writing form the core literacy components in the NYS measurement of Social Studies, so they are in class too.

The following features of my teaching system offer oportunities for differentiated instruction:

• Differentated Lesson: Students begin with this form on which they choose the input, process, and output of the lesson.
  • The input is how they will receive the information. They choose this based on how their experience teaches them they learn best. They may choose more than one for repetition's sake. During the time in class given for "input", some students are reading the textbook selections, some may be taking notes on a pre-recorded lecture I made, some may be watching an educational video clip from a web site such as PowermediaPlus.com.
  • Processing takes place during input. Students select a way to take the information they receive as input and reformulate it into something they can study. An observer would see students working in class to create flash cards, take notes, answer textbook questions, writing summaries or essays or outlines, create clas presentations, etc. Sometimes the students' on-task behavior is measured by my observation. Sometimes part of the grade will be an examination of their product for study.
  • The output is a measure of the degree to which students meet the standards for this topic. It consists of a quiz or set of quizzes everyone takes (these are mainly reading-writing tasks like fill-ins, true-false, and/or multiple-choice) and a task of choice selected by the student. The task choices appear on the class extended tasks menu. I have already developed (or am developing) rubrics for the various tak on this list. I am in the process of evaluating the rubrics for the degree to which they measure the state standards by calculating correlation with state tests.
• Differentiated Content, Process, and Product: The extended task is a menu of options students have for learning the target material. These are always available to students on a contract basis and are most often used as a form of extra credit. Sometimes, class time is dedicated to extended tasks. AIS lessons work well for this sort of task: students choose the learning method best for them and apply the time to carrying out their choice.
• Differentiated Process:At the end of grade 7, we move to a system of lessons wherein the student has a range of reading processing options and time in class to apply a strategic reading plan. Throughout grade 7, there is systematic training in reading strategies aimed at reading informational text. This includes some lessons in reading and how it works. Armed with the knowledge of how reading works and the variety of techniques that can be used to best learn from what they read, students choose how to process the reading material assigned. This time block of class time with options on processing the reading continues through 9th grade and becomes decreasingly regulated by the teacher as students become more independent.
• Differentiated Classroom Environment: Each set of lessons that I plan repeats the information to be learned 3-5 times. Each repetition addresses a different way of learning. The presentations I give appeal to the learner who remembers best what he hears. The reading assignments appeal to the learner who learns best visually. The activity options appeal to the active learner who likes to perform. Further, there is some time flexibility so that students who need to progress faster through the material can.