five key aspects of differentiated instruction

a couple of years ago one of my students who was an undergraduate preparing to be a teacher gave me a definition of differentiation that has become my favorite one he began his definition by saying that differentiation is a sequence of Common Sense decisions made by teachers with a student first orientation it seems exactly what we

should be doing he went on to tell me what he thought the sequence of Common Sense decisions was he listed four things and I would add a fifth one to that first he said it's critically important to consciously be aware of creating a classroom environment that invites kids to the table of learning

that encourages them to take the risk of learning that helps them understand that they need to work hard and shoot high but also causes them to understand that there's a support system there to help with that so the first piece is developing an environment that actively encourages learning and my sense is that

affects everything else second he said he thought it was really critical that we have highquality curriculum that engages kids and that we be able as teachers to say at any point here's what kids should know what they should understand what they should be able to do as the result of this sequence of learning in other words it

matters that we have clear learning targets that they are understanding focused that they're clear to us and clear to kids and that we have organized learning around those in such a way that it makes sense to kids that it's relevant to them third he said he thought it was really important that we

continue to check to see where kids are constantly relative to those learning outcomes not teach a whole un then give a test and say well geez some of them got it and some of them didn't but using preassessment and using formative assessment consistently so that we have a good sense at any particular moment of