Differentiating Instruction: Examine the Topic

Differentiate Instruction in a Class

In this section, you will explore an activity to better understand how to group students and differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students.

Children in early grades demonstrate a wide range of skills, experiences, and interests. Many teachers use grouping strategies to differentiate their instruction to address their students' differences. While teachers often understand how to group their classes, deciding on the appropriate instruction practice or activity for the groups often proves more challenging.

The interactive activity: Differentiate Instruction in a Class allows you to group children with varying literacy abilities and choose the best instruction to address their literacy needs. A non-interactive version of this activity is also available as a PDF document.

	Differentiate Instruction in a Class

After completing the activity, consider these questions:

• Why did you group students together?
• Why did you assign each group their activity?

	Submit your written response to the questions.

		Differentiating instruction has the goal of getting students to be self-regulated learners. Teachers need to know when to actively intervene and when to encourage students to work independently. Robert Rueda University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education

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