A teacher must first know his/her learners. By establishing meaningful relationships and being culturally competent, a teacher will gain an understanding of individual learning styles, passions, motivation and ability. Teachers need to include pre-assessment in order to understand a student’s prior level of knowledge and potential misconceptions. This pre-assessment allows teachers to flexibly group learners by shared interests, topics or abilities (depending on the activity and learning goal). Teachers then need to focus on the essential ideas of the curriculum (standards) and eliminate unnecessary tasks or activities. Curriculum can then be adapted to include manipulatives, visual aids, charts, technology tools, and hands-on activities to meet the needs of all learners. Teachers need to manipulate and mold the learning environment to create opportunities to work intensively with individual students who have not yet mastered the gatekeeper skills of reading and writing, as well as maximizing each student's learning potential by developing customized strategies. Finally, teachers need to integrate ongoing and meaningful formative assessment and adjust and modify their instruction as needed.
As a professional development coordinator it’s important to note, that this is a goal which requires a long term commitment from teachers, schools and districts and it does not happen easily or quickly. There is no 'one size fits all' model for differentiation. Districts and schools can support differentiated instruction by first ensuring that administrators have a clear understanding of the practice so that it can be presented and supported in an ongoing manner. Districts should strive to provide high quality on-going professional development and be flexible and understanding while providing creativity and choice to teachers as they move along the continuum of learning.
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