Differentiation

Differentiation is the practice of offering students appropriate learning opportunities. That means, they can work at the level most likely to result in actual progress.

For gifted students, it’s not more work (what I call “moreferentiation”). Rather, it’s appropriate work that creates growth, curiosity, or depth of thinking.

Differentiation is not creating 30 different lesson plans. These articles share many, many ideas for how to differentiate in the real world.

Start with These Articles

Making Choice Menus Better

Quick Differentiation Technique: Scholar Extension Opportunities

Tiered Lesson Plan Template

Get These Resources

Watch These Videos

15 Ways to Help Gifted Kids Thrive in School

15 ways to help gifted kids thrive in school with ideas that work for lots of kids, so everyone will find ideas they can apply right away.

Latest Differentiation Posts

Depth and Complexity Poetry Annotation Activity

When teachers are working with Depth and Complexity, one of the challenges they face is how to adapt already-existing content to the framework. It can

Making Choice Menus Better

Choice menus (sometimes called Extension Menus or Choice Boards or fifty other titles) are a foundational technique for many teachers. Typically, they’re a grid somewhat

Being Gifted Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Need to be Taught

I got an email from a member of the Gifted Guru community recently that asked this question: How can I help teachers understand that just

Quick Differentiation Technique: Scholar Extension Opportunities

Looking for a quick differentiation technique any teacher can use? I made this one up, and it’s worked really well for me for years. I

What To Do With An Advanced Language Arts Student

I received an email from a parent who had asked the high school to allow her 9th grade daughter to enroll in AP English, rather

Why Self-Paced Computer Instruction is Insufficient Differentiation

The spread of one-to-one devices in schools has meant that some people believe we’ve waived a magic wand and solved the differentiation problem. It’s

Tiered Lesson Plan Template

I wrote about creating a tiered lesson plan, and here I’m sharing a template teachers can use themselves. I created this template for myself because

Using Jeopardy Labs for Pre-Assessment

In the article about creating a differentiated lesson plan step-by-step, I shared a lesson plan on landforms that used a cloud-based Jeopardy! game as a

A Differentiated Lesson Plan: Step-by-Step

I’m going to share a differentiated lesson plan from start to finish. In the article Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind I promised

Begin with Highest Level Learner in Mind

There’s a YouTube cooking channel called Chowhound that has a series called “You’re Doing it All Wrong.” They take fundamentals of cooking (mashed potatoes, peanut