Jamie Isnor

Inquiry Topic
Differentiated Instruction
The topic I chose for my inquiry was how could I incorporate more
differentiated approaches and strategies into my classroom? I chose this
particular topic because differentiation was a big focus in my practicum class
this year; there were some students who would finish quickly and needed a
challenge and there were also several students who required additional
instruction and 1-1 support when working on activities. There were also a
few students who struggled with executive functioning and self-regulation. I
know that when I begin my career as a teacher I will walk into many classes
where students will have many diverse needs and learning styles and will
require different approaches and strategies to ensure each student receives
the most beneficial learning. I feel like differentiation is a very broad topic
and I know that I will be continuing to learn as I go along throughout my
career.
I researched for my inquiry by looking at various websites, online
resources and videos. I will include the ones that I felt were the most helpful
for me and my practice below as well as include how I would have
incorporated some differentiated approaches in my practicum class. What I
had in mind when creating this project was including specific ideas and
resources for the particular units I was going to be teaching this practicum
(example “financial literacy”, “measurement”, “living and non-living things”)
however I found it difficult to find resources that were that specific so some
of the topics I will be mentioning will be more generalized (“literacy”,
“science”, “math”) *I will include all of my references in the last page of my
project*

Research Part 1 (this is where I will first include notes from my research-
these were the resources that I thought had the most relevant information
for my inquiry topic the majority of part 1 is basically what differentiation is,
why it is important and what some of the key parts/components are of
differentiation instruction)

Pros of Differentiated Instructions

- Research shows it is effective for high-ability students as well as
students with mild- severe disabilities
- When students are given more options on how they can learn material,
they can take on more responsibility for their own learning
 - Students appear more engaged in learning and there are reportedly
fewer classroom management problems in classrooms where teachers
provide differentiated lessons

Differentiated Instruction Means

- Engaging and interesting tasks that address the same skill level for all
learning preferences, interests and levels of readiness
- A reasonable number of well-constructed choices that address
indentified needs and strengths of students
- Students working on the same curriculum expectations in various ways
with common criteria for success
- Students learning about themselves to help them make informed and
effective choices
- Routines, procedures and classroom agreements are in place
- Ultimately the aim is to shape the learning experience so that it is
appropriate to the learning preferences, interests and/or readiness of
each student

What is Differentiated Instruction?

Key Principles that Form the Foundation of Differentiating
Instruction

Ongoing Formative Assessment

- teachers continually assess to identify students’ strengths and areas of
need so that they can meet students where they are and help to move
them forward
Recognition of Diverse Learners
-students have diverse levels of expertise/experience with reading, writing,
thinking, problem solving and speaking
-ongoing assessment allows teachers to develop differentiated lessons that
meet every students’ needs
Group Work
- Students collaborate in pairs and small groups whose membership
changes as needed
- Learning in groups allows students to engage in meaningful
discussions and to observe and learn from one another
Problem Solving
- The focus in classrooms that differentiate instruction is on issues and
concepts rather than “the book” or “the chapter”
- This encourages all students to explore big ideas and expand their
understanding of key concepts
Choice
- Teachers offer students choice in their tasks and projects they
complete
 - By negotiating with students, teachers can create motivating
assignments that meet students’ diverse needs and interests
Tiering
- Adjust class experiences to meet students where they are so students
can complete meaningful tasks that move them forward in their
learning
- (example- reading) some students might write a paragraph in response
to their reading while others create performances/art projects to show
what they’ve learned
- Tiering also means that students read different books for instruction
because each student reads and learns at his or her instructional
reading level

What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate

in the Classroom
Cathy Weselby

Teachers who Practice Differentiation May

- Design lessons based on students’ learning styles
- Group students based on shared interests, topic or ability for
assignments
- Assess students’ learning using formative assessment
- Manage the classroom to create a safe and supportive environment
- Continually assess and adjust lesson content to meet the students’
needs

4 Ways to Differentiate Instruction- Carol Ann Tomlinson

1. Content
- Design activities for groups of students that cover various levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy
6 Levels
-remembering
-understanding
-analyzing
-evaluating
-creating

- Students who are unfamiliar with a lesson could be required to

complete the task on the lower levels (remembering and
understanding)
- Students with some mastery could be asked to apply and analyze the
content and students who have a higher level of mastery could be
asked to complete tasks in the areas of evaluating and creating
Examples of Differentiating Activities
 - Matching vocab words to definitions
- Read and passage of a text and answer related questions
- Think of a situation that happened to a character in the story and write
a different outcome
- Identify an author’s position and provide evidence to support this
viewpoint
2. Process
- Each student has a preferred learning style and successful
differentiation includes delivering the material to each style
- Not all students require the same amount of support from the teacher -
students could chose to work in pairs, small groups or individually
- Teachers can enhance learning by offering support based on the
individual needs of students
Examples of Differentiating Activities
- Provide textbooks for visual and word learners
- Allow auditory learners to listen to audiobooks
- Give kinesthetic learners the opportunity to complete an interactive
online assignment

3. Product
- What students create at the end of a lesson to demonstrate the
mastery of the content
- Can assign students to complete activities that show a mastery of an
educational concept in a way that the student prefers- based on
learning style
Examples of Differentiating Activities
- Read and write learners write a book report
- Visual learners create a graphic organizer of the story
- Auditory learners give an oral report
- Kinesthetic learners build a diorama illustrating the story
4. Learning Environments
- Conditions for optimal learning include both physical and psychological
elements
- Flexible classroom layout- incorporating various types of furniture and
arrangements to support both individual and group work
Examples
- Break some students up into reading groups to discuss the assignment
- Allow students to read individually if preferred
- Create quite spaces where there will be no distractions

Responding to Differentiation Involves

- Using appropriate, evidence-based strategies for instruction,
assessment and evaluation
 - Using structures or ways of organizing that facilitates student-led
learning
- Providing choice, respectful tasks, a shared responsibility for learning
and flexible learning groups (key features of differentiated instruction)

Research Part 2 - this portion of my research includes some strategies that

I would like to have used in my practicum class this year but also in my
future classes. I think some of these strategies are easier to implement in an
intermediate classroom (with some scaffolding, modeling and modifying
could be implemented into a primary classroom) however I think many of the
strategies can be easily modified and used throughout different grade levels

Common Differentiation Structures (I feel like some of these structures

would be more aimed towards students in intermediate grades and high
school)
Choice Boards
- Can be used as a way to help students learn or as a way for students
to demonstrate their learning
- All choices on choice board must address the same learning goal and
may be based on interest or learning preference
- Each choice is assessed or evaluated against the same assessment
criteria
- I also think that choice boards are a great tool for students who finish
early and are waiting for the rest of the group to finish - this is
something that I would like to explore more and implement into my
future classrooms (I think I would make 1 up for each subject area that
I am teaching and include a variety of choices for the students to pick
from
- I have included an example below that I found from TPT
 Cubing
- Students roll a cube and do the activity on the side that comes up
- Cubes can be differentiated according to student readiness, learning
preference or interest
- Important to provide some choice with each roll (2 or more options per
side)
- Cubes can be designed for specific activities
- Different cubes can be given to different groups and the activities can
be varied to support readiness or learning preferences
Learning Centres or Stations
- Learning centres should either be attended by students who need or
are interested in the work that is at the centre or the work at the
centre needs to be varied according to student readiness, interest or
learning preferences
*from a lot of my research I noticed that differentiated learning
stations work seem to work better with subjects like language arts or
math (all of the videos I watched about differentiated learning stations
took place in the languages arts classroom)
- Start with whole group lesson
- Have students go off into their station groups (avoid stigmatization by
giving groups neutral names like colours, animals or shapes- I have
 noticed in my practicum class my sponsor teacher would use different
stickers for each of the groups (different coloured happy face stickers
or star stickers)
- Appeal to different modality of learning (the video I watched had 3
rotations of 20 minutes each)
- Each station should use a unique method of teaching a skill or a
concept related to the lesson/learning intention
- To help students process the content after they have been through the
stations- there can be a class discussion or questions to answer
Examples of Different Stations
- Video station (students watch a read aloud or Vlook of a story and then
answer questions related to the story they just read- depending on
what resources the school has access to this could look different in
each classroom- if this was being done in my practicum class it would
be done on iPads)
- Sorting station (cutting and pasting different sight words or have
students practice rainbow writing)
- Teacher station (instruction and conversation can look different from 1
group to another)

Ways to Differentiate Learning Stations

1. Provide open-ended activities
- Students can approach activity from their comfort level and ability-
work will look different from student to student, allows students to do
their best
Example - Speech Bubble Activity
- Have students draw a character from a book and draw speech bubbles
of things that character might say
2. Tiered Activities
- Tier activities according to students’ levels
Example- Memory Game
- Emerging/Developing level would look something like different sounds
displayed on laminated card stock and have students match the Jolly
Phonics visual to the sound
- Proficient/Extending level could look like having vocabulary words on 1
laminated card and have students match the definition
3. Provide Choice
- Include book bins at stations with various books and let students
choose
- Have different choices of game or activities to engage with at the
stations

Task Cards
- Allow students to have a range of content
 - Can be small group activity - adding variety that normally focus on solo
or large group learning
- Can also be organized into stations around the classroom (pair
students or have them work in small groups)
- Can individualize instructions by monitoring groups or pairs-
addressing and offering support if necessary
*Below is an example of a task cards I would have used in my measurement
unit. I would have the different materials spread out on the tables and have
students physically line up the different materials and compare the items
going from long, longer, longest.

Compare the lengths. Which is longer?

a marker 3 cubes 3 paperclips

© Busy Me Plus T hree

Compare the lengths. Which is longer?

a crayon 2 cubes 4 paperclips

© Busy Me Plus T hree

Compare the lengths. Which is longer?

a glue stick 3 cubes 4 paperclips

© Busy Me Plus T hree

Interviewing Students
- Asking students about learning and studying styles can help identify
the types of content that will meet the needs of the class (I think this
would be a great thing to do at the beginning of the school year when
you are still working on building and creating community in your
classroom)
- This can be done during learning stations or a large group activity- pull
students aside for a few minutes to ask questions
 What their favourite types of lessons are?
 What their favourite types of in-class activities are?
 Which projects they are most proud of?
 Which kinds of exercises help them to remember key points?
If I was doing this with the grade 1s in my practicum class I would definitely
modify the questions to their age/grade level
Examples
 What is your favourite way to engage with books? (when Ms. Isnor
reads to you? When I hear it on Vlook, when I read the story aloud to
myself with my talking phone)
 What is your favourite way to learn new things? (By listening to Ms.
Isnor, by watching a video, by participating in a new activity? by
looking at visuals (posters, illustrations))
 I learn best when I (try things by myself, work with a partner or friends
in my colour group, when Ms. Isnor works with me?)

Part 3- What I took Away

Researching and doing an inquiry project on differentiated instruction was
an incredibly valuable opportunity and probably not something I would have
researched in great depth if I was in practicum right now. I found that the
overall information and research about differentiated instruction was a bit
repetitive at some points and I did find that many of the approaches and
strategies I was looking were easier to implement into a language arts or
math class (I think what I had in my mind were finding specific examples of
strategies that I could put into units I was to be teaching this spring- I think I
went into this inquiry being too specific and I realized as I went along that I
needed to look at the topic in a more generalized way)

While many of the strategies were great the ones that I am most interested
in applying to my future classrooms are
1. choice boards (I think this is a great tool for students who finish early as
well as for giving a variety of choices in a certain subject area- I think instead
of “what can I do when I’m done box” like I have done in some of my
previous practicums I would really like to try using a choice board
2. learning stations - I think learning stations are a great way to group
students with peers (either with peers who work at the same pace as
themselves or pair students who work more independently with students
who many require some extra support). I also think that if there was a
certain area I wanted to work on with students (either in LA or math) it would
be nice to work with students who are at the same levels that way I could
differentiate my teaching to fit the needs of the different groups of student
3. Task Cards - I have used task cards in some of my previous practicums
for station activities as well as morning work. I was excited to use task cards
in this coming practicum as well. I also think that task cards are another
great resource to use for early finishers (students could pick a task card out
of a box and work on the activity)
4. Student Interviews - I think doing student interviews both at the
beginning of the year and throughout the school year allows me to see which
activities are working to meet the needs of the students in my classrooms as
well as to see what the different learning styles are. Depending on the grade
level of my class I could also give students different choices of assignments
this way and allow them to show their learning in multiple ways.

I know that throughout my career I will learn more approaches and ways to
incorporate differentiation into my classroom, I also know that no classroom
is alike and I will constantly be adapting to best suit the needs of each
student in my class.

Resources
Edutopia. (2017). Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All

Students. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Kg38A1ggYiE

Guido, M. (2016). 20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples.

Retrieved from https://www.prodigygame.com/blog/differentiated-

instruction-strategies-examples-download/

Nickerson, A. (2016). Make Differentiation Easier With Cubing. Retrieved

from http://oneextradegreeteaching.com/cubing/

Peterson, M. (2011). 3 Ways to Differentiate Learning Stations. Retrieved

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LljMkI2OQ

Robb, L. (n.d.). What is Differentiated Instruction? Retrieved from

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/what-

differentiated-instruction/

Weselby, C. (2020). What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to

Differentiate in the Classroom. Retrieved from

https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/examples-of-

differentiated-instruction/