Instructional Strategies for the Differentiated Classroom
Video Set

An ideal tool to help teachers learn why, how, and when to use four key instructional strategies that support a differentiated classroom.

Tape 1: Learning Contracts show how to give students different tasks to work on based on their particular needs and allow students to take responsibility for planning and monitoring their own work.

Tape 2: Intelligence Preferences demonstrates how to address students’ learning preferences by offering students several avenues (analytical, creative, and practical tasks) to the same learning goals, so they can be more successful at reaching the goals.

Tape 3: Tiered Assignments shows how to respond to students’ varied readiness levels by offering them activities at different levels of difficulty so all students are appropriately challenged and supported.

Tape 4: Complex Instruction explains how to engage groups of students in a challenging, real-world task that demands the unique intellectual strengths and talents of each student for the group to succeed.

Tape 5: RAFT Assignments shows how offering different writing assignments designed for students’ varied readiness levels and interests helps students to focus on writing and reasoning while coming to understand ideas essential to a topic.

Tape 6: Centers demonstrates how to address students’ different needs by offering multiple tasks, addressing learning standards at varied levels of difficulty, and designing learning activities around students' varied interests.

Tape 7: WebQuests models how to guide students on an inquiry-based activity where they investigate resources on the Internet and produce a product. Through scaffolding, offering multiple resources at different levels of complexity, and other techniques, a WebQuest can be an effective strategy for helping students at different readiness levels and with varied interests and learning profiles to focus on using and making sense of information.

Scenes from elementary, middle, and high school classes demonstrate how the strategies are used. Commentary from Carol Ann Tomlinson and classroom teachers explains why the strategy is used, what impact it has on kids, and offers tips and cautions for each strategy. Workshop activities in the Facilitator's Guide help participants reflect on how to adjust instructional approaches based on student responses to learning experiences.

An ASCD production.

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