Differentiated+Instruction+(DI)

media type="youtube" key="Fa82Icnzo9s" height="349" width="425" Differentiated instruction, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson (as cited by Ellis, Gable, Greg, & Rock, 2008, p. 32), is the process of “ensuring that what a student learns, how he/she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he/she has learned is a match for that student’s readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning”. Differentiation stems from beliefs about differences among learners, how they learn, learning preferences and individual interests (Anderson, 2007). "Research indicates that many of the emotional or social difficulties gifted students experience disappear when their educational climates are adapted to their level and pace of learning." Differentiation in education can also include how a student shows that they have mastery of a concept. This could be through a research paper, role play, podcast, diagram, poster, etc. The key is finding how your students learn and displays their learning that meets their specific needs.
 * Differentiated instruction** (sometimes referred to as **differentiated learning**) involves providing students with different avenues to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and to developing teaching materials so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability.

In differentiated instruction students are placed at the center of teaching and learning. Kathy Bigo defines differentiation as "the right of each pupil to be taught in a way specifically tailored to their individual learning needs." Because each learner comes to school with a different set of learning needs, examples of which include differing educational, personal, and communal contexts and varying degrees of academic skill development, differentiated instruction advocates that the educator proactively plans a variety of instruction methods so as to best facilitate effective learning experiences which are suited to the various learning needs within the classroom. In its pursuit of this foundational goal, differentiated instructional methods attempt to qualitatively, as opposed to quantitatively, match learners' abilities with appropriate material; include a blend of whole-class, group, and individual instruction; use numerous approaches to facilitating input, processing, and output; and constantly adapt to learners' needs based upon the teacher's constant assessment of all students.

Often referred to as an educational philosophy, differentiated instruction is viewed as a proactive approach to instruction and an idea that has as many faces as practitioners. The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to tailor their instruction and adjust the curriculum to students’ needs rather than expecting students to modify themselves to fit the curriculum. Teachers who are committed to this approach believe that who they teach shapes how they teach because who the students are shapes how they learn. Differentiated instruction requires the teacher to have "sufficient appropriate knowledge of the pupils, PLUS the ability to plan and deliver suitable lessons effectively, so as to help all pupils individually to maximise their learning, whatever their individual situation". Differentiation is not teaching at a slow pace so that everyone can keep up, allowing pupils and groups work through tasks at their own pace, or expecting some students to do better than others and calling it 'differentiation by outcome'. Bigio also cautions that differentiation is not 'Humiliating the slow learners by drawing attention to their limitations". The perfect model of differentiated instruction rests upon an active, student centered, meaning-making approach to teaching and learning. The theoretical and philosophical influences embedded in differentiated instruction support the three key elements of differentiated instruction itself: readiness, interest, and learning profile (Allan & Tomlinson, 2000). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia