What is Differentiated Instruction?

Tomlinson and Eidson (2003) refer to differentiated instruction as a systematic approach to planning curriculum and instruction for academically diverse learners.

Educators must have the ability to recognize students’ varying levels of prior knowledge, interests, readiness, and linguistic backgrounds in order to react responsively to those differences.

Key to Differentiated Instruction

The key to differentiated instruction is to provide a learning environment that responds to the needs of all learners. Educators can differentiate instruction to support English language proficiency and may not need to differentiate all elements at all times.

Students’ individual TELPAS and STAAR data must be used to appropriately guide the instruction given to ELLs.

Assessment and instruction go hand-in-hand. Educators should use students’ TELPAS proficiency levels in listening, speaking, reading, and writing to appropriately differentiate instruction for ELLs.

The English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Academy Linguistic Instructional Alignment Guide (LIAG) provides suggested teacher behaviors and activities for students at the four levels of language proficiency: beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high. The LIAG also allows educators to see connections between ELPS, College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS), and TELPAS Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs).

For further information on the ELPS Academy Linguistic Instructional Alignment Guide (LIAG), please visit the ELPS Support Center.

Tomlinson (1999) identified three elements of curriculum that can be differentiated by thoughtfully using assessment data. The three elements are as follows:

Remember, data can originate from informal, formal, formative, and summative methods of assessment.

Differentiating Content

The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and ELPS drive the content and skills that ELLs must learn and understand. However, in order to differentiate content appropriately, educators must first establish the content to be learned and how to make that content accessible for all students. It is important for educators to know their subject matter as well as their students' academic and linguistic needs.

Differentiating Process

While the distinction between content and process may not always be clear, Tomlinson and Eidson (2003) explain that processing occurs when students begin to make personal sense of the information, ideas, and skills they have been given or have accessed.

Process occurs when students are trying to understand and internalize the content in a deep, meaningful manner.

Differentiating Products

Teachers can assign a variety of products that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and understanding of the content's objectives. Tomlinson and Eidson (2003) explain that the products should have clear, challenging, and specified criteria based on grade-level expectations and individual student needs.

Tomlinson and Eidson (2003) further suggest educators concentrate on two classroom factors when providing differentiated instruction: the nature of the student and the essential meaning of the curriculum.

Differentiated instruction maximizes academic growth and supports the learning process by meeting students’ current academic and linguistic needs.

Click on the hotspots in the interactive for methods of differentiating instruction for struggling learners.

Continued Support for ELLs through the Response to Intervention (RtI) Framework

There are numerous special considerations to keep in mind when using the RtI framework to support the needs of struggling ELLs. The flowchart below provides further detail on those considerations.

Click the icon to download the Literacy and English Language Instruction for ELLs within an RtI Framework, National Center on Response to Intervention (October 2012) PDF file.

Educators of different disciplines such as special education, general education, and Bilingual/ESL must collaborate to determine students' specific social, language, and academic needs. This shared knowledge base allows for a collaborative effort in determining students’ specific social, language, and academic needs.

Following are examples of what specific educators can do.

Accommodation vs. Modification

Accommodation and modification are two terms educators must know and understand in order to plan differentiated instruction appropriately. Look at how accommodations and modifications differ.

A gifted/talented student is a child or youth who performs at or shows the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment and who

• exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area;
• possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or
• excels in a specific academic field.

(Texas Education Code §29.121)

The Equity in Gifted/Talented (G/T) Education site provides tools and resources so that educators can gain the understanding needed to ensure equitable access to G/T programs among diverse populations. This site has a section and resources specifically for English language learners and G/T services.

It is important to remember that some students exhibit their giftedness differently when compared with others of the same age, experience, or environment. The Varied Faces of Gifted/Talented Students is a table that helps show general differences among groups of learners, including ELLs, within the gifted populations.

Further information and support, such as the Gifted/Talented Teacher Toolkit I and Toolkit II, are available on the state’s gifted/talented education webpage.

Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs offer a sequence of courses that provide students with coherent and rigorous content. CTE content is aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for further education and careers in current or emerging professions.

The CTE programs consist of classroom teaching, laboratory applications, supervised work experience, and career and technical student organization activities and offers real-life experiences that reinforce the learned skills (Texas Education Agency).

CTE Strategies

The following strategies provide guidance on how educators can differentiate instruction for ELLs participating in CTE programs.

Click the link or the thumbnail image to download the University of North Texas CTE Special Populations—Chapter 9: Encouraging Interaction between ELLs and Native Speakers PDF