Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility Page 4: Differentiate Instructional Elements
  • IRIS Center
  • Resources
    • IRIS Resource Locator
      Modules, case studies, activities, & more
    • Evidence-Based Practice Summaries
      Research annotations
    • High-Leverage Practices
      IRIS resources on HLPs
    • Films
      Portrayals of people with disabilities
    • Children's Books
      Portrayals of people with disabilities
    • Glossary
      Disability related terms
    • For PD Providers
      Sample PD activities, planning forms, & more
    • For Faculty
      Top tips, coursework planning, & more
    • Website Navigation Videos
      Getting around our Website & modules
    • New & Coming Soon
      Latest modules & resources
    • IRIS Archived Resources
      Modules, alignment tools, & more
  • PD Options
    • PD Certificates for Educators
      Our certificate, your PD hours
    • Log in to Your IRIS PD
    • For PD Providers
      Sample PD activities, planning forms, & more
    • IRIS+ School & District Platform
      A powerful tool for school leaders
  • Articles & Reports
    • Articles
      Articles about IRIS use & efficacy
    • Internal IRIS Reports
      Reports on IRIS use & accomplishments
    • External Evaluation Reports
      Evaluations of the IRIS Center
    • IRIS Stories
      Our resources, your stories
    • News & Events
      What, when, & where it's happening
  • Help
    • Help & Support
      Get the full benefit from our resources
    • Website Navigation Videos
      Getting around our Website & modules
  • Differentiated Instruction: Maximizing the Learning of All Students
Challenge
Initial Thoughts
Perspectives & Resources

What is differentiated instruction?

  • 1: Defining Differentiated Instruction
  • 2: General Principles

How do teachers differentiate instruction?

  • 3: Know Your Students
  • 4: Differentiate Instructional Elements
  • 5: Differentiate Content
  • 6: Differentiate Process
  • 7: Differentiate Product
  • 8: Evaluate and Grade Student Performance

How do teachers prepare their students and their classrooms for differentiated instruction?

  • 9: Communicate with Students and Parents
  • 10: Organize the Classroom
  • 11: Employ Effective Behavior Management

What does differentiated instruction look like in the classroom?

  • 12: Classroom Implementation

Resources

  • 13: References, Additional Resources, and Credits
Wrap Up
Assessment
Provide Feedback

How do teachers differentiate instruction?

Page 4: Differentiate Instructional Elements

Content, Process, Product.As teachers begin to differentiate instruction, there are three main instructional elements that they can adjust to meet the needs of their learners:

  • Content—the knowledge and skills students need to master
  • Process—the activities students use to master the content
  • Product—the method students use to demonstrate learning

Differentiating instruction involves making changes to one or more of these elements. There is no prescribed way to differentiate instruction: The changes a teacher makes to each of the classroom elements depends on the needs of his or her students.

For Your Information

The learning environment is sometimes included as one of the classroom elements associated with differentiated instruction. It refers to the organization and atmosphere of the classroom. Without an effective learning environment with rules, procedures, and respect for others, differentiating content, process, and product might be more difficult to accomplish and may not result in the expected positive outcomes. Some ways in which the teacher can differentiate the learning environment include:

  • Creating places in the room where students can work quietly without distraction while also providing areas where students can work together
  • Offering multicultural materials
  • Developing procedures for students to get help when they are working with other students

Making adjustments to these instructional elements often requires teachers to change their approach to instruction. Listen as Carol Ann Tomlinson discusses why this is often the biggest challenge teachers encounter when they begin to differentiate instruction (time: 1:14).

hs_tomlinson

Carol Ann Tomlinson, EdD
Professor of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy
The University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA

/wp-content/uploads/module_media/di_media/audio/di_audio_page_04_tomlinson.mp3

Transcript

Transcript: Carol Ann Tomlinson, EdD

I think the biggest challenge in differentiation is not differentiation itself but change. There really is nothing that is particularly complicated about what differentiation asks teachers to do. But most of us develop pretty deep ruts of teaching within our first two or three years, and those ruts and routines become the rhythm of the day. And differentiation does ask you to break out of those. So I think it really is not so much adopting a new thing but shedding the old thing that really is the challenge. For example, most teachers have learned to direct classrooms with sort of a frontal control mechanism with the belief that we have to be standing in front of the kids for them to learn anything, and that if we let them work collaboratively or independently they would self-destruct. We are much more comfortable giving one set of directions and asking everybody to do the same thing and start and stop at the same time. And those are pretty big patterns, and it’s a little hard to differentiate instruction and maintain those patterns. So it’s frequently learning to think in a new way, I think, that’s the greatest challenge.

 

 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Back Next
12345678...13
Join Our E-Newsletter Sign Up
  • Home
  • About IRIS
  • Sitemap
  • Web Accessibility
  • Glossary
  • Terms of Use
  • Careers at IRIS
  • Contact Us
Join Our E-Newsletter Sign Up

The IRIS Center Peabody College Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 37203 [email protected]. The IRIS Center is funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Grant #H325E220001. The contents of this website do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Anna Macedonia.

Copyright 2025 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

* For refund and privacy policy information visit our Help & Support page.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Vanderbilt Peabody College
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok