Determine how the learner best learns. Diane Heacox, author of "Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom," suggests finding out each student's intelligence. She cites eight intelligences: logical/mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, spatial, linguistic and naturalist. While some students can learn through worksheets or PowerPoint presentations, others will need a more hands-on approach, and knowing how a student learns can help you see how to best help him.
Design activities that are relevant to the student's learning style. Because you have multiple learning styles in your classroom, you cannot only cater to one. Heacox recommends creating a lesson plan activities matrix to keep track of how you are differentiating instruction to meet all of your learners' needs. Create a chart with the eight intelligences on the left-hand side of the page and the days of the week on the top. As you are creating your lesson plan, you can note when you use an activity that works well for a certain type of learner. For instance, if you are having students act out a scene from their current reading assignment, you would note that it works well for bodily/kinesthetic learners. Vary your lessons so that your activities help students of many differing abilities succeed. Also, encourage your learners to branch out, as you purposely plan activities that might be difficult for some learners.
Group students based on how they learn. You can place students in homogeneous groups, in which like learners are placed together so that they can build on each other's strengths and work on activities they will most likely be successful with. When you assign students a project, provide multiple activities so that each group can work on one that suits its needs best. You can also group students heterogeneously and encourage students to work with those who are of differing abilities so that they can improve their skills in other areas, too.