The first step in designing differentiated work is to assess the existing skills of your students. Start by identifying the level at which each student is working in each subject area, using class, homework and test scores as a guide. Find out how each student learns by administering a learning styles questionnaire. You may be able to acquire one from your school guidance office or your school district. Alternatively, you can download one from the New Jersey Education Association website. The aim of this assessment is to help you understand how to tailor your teaching to complement the strengths of each student.
Making differentiation work in the classroom also involves devising learning outcomes that cater to each student. Before a lesson, think about what you want individual students to achieve. Use the KUD (Know, Understand and Do) Approach to help you focus the learning outcomes. If you're teaching history, for example, break the KUD Approach down to knowing the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor, understanding that this attack caused America to declare war on Japan and using this knowledge to examine the Pearl Harbor incident from both a Japanese and an American perspective.
To help students achieve their learning outcomes, differentiate the teaching and learning activities. This should ideally reflect the different leaning styles of your students, as discovered in your pre-assessment. Oral presentations or taped recordings of material will benefit auditory learners, for example, while illustrations, graphs and charts will work better with visual learners. Encourage peer support by placing students into mixed-ability groups so that stronger students can help the other members of the group. Be sure to provide extension activities to stretch high-ability students and to keep them busy if they complete work sooner than others.
After any lesson or activity, evaluate learning to ensure that each student has achieved his learning outcome. Like planning and instruction, evaluation should be differentiated to include a variety of approaches. You might have a student participate in a question-and-answer session, design a poster to demonstrate understanding or complete a creative-writing activity that expresses feelings about the lesson. Praise students that have achieved their outcomes and provide extra teaching or support for those that have not.