Focus on broad instructional concepts and topics. Keeping topics general will help you limit the amount of rote memorization you are requesting of students. Many teachers find that presenting more general material offers an opportunity for students to learn orally or visually, but tasks that require a synthesis of many details can be much harder to present to students with different learning styles. Many middle school curriculums offer opportunities to cover general concepts, as opposed to the advanced content that may be explored at the high school level. This creates a natural space for differentiation for teachers with very diverse classrooms.
Offer flexible group work experiences. Group work offers students an opportunity to interact as they learn. At the middle school level students often become more social, and this can make group work more enjoyable. Students can help each other master the information, and since groups often have discrete roles within them they offer opportunities for differentiated learning. For example, one group member may be a scribe, while the other may be a presenter. This gives students with verbal and presentation skills a chance to use those skills in the classroom.
Use frequent assessments to track individual progress. Assessments should include reviews of written work, notes of classroom participation and performance on both written and oral exams or quizzes. Assessment results will help you note a student's strengths and weaknesses. A student with a specific weakness, such as vocabulary or spelling, may need extra help and classroom practice. Assessments help you identify students who can be helped by alternative learning approaches or extra tutoring.
Engage all students equally. One of the challenges of differentiated instruction is that you'll have a very diverse group of learners in one classroom. Some students may need extra help, while others may find certain tasks very easy. It's important to engage all learners equally by giving advanced students extra work or challenging assignments, while at the same time helping slower students complete the coursework successfully.