This document discusses key factors for effective lesson planning and instruction. It notes that students have different backgrounds, learning styles, and life experiences, requiring a differentiated classroom. A differentiated classroom is proactive, qualitative over quantitative, provides multiple assessment and learning approaches tailored to students, is student-centered by engaging students in relevant material, and blends whole-class, group and individual instruction. Differentiated instruction allows teachers to meet the diverse needs of all students.

1. ENGAGING TEACHER,
CURRICULUM AND
STUDENTS: CRITICAL
FACTORS

2. WHEN PLANNING A LESSON, TEACHERS MUST
KNOW THAT STUDENTS ARE NOT ALL THE
SAME – WHAT WE CALL HETEROGENEITY:
 students’ cultural and socio-economic
background must be taken into consideration;
 different types of learning styles;
 content must be related to their own life
experiences.

3. HETEROGENEITY
Requires  DIFFERENTIATED CLASSROOM

4. A classroom consisting of students of various races, cultures,
strengths and talents requires differentiated instruction, which
embodies the following features:
Differentiated instruction is PROACTIVE.
Teacher assumes that different learners have differing needs
and proactively plan a variety of ways to "get at" and express
learning.

5. Differentiated instruction is more QUALITATIVE than
quantitative.
Differentiated instruction focuses more on understanding
concepts than on producing work. However, it does
not necessarily mean giving some students less work to do.
Rather, the emphasis is on adjusting the nature of an
assignment to match students' learning characteristics as
opposed to merely increasing the quantity of the assignment.

6. Differentiated instruction provides MULTIPLE approaches
to assessment, process, and product.
Teachers offer different practices and approaches based
on how individual students learn, and how they demonstrate
what they have learned. What these different practices and
approaches must have in common, however, is that they are
crafted to encourage substantial growth in all students and are
based on high standards for all students.

7. Differentiated instruction is STUDENT-CENTERED.
Learning experiences are most effective when they are
engaging, relevant, and interesting. All students will not always
find the same avenues to learning equally engaging, relevant,
and interesting. Understandings must be built on previous
understandings and not all students possess the same
background knowledge at the outset of a given investigation.

8. Differentiated instruction is A BLEND of whole-class,
group, and individual instruction.
There are times in all classrooms when it is more effective or
efficient to share information or use the same activity with the
whole class. Such whole-group instruction establishes
common understandings and a sense of community for
students by sharing discussion and review.