Differentiation and Interventions

Accelerated Pace of Presentation:

Substantial increase in tempo of content presentation and acquisition.

Conceptual Discussions:

High level discussions of themes, concepts, generalizations, issues, and problems, rather than review of facts, terms, details.

Flexible Project Deadlines:

Occasional renegotiation of when projects or assignments will be due, especially when high-quality work has already been shown.

Flexible Tasks:

Allowing students to structure their own projects and investigations according to their strengths and interests.

Learning Contracts:

Student and teacher jointly develop a contract for accomplishment of learning outcomes; often involves a streamlining of regular class work.

Personal Goal Setting:

Teaching students to identify personal goals and how to prioritize time and activities to reach those goals.

Problem-Based Learning:

Providing students with unstructured problems or situations for which they must discover the answers, solutions, concepts, or draw conclusions and generalizations.

Abstract Content:

Content that goes beyond surface detail and facts to underlying concepts, generalizations, and symbolism.

Communication Skills Training:

Training in how to express oneself appropriately for full understanding of intention and acceptance of other perspectives.

Complex Tasks:

Providing multiple-step projects for advanced knowledge and skill acquisition.

Critical Skills Training:

Training in critical thinking skills such as cause and effect, sorting of relevant data, induction, deduction, generalization.

Cultural Enrichment in the Arts:

Providing knowledge and skills in art, music, theater, dance, creative writing, graphics, particularly the history, aesthetics, and criticism aspects of these art forms.

Dilemmas, Conflict Resolution Tasks:

Providing hypothetical and real ethical dilemmas and conflicts in behavior/intent for discussion, solution, simulation exercises, etc.

Early Content Mastery:

Giving students access to knowledge and concepts in a content area before expected grade- or age-level expectations.

Early Exposure to the Basics:

Access to the basic knowledge and skills of the range of academic subject areas considerably before expected age or grade.

Grade Telescoping:

Also called “rapid progress.” Shortening the time of progressing through a school level, such as junior or senior high by one year, while still covering all curriculum.

Organizational Management Training:

Training in how to break down projects and goals into manageable and sequential steps and to estimate the time needed to accomplish these steps.

Planning Techniques:

Training students in “backwards planning,” task analysis, flowcharting, etc., to break down projects and goals into intermediate, manageable sequences of time-related steps.

Self-Concept Development:

Provision of activities, discussion for the development of self-awareness, self-confidence, and improvement of self-esteem.

Self-Direction Training:

Training in autonomous learning skills, independent thinking, and personal goal setting.

Service Learning Projects:

Provision of academic credit for student volunteer work on community and welfare projects. Social Issues Discussions: Provision of current events, political, philosophical, and social issues for discussion.

Study of People:

Relating a topic of study to the famous people and human issues within that field.

Subject Integration:

Also known as “thematic approach.” Uniting two or more disciplines and their content through a conceptual theme, such as “origins,” “change,” or “friendship.”

Time Management Training:

Training in how to make the best use of time available through prioritizing of academic and personal goals.

Ability or Achievement Grouping:

Children of high ability or with high achievement levels are put into a separate group for differentiating their instruction. Can be full- or part- time, permanent, or flexible sorting.

Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate Courses:

Provision of course with advanced or accelerated content at the secondary school level affording student opportunity to “test out” of or be given credit for completion of college-level course work.

Cluster Grouping:

Identify and place top five to eight high-ability students in the same grade level in one class with a teacher who likes them, is trained to work with them and devotes proportional class time to differentiating for them.

Compacted Curriculum/Compacting:

Streamlining the regular curriculum to “buy time” for enrichment, accelerated content, and independent study. Usually involves pre- assessment or pretest of what the students have already mastered.

Concurrent Enrollment:

Allowing students to attend classes in more than one building level during the same school year.

Cooperative Learning Groups:

Providing grouped activities for developing peer interaction skills and cooperation. May be like- or mixed-ability groups.

Creative Problem-Solving:

Practice in various creative thinking skills, such as fluency, flexibility, elaboration, risk-taking, SCAMPER, synectics, morphologies, analogies, imagination.

Credit by Examination:

Provision of testing programs whereby the student, after successful completion of a test, will be offered a specified number of course credits. The College Level Examinations Program, or CLEP, is the program widely used at the university level.

Credit for Prior Learning:

Allowing students to demonstrate mastery of previously learned material through some form of assessments; same as “testing out.”

Cross-Grade/Cross-Age Grouping:

Grouping children by their achievement level in a subject area rather than by grade or age level. Currently known as multiage classrooms.

Early Admission to College:

Permitting a student to enter college as a full-time student without completion of a high school diploma.

Early Entrance to School:

Allowing selected gifted children showing readiness to perform schoolwork to enter kindergarten or first grade one to two years earlier than the usual beginning age.

Grade Skipping:

Double promoting a student such that he or she bypasses one or more grade levels.

Independent Study Projects:

Structured projects agreed upon by student and supervising teacher that allow a student to individually investigate area of high interest or to advance knowledge.

Individual Educational/Learning Plans:

(IEP or ILP or EP) Provision of formal written plan for managing and delivering the curriculum for a child with extraordinary differences in ability or educational needs.

Individualized “Benchmark” Setting:

Working with an individual student to set performance outcomes for the student’s next product or performance.

Like-Ability Cooperative Learning:

Organizing groups of learners in three- to four-member teams of like ability and adjusting the group task accordingly.

Magnet School:

Provision of a separate school focused on a specific subject area or areas (arts, math, etc.) or on a specific group of students (academically gifted or mathematically talented) with students gifted in that area.

Mentoring:

Establishment of one-on-one relationship between student and outside-of-school expert in a specific topic area or career.

Multigrade/Multiage Classes:

Combining two or three grade levels into one classroom and placing the brightest children with the youngest children in the class.

Nongraded Classes:

Placing learners in a classroom without regard to age or grade and allowing them to work through the materials at a pace and level appropriate to their individual ability and motivational levels.

Partial Day/Send-Out Grouping:

Removal of gifted children from a regular classroom for a specified period each day or week to work with a trained specialist on differentiated curriculum.

One-on-One Tutoring/Mentoring:

Placing a gifted student with a personal instructor who will offer curriculum at the appropriate level and pace.

Regrouping by Performance Level for Specific Subject Instruction:

A form of grouping, usually sorted, for once a year that delivers appropriately differentiated curriculum to students at a specific ability or achievement level.

School for the Gifted:

Provision of a separate school with admission requirements that students be identified or “certified” as gifted.

School-within-a-School:

Gifted students are placed in self-contained classes at every grade level in an otherwise heterogeneous school.

Single-Subject Acceleration:

Allowing students to move more quickly through the progression of skills and content mastery in one subject where great advancement or proficiency has been observed. Other subjects may be at grade level.

Talent/Ability Grouping:

Grouping students of like ability or like interest on a regular basis during the school day for pursuit of advanced knowledge in a specific content area.

Talent Development:

Provision of experiences for an individual student with demonstrated high performance or potential in a specific area either through individual work or with a group of students with like talent.

Talent Search Programs:

Provision of highly challenging, accelerated learning experiences, usually on a college campus in a specific talent area (math, writing) for highly talented students.

Telescoping of Learning Time:

Any technique that shortens the amount of time a student is provided to acquire content and skills, e.g., rapid progress, acceleration, compacting, tempo. Can be subject specific or across a grade level.

Tracking or Full-Time Ability Grouping:

Sorting students, usually once a year, by ability level and then scheduling all their academic (sometimes nonacademic) classes together.

Within-Class Ability/Performance Grouping:

Sorting of students, topic-by-topic or subject-by-subject, within one classroom for the provision of differentiated learning for each group.

Accelerated Pace of Presentation:

Substantial increase in tempo of content presentation and acquisition.

Flexible Project Deadlines:

Occasional renegotiation of when projects or assignments will be due, especially when high quality work has already been shown.

Higher-Order Thinking Skills:

Questioning in discussions or providing activities based on processing that requires analysis, synthesis, valuation, or other critical thinking skills. Intuitive Expression Practice: Providing tasks in which students put themselves “in the shoes of” another person, situation, object through guided imagery, role-playing, etc. Personal Goal Setting: Teaching students to identify personal goals and how to prioritize time and activities to reach those goals.

Problem-Solving Skills Training:

Providing students with problem-solving strategies matched to differing problem types.

Proof and Reasoning:

Requiring students to cite their evidence to support ideas or concepts they generate.

Systematic Feedback:

Consistent, regular evaluations of student’s products, performance, knowledge acquisition for both corrective and reinforcement purposes

Visualization Techniques:

Providing students with role-play scenarios or guided imagery that encourages them to create images in their minds.

Flexible Tasks:

Allowing students to structure their own projects and investigations according to their strengths and interests.

Open-Ended Assignments:

Providing students with tasks and work that do not have single right answers or outcomes. The task may have timelines and a sequence of activities to be accomplished, but outcomes will vary for each student.

“Real Audience” Feedback:

Using out-of-school experts to evaluate student work in a specialized area of study.

Real Life/“Real World” Learning Experiences:

Provision of tasks or projects that relate to current issues and problems in society or student’s own world.

Talent Exhibition:

Providing the venue in which a student may demonstrate individual talents (academic or artistic), such as concert, show competition, fair, etc.

Transformational Products:

Requiring students to show how to use what they have learned by creating a “product” in a nontraditional, often visual medium.