Tier 1: Core Classroom Instruction 

Abstraction 

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

Active engagement 

Instructional strategies that result in relevance and engagement for students.

Choice 

Provide opportunities for choices and flexibility. Many advanced learners love the opportunity for choice and, given an opportunity, will construct their own differentiated choices. Possibilities include choice boards, tic-tac-toe, and layered assignments.

Compacting 

This strategy should be used at all levels to prevent repetition and reteaching of content students have already mastered. To compact, the teacher must pretest students in the content to be presented. Students master, or nearly master, the content, then move on to an advanced level of difficulty.

Conceptual discussions

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

Extensions

Offer relevant extension options for learners who need additional challenges.

Flexible assessments

Offer different assessment options that allow students to demonstrate their mastery of new concepts, content, and skills.

Flexible tasks

Allow students to structure their own projects and investigations according to their strengths and interests. Consider the use of a learning contract.

Flexible project time

Students negotiate for more or less time to complete a learning experience and its matching product or assessment. Consider the use of a learning contract.

Grouping

Regular opportunities to work in whole groups, small groups, with a partner, or in an independent setting.

Higher-order thinking skills

Questioning in discussion or providing activities based on processing that requires analysis, synthesis, evaluation, or other critical thinking skills.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Independent study

Students research a teacher-chosen or self-chosen topic, developing either traditional or nontraditional products to demonstrate learning.

Jigsaw/cooperative learning

Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece—each student’s part—is essential for the full completion and full understanding of the final product.

Mini-lessons

Mini-lessons provide levels of scaffolding, support, and challenge as needed for students of like ability/need.

Most difficult first

Students can demonstrate a mastery of a concept by completing the five most difficult problems with 85 percent accuracy. Students who demonstrate mastery do not need to practice any more.

Open-ended assignments

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

Pre-assessment

An array of pre-assessment options can guide instruction. By regularly pre-assessing students, teachers can flexibly group students by ability and readiness levels. Pre-assessment is also essential for compacting.

Problem-based learning

A student-centered instructional strategy in which students collaboratively solve problems and reflect on their experiences. Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended problems. Students work in small collaborative groups. Teachers take on the role as “facilitators” of learning.

Subject integration/“theme-based” units

Unite two or more disciplines and their content through a conceptual theme, such as “origins,” “change,” or “friendship.”

Text book resources

Many text books have a component for advanced learners or computer/online programs or websites to meet learners’ needs.

Tiered Assignments

Vary levels of tasks to ensure that students explore ideas and use skills at a level that builds on what they already know and encourages growth. All students explore the same essential ideas but work at different levels of depth and complexity.

Varied levels of complexity

Books and instructional materials at different levels of complexity allow students to study the same concepts but at levels of depth and complexity to fit their learning needs.

Varied pacing

Plan to accommodate varied pacing, allowing students to move through content at a pace appropriate for their learning needs.

Accelerated pace

Students progress faster as the teacher speeds up rate of presentation of information to match the significantly faster learning rate of advanced learners.

Competitions

Students participate in contests outside of school using the knowledge and skills learned both in and outside of the classroom.

Flexible project deadlines

Students negotiate for time to complete a learning experience and its associated product or performance.

Flexible tasks

Students (or teachers) change the requirements and parameters of a required product or performance.

Higher order thinking

Students are required to use higher order thinking (application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, etc.) in their learning responses.

Independent study/ individual project/learning contracts

Students learn about and/or research teacher-chosen or self-chosen topics on their own, developing either a traditional or nontraditional product to demonstrate the learning acquired. With a learning contract, students negotiate individually with teachers about what and how much will be learned and when product will be due.

Inquiry

Students respond to teacher-led questioning to learn new concepts or draw conclusions and make generalizations about what has been learned.

One-on-one tutoring

Students are assigned a special instructor or other content expert to develop their expertise in a specific subject. Most effective when used with advanced students to enhance learning, not to remediate what is missing.

Open-endedness, creative thinking

Students are encouraged to brainstorm or think divergently in order to produce more than one idea, answer, or solution.

Peer tutoring

Students are paired with one or more other students to help them learn a topic and master it.

Problem-based learning

Students are provided with an unstructured problem/task and are expected to “discover” a method for solving/accomplishing it.

Cluster grouping

Identify and place four to eight gifted students in the same grade level in one class with a teacher who likes them, is trained to work with them, and will devote proportional class time to differentiating for them.

Cooperative learning groups

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

Cross-graded classes, cross-age grouping

Group children by their achievement level in a subject area rather than by grade or age level. Also known as multi-age classrooms.

Flexible skills grouping

Students are matched to skills by virtue of readiness, not with the assumption that all need the same spelling tasks, computation drills, writing assignments, etc. Movement among groups is common and based on readiness on a given skill and growth in that skill.

Full-time ability grouping

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

Like-ability cooperative learning

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

Regrouping by achievement for subject instruction

A form of grouping, usually, but not always, sorted once a year, that delivers appropriately differentiated curriculum to students at a specific ability or achievement level.

Within class performance grouping

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