Creating Tiered Assignments

By: Michelle Pantel Updated: September 2022

Tiering an assignment, means the teacher is providing different levels of the same activity to meet differing points of readiness for a concept. Tiering assignments is a way to differentiate learning for students. Tiered assignments support meeting the needs of all students in the classroom.To tier an assignment, teachers administer a pre-assessment and then mentally sort students into readiness groups based on the assessment results. Teachers then develop an appropriate number of activities for the class (usually two or three). This video gives a spoken slideshow presentation about creating tiered assignments.

The easiest way to create a tiered assignment is to create an activity that is at grade level, and then modify it by varying the tiers to support all learners working within their zone of proximal development encouraging all students stretch to learn.

Ways to alter tiering levels:

1. Varying concept from concrete to more abstract.

2. Altering the number of steps.

3. Adapting the assignment from more closed ended to open ended.

4. Modifying the reading level from below grade to above grade level.

5. Type of teacher support from modeling to facilitating.