Differentiated Strategies for Instruction and Assessment Assignment

Overview

Planning lessons differentiated by readiness, interest, and learning profile are the basics of differentiating instruction. Differentiating based on student traits assists the learner in multiple ways: Differentiating instruction by readiness ensures tasks closely align with the understanding and skill level of the learner. Differentiating instruction by interest utilizes student’s natural curiosity for a topic. Lastly, differentiating instruction by learner profile focuses on making the learning accessible and applicable to each student. 

In addition, as you differentiate by student readiness, interest, and learning profile, you must examine each element of your lesson: content, process, and products. While all three of these items are interconnected in a lesson, planning for differentiated instruction, understanding how to differentiate each item according to student readiness, interest, and learning profile can assist you manage a differentiated classroom. 

This assignment allows you to research and practice differentiating lessons by readiness, interest, and learning profile within the context of content, process, and products. The purpose of this assignment is to research how to differentiate instruction based on readiness, interest, and learning profile, discuss ways to integrate specific strategies to address the content of the lesson, the process of teaching and learning, and the products students will produce from the lesson.  

Instructions

Download the Differentiated Strategies for Instruction and Assessment Template. Locate a completed Virginia Lesson Plan in the content area of your choice. A simple search of the Virginia Department of Education website will yield hundreds of sample lesson plans.  Multiple sample lesson plans can be found under the Resources section of the Differentiated Strategies fo Instruction and Assessment Assignment page in Canvas. 

Select the lesson plan of your choice from the Virginia Department of Education. Then, review the assignment requirements listed below and on the template. 

Differentiating by Readiness

Once you have selected your lesson plan you will determine how you will differentiate the content, process and products based on readiness. Provide a background to differentiating based on student readiness in light of content, process, and product. You will fully explain the strategies you will use to differentiate the content, process and product of this lesson. Each strategy must be supported by research and each section should include at least one citation from the textbook and one additional peer-reviewed citation. 

The template provides an explanation for each of these items and the exact structure for how you need to report these items. Please follow the template. 

Differentiating by Interest

Next you will determine how you will differentiate the content, process and products based on student interest. For this section of the template, you will provide a background to differentiating based on student interest in light of content, process, and product. Fully explain the strategies you will use to differentiate the content, process, and product of this lesson. Each strategy must be supported by research and each section should include at least one citation from the textbook and one additional peer-reviewed citation. 

The template provides an explanation for each of these items and the exact structure for how you need to report these items. Please follow the template. 

Differentiating by Student Profile

Next, determine how you will differentiate the content, process and products based on student profile. Provide a background to differentiating based on student profile in light of content, process, and product. Fully explain the strategies you will use to differentiate the content, process, and product of this lesson. Each strategy must be supported by research and each section should include at least one citation from the textbook and one additional peer-reviewed citation. 

The template provides an explanation for each of these items and the exact structure for how you need to report these items. Please follow the template. 

Assessment Creation and Response

Finally, you will select one of the products you discussed above and create a differentiated assessment to assess students’ understanding of the material presented. This assessment must be differentiated for multiple learners, align with the sample lesson plan, topic, grade level, and Virginia Standard of Learning you selected, and be ready for classroom use. You may decide to create multiple assessments based the way you differentiate. This is perfectly appropriate. You will need to create all the assessments needed in this portion of the assignment and submit the differentiated assessment(s) with the template.   

In the Assessment Response portion of the template, you will explain the differentiated assessment you created, justify why you created the assessment the way you did, and support your justification with at least three citations.