Traveling the road to differentiation in staff development

摘要

The concept of differentiated instruction is at least as old as Confucius. He reflected its core meaning when he advised that people differ in their abilities. To teach them, he counseled, you have to start where they are. In the United States, differentiation was a way of life in the one-room schoolhouse. There, the teacher knew students would vary greatly in age, experience, motivation to learn, and proficiency. To effectively instruct the range of students, teachers had to be flexible in their use of time, space, materials, student groupings, and instructional contact with learners.