Beginning Differentiation: 5 means of differentiating content and learning activities.

ELL Students:

1) Content: Ask each student to present their favorite story from their 1st language.

Activity: Ask the presenting student to then translate the story. The parts that are most difficult can be translated through pictures.

2) Content: Provide a short film on art.

Activity: Ask students to translate the film through a written paragraph or verbally, if preferred. 

3) Content: Present the class with a song.

    Activity: Ask students to create a visual story board after listening to the song.

4) Content: Present a written and visual text on a history topic.

Activity: Divide students into small groups and ask them to work together to summarize the text. The pair can decide together, how they wish to demonstrate their summary (verbally, by using pictures, or written, etc.).

5) Content: Present a verbal lecture accompanied by some graphics on literature.

Activity: Ask the student to listen, while creating and adding to their word journal, words or sentences, that are difficult to comprehend. Then have students pair up and compare their word journals, helping each other understand unknown words, using a dictionary or going online.  

Special Needs Students:

1) Content: Present health related content presentation through power point.

Activity: Allow the students to choose their own form of text to demonstrate what they learned (Choice Board Activity). 

2) Content: Read a poem to the students.

Activity: Pair students, and ask them to perform the poem, demonstrating their understanding. 

3) Content: Provide each student with the same novel. Read the novel to them

Activity: Ask the students to skim over the novel before you read it out-loud to them. Then conduct a class Q & A. 

4) Content: Show a short film on a history topic.

Activity: Ask students to create an organization chart. Students will be asked to classify groups of events, accurately, on the chart, as well as to compare and contrast, important individuals mentioned in the history lesson. 

5) Content: Provide a math lecture topic on the white board.

    Activity: Pair up students and ask them to, think-pair-share, to solve their problem. 

Gifted/Advanced Students:

1) Content: Present a lecture on a piece of currently studied literature.

Activity: Ask the students to use narratives, providing different levels of explanation on analyzing the content of the literature. 

2) Content: Provide a research science topic.

Activity: Ask the students to use varied methods of their choice to complete a research project. 

3) Content: Provide varied research topics:

Activity: Ask the students to choose their preferred topic and complete a research project. 

4) Content: Tell/Read a story.

Activity: Ask students to each describe a relatable personal experience. If students cannot relate to the story, ask them to create an outline of the story that was told. 

5) Content: Split students into groups. Take aside half of each pair and provide a

song to be listened to.

Activity: Have the students listening to the song, create an outline or a story board of the song (their choice). Then bring the pairs back together, have the other half of students, who did not listen to the song, use the outline/story board, to create a short, one paragraph summary. Then switch roles and conduct activity again, using a different song. 

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