Differentiating instruction can feel like a formidable task, and it’s easy to get into the habit of “teaching to the middle” — presenting material and using teaching methods suited to the majority of students rather than to each individual.

However, with the right strategies and a little practice, differentiation doesn’t have to be all that difficult. CIITS and Edivation offer a series of videos showing real teachers in real classrooms demonstrating simple differentiation strategies that you can apply to almost any lesson plan, with ideas for using grouping and scaffolding to differentiate effectively in even the most diverse class.

Follow the instructions below to access the following videos, and feel free to share them with your colleagues:

Differentiating Instruction Videos for Elementary

Follow Ms. Paepke as she guides her class through a math task with an embedded learning target, helping students design their own garden plot and explore combinations of different vegetables that can be planted to equal a given sum. 

Watch Ms. Toomey facilitate differentiated, small-group instruction to build students’ reading fluency and vocabulary around a desert theme.

Differentiating Instruction Videos for Secondary

See how Ms. Hurt designs and presents differentiated (scaffolded) task sheets to help students learn to use proportional relationships to determine percentage.

Watch how Ms. White uses project-based learning to foster differentiated instruction, giving students a choice in complexity of a task to perform, with examples of extension and remediation activities during the project. This is an excellent demonstration of how project-based learning fosters differentiated instruction.

Accessing the videos is simple:

  1. Go to CIITS (ciits.kyschools.us).
  2. Enter your username and password.
  3. Scroll down to the School Improvement Network section and click the Edivation logo. This should automatically log you into Edivation. (Note: If nothing happens when you click the logo, check your browser’s pop-up blocker and disable it for the CIITS website. This will get you into Edivation.)
  4. Once you’re logged in to CIITS, come back to this post and click the links above to watch the videos.

For assistance, call the Kentucky Support Hotline at (855) 597-4638.