Most teachers already know they should be differentiating. The harder question is how — especially when you have 30-plus students, one planning period, and a curriculum that wasn't designed with variability in mind.
This guide goes beyond the definition. You'll find 25 differentiated instruction strategies organized by how they actually work in classrooms, plus specific guidance for high-school STEM subjects, large class sizes, and using AI to cut your prep time in half.
What Is Differentiated Instruction? The Tomlinson Framework
Carol Ann Tomlinson, whose work at the University of Virginia shaped how most educators understand this approach, defines differentiated instruction as proactively planning varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they'll learn it, and how they'll demonstrate what they know.
The framework organizes differentiation across four dimensions:
- Content — what students learn or how they access information
- Process — the activities and sense-making tasks students engage in
- Product — how students demonstrate mastery
- Learning environment — the physical and social conditions in which learning happens
Differentiation doesn't mean writing a separate lesson plan for every student. It means providing a range of learning options within a coherent instructional design — not 30 individualized curricula.
The goal is to meet students where they are: different readiness levels, different interests, and different learning profiles all in the same room. Research consistently links this approach to increased engagement, stronger academic outcomes, and more inclusive classrooms.
25 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples
These strategies are drawn from established classroom practice and organized by the dimension of learning they primarily address.
Differentiating Content
1. Tiered readings. Provide the same core text at two or three reading levels. All students engage with the same concept; the complexity of language and analysis varies. A sixth-grade science unit on ecosystems might offer a standard passage, a scaffolded version with vocabulary support, and an extended version with primary sources.
2. Vocabulary pre-teaching. Before introducing a new unit, identify the 8-10 terms that will create access barriers for some students. Teach those explicitly to students who need it while others begin the core content.
3. Anchor activities. Students who finish tasks early move to pre-planned extension work tied to the same learning objective. This keeps fast finishers engaged without pulling them into unrelated busywork.
4. Curated resource menus. Offer three or four ways to access the same content: a short video, an illustrated guide, an audio summary, a written article. Students choose the format that works best for them.
5. Graphic organizers and visual scaffolds. Provide structured note-taking templates for students who struggle to extract key ideas from dense material, while others work with blank paper or annotate primary sources directly.
6. Leveled question sets. Design discussion or homework questions in tiers — factual recall at the base, application in the middle, synthesis and evaluation at the top. Students can move between levels as their confidence grows.
Differentiating Process
7. Flexible grouping. Regroup students regularly based on current data, not fixed ability labels. Sometimes groups are similar-readiness (for targeted practice); sometimes they're mixed (for peer learning). Flexible grouping keeps labels from calcifying and gives every student the experience of being the "expert" at some point.
8. Learning stations. Set up four to six stations around the room, each targeting the same learning objective through a different activity: one might use manipulatives, another video, another a writing task, another a game. Students rotate through some or all stations.
9. Choice boards. Give students a 3x3 or 2x3 grid of activity options. They select a certain number — often three in a row, tic-tac-toe style. This preserves rigor while giving students genuine agency.
10. Jigsaw. Divide content into sections, assign each group a section to master, then regroup so each "expert" teaches the others. Works well for content-heavy units in social studies, biology, or literature.
11. Think-Pair-Share with structured stems. A simple strategy made more powerful by giving different students different sentence frames. Students who need support get "I think... because..."; students ready for more get "I agree/disagree with ___ because my evidence is..."
12. Socratic seminars with entry-level questions. Prepare discussion questions at multiple levels of complexity. Students can enter the conversation where they're ready and stretch toward higher-order questions as discussion develops.
13. Peer tutoring. Strategic pairing — where the tutor role actually reinforces learning for both students — can extend your capacity as a teacher. The student explaining often deepens their own understanding.
Differentiating Product
14. Project-based learning with open-ended outcomes. When students can choose how to demonstrate mastery (a poster, a video, a written report, a model), they're more likely to do meaningful work. The rubric holds the rigor; the format is flexible.
15. Tiered assignments. Design three versions of the same task at different complexity levels. The core objective stays constant; the cognitive demand scales. A geometry assignment might ask some students to identify angle types, others to calculate missing angles, and others to construct proofs.
16. Portfolio assessment. Students collect and reflect on their work over time. The portfolio itself becomes evidence of growth, not just a snapshot of performance on a single day.
17. Oral presentations as an alternative to written tests. For students with dyslexia or writing difficulties, a verbal explanation of their understanding can be a more accurate measure than a timed written test.
18. Tic-tac-toe menus for final projects. Similar to choice boards but applied to summative assessment — students select from a range of product options, each assessed against the same learning standards.
Differentiating the Learning Environment
19. Flexible seating. Standing desks, floor cushions, and quiet corners aren't about comfort for its own sake. Some students focus better when they can move; others need minimal distraction. Letting students make intentional choices about where they work builds self-regulation.
20. Designated quiet zones and collaboration zones. Structuring the classroom so both modes are available simultaneously lets you run small-group instruction without the rest of the class disrupting or being disrupted.
21. Sensory breaks and movement integration. Short movement breaks — especially in K-5 classrooms — help students regulate attention. These aren't wasted minutes; they often make the next 20 minutes of instruction more productive.
22. Multisensory instruction. Engage more than one sense at a time: hands-on models in science, rhythm and movement in language learning, visual timelines in history. This is also a core principle of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Cross-Cutting Strategies
23. Exit tickets as daily differentiation data. Three targeted questions at the end of class tell you exactly who's ready to move on, who needs another pass at the concept, and who needs a different approach entirely. This is the foundation of responsive teaching.
24. Learning menus. A longer-form version of choice boards, learning menus offer a "main course" (required core tasks), "side dishes" (practice and reinforcement), and "dessert" (enrichment). Every student completes the main course; they choose how much and what else they engage with.
25. Self-assessment and goal setting. Teaching students to evaluate their own understanding — and set a specific next step — builds metacognitive skills alongside content knowledge. A simple "I can..." checklist after each unit gives students language for what they know and what they're working toward.
Leveraging AI for Automated Differentiation
Planning tiered materials used to mean hours of extra work. AI tools have changed that math significantly.
Here are three specific prompts you can use right now:
MagicSchool — Leveled Text Generator
"Create a reading passage about [topic] at three Lexile levels: 600L (Grade 4-5), 850L (Grade 6-7), and 1100L (Grade 9-10). Each version should cover the same core concepts and include three comprehension questions at the appropriate complexity level."
ChatGPT — Tiered Assignment Builder
"I'm teaching [concept] to a mixed-readiness class. Write three versions of a practice task: one for students who are still building foundational understanding, one for grade-level learners, and one extension task for students who have already demonstrated mastery. Keep the learning objective the same across all three."
ChatGPT — Vocabulary Scaffold Generator
"Here is a passage from our textbook: [paste text]. Identify the 10 most challenging vocabulary words for a student reading two years below grade level. For each word, write a simple definition and a sentence using the word in a familiar context."
AI-generated materials still need your professional judgment. Check that leveled versions preserve the accuracy of the original content, that vocabulary scaffolds reflect your students' actual backgrounds, and that extension tasks genuinely deepen thinking rather than just adding more of the same.
The time savings are real. Teachers who previously spent Sunday afternoons building differentiated materials are now spending 20 minutes reviewing and refining AI drafts. That's time better spent on the human work of teaching.
Differentiation in High-Stakes Subjects: Physics, Calculus, and Chemistry
The concern that differentiation "waters down" content is especially common in advanced high school courses. The evidence doesn't support that fear — but it does require being deliberate about what you differentiate and what you don't.
Physics: The equations don't change. What changes is how students access them. For kinematics, some students benefit from working with concrete examples first (a ball rolling down a ramp, measured with a stopwatch) before encountering the abstract formula. Others are ready to manipulate the formula and solve for unknown variables immediately. The lab report rubric can assess the same reasoning skills at different entry points.
Calculus: Tiered problem sets work well here. All students work on limit problems, but the first tier focuses on graphical interpretation, the second on algebraic evaluation, and the third on epsilon-delta proofs. Flexible grouping during problem-solving lets students who are stuck get targeted support without stopping the class.
Chemistry: Stoichiometry is a common stumbling block. A choice board might offer some students a worked-example set with step-by-step scaffolding, others a set of novel problems with only the molar mass reference sheet, and an extension path involving percent yield calculations in industrial contexts. The core skill — mole ratio reasoning — is the same.
The key principle across all three: differentiate the entry point and the scaffolding, not the learning target.
Managing Differentiation in Large Class Sizes (35+ Students)
A class of 35 makes the logistics of differentiation genuinely hard. These strategies help.
Station rotation with a small-group pull. Set up three or four stations that students cycle through independently or in pairs. While they rotate, you run a small-group session with 5-7 students at a time — the students who most need direct instruction. You see every student in a small-group context over the course of a week.
Pre-built task menus posted at the start of the unit. Instead of differentiating day-by-day, give students a week's worth of tiered task options on Monday. They know what's expected, they can self-select with your guidance, and your daily management burden drops.
Strategic peer pairing. Identify students who are strong explainers — not just high performers — and pair them with students who benefit from peer support. Rotate pairings regularly. The explainer role is academically valuable; don't let it become a burden for any one student.
Color-coded or numbered materials. Distributing three versions of a worksheet doesn't have to be obvious to students. Color-code them (blue, green, yellow) or number them (1, 2, 3) and distribute quietly. Most students don't notice or don't care — they're focused on the task.
You cannot fully differentiate every lesson in every subject when you have 35 students. Choose one or two high-leverage differentiation moves per week and do them well, rather than attempting a complete differentiated design for every lesson and doing none of it well.
Data Tracking and Communicating Progress to Parents
Differentiation without data is guesswork. Research consistently shows that ongoing formative assessment is what makes differentiated instruction actually responsive rather than just varied.
Simple tracking systems that work:
- A class roster with weekly exit ticket scores (color-coded: red/yellow/green) gives you a visual map of where each student is.
- A Google Sheet with one row per student and columns for each formative check takes about five minutes to update and is searchable when you're planning the next week.
- Sticky-note systems work for elementary teachers: three columns on a whiteboard (not yet, almost there, got it), updated after each class.
Communicating differentiation to parents is where many teachers feel uncertain. Parents sometimes interpret tiered assignments as lower expectations. A few practices help:
Be transparent from the start. At back-to-school night or in your class syllabus, explain that you use multiple pathways to reach the same learning standards. Emphasize that the goal is always grade-level mastery — differentiation is about the route, not the destination.
When sharing work samples or grades, frame them in terms of learning targets. "Amara is working toward mastering fraction operations" is more useful to a parent than a percentage score on a worksheet they've never seen.
If a student is consistently working on below-grade-level material, that's a conversation worth having directly — ideally with a counselor or special education team involved. Differentiation is not a substitute for identifying students who may need more formal support.
What This Means for Your Classroom
Differentiated instruction strategies are most useful when they're chosen deliberately, not deployed all at once. Start with one strategy from each dimension of the Tomlinson framework — perhaps tiered readings for content, flexible grouping for process, and a choice board for product — and build from there.
The biggest barrier to differentiation isn't knowledge of the strategies. Research confirms it's time and planning load. AI tools are the most significant recent development in making that barrier more manageable — not because they replace professional judgment, but because they handle the first draft of materials that used to take hours to build.
Every student in your classroom is capable of learning. Differentiated instruction is the practical expression of that belief.
