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20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples [+ Downloadable List]

Written by Marcus Guido

Reviewed by Allison Sinclair, M.T.

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• Teaching Strategies

1. Create Learning Stations

2. use task cards, 3. interview students, 4. target different senses within lessons, 5. share your own strengths and weaknesses, 6. use the think-pair-share strategy, 7. make time for journaling, 8. implement reflection and goal-setting exercises, 9. run literature circles, 10. offer different types of free study time, 11. group students with similar learning styles, 12. give different sets of reading comprehension activities, 13. assign open-ended projects, 14. encourage students to propose ideas for their projects, 15. analyze your differentiated instruction strategy on a regular basis, 16. “teach up”, 17. use math edtech that adjusts itself to each student, 18. relate math to personal interests and everyday examples, 19. play a math-focused version of tic-tac-toe, 20. create learning stations, without mandatory rotations.

As students with diverse learning styles fill the classroom, many teachers don’t always have the time, or spend additional hours to plan lessons that use differentiated instruction (DI) to suit students’ unique aptitudes.

Educator Carol Ann Tomlinson puts it beautifully in her book How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms :

Kids of the same age aren't all alike when it comes to learning, any more than they are alike in terms of size, hobbies, personality, or likes and dislikes. Kids do have many things in common because they are human beings and because they are all children, but they also have important differences. What we share in common makes us human. How we differ makes us individuals. In a classroom with little or no differentiated instruction, only student similarities seem to take center stage. In a differentiated classroom, commonalities are acknowledged and built upon, and student differences become important elements in teaching and learning as well.

This can involve adjusting:

• Content — The media and methods teachers use to impart and instruct skills, ideas and information
• Processes — The exercises and practices students perform to better understand content
• Products — The materials, such as tests and projects, students complete to demonstrate understanding

To help create lessons that engage and resonate with a diverse classroom, below are 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples. Available in a condensed and printable list for your desk, you can use 16 in most classes and the last four for math lessons.

Try the ones that best apply to you, depending on factors such as student age.

Provide different types of content by setting up learning stations — divided sections of your classroom through which groups of students rotate. You can facilitate this with a flexible seating plan .

Each station should use a unique method of teaching a skill or concept related to your lesson.

To compliment your math lessons, for example, many teachers use Prodigy to simplify differentiation .  You’ll deliver specific in-game problems to each student — or distinct student groups — in three quick steps!

Students can rotate between stations that involve:

• Watching a video
• Creating artwork
• Reading an article
• Completing puzzles
• Listening to you teach

To help students process the content after they've been through the stations, you can hold a class discussion or assign questions to answer.

Like learning stations, task cards allow you to give students a range of content. Answering task cards can also be a small-group activity , adding variety to classes that normally focus on solo or large-group learning.

First, make or identify tasks and questions that you’d typically find on worksheets or in textbooks.

Second, print and laminate cards that each contain a single task or question. Or, use Teachers Pay Teachers to buy pre-made cards . (Check out Prodigy Education's Teachers Pay Teachers page for free resources!)

Finally, set up stations around your classroom and pair students together to rotate through them.

You can individualize instruction by monitoring the pairs, addressing knowledge gaps when needed.

Asking questions about learning and studying styles can help you pinpoint the kinds of content that will meet your class’s needs.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity , pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

• Their favourite types of lessons
• Their favourite in-class activities
• Which projects they’re most proud of
• Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Track your results to identify themes and students with uncommon preferences, helping you determine which methods of instruction suit their abilities.

A lesson should resonate with more students if it targets visual, tactile, auditory and kinesthetic senses, instead of only one.

When applicable, appeal to a range of learning styles by:

• Playing videos
• Using infographics
• Providing audiobooks
• Getting students to act out a scene
• Incorporating charts and illustrations within texts
• Giving both spoken and written directions to tasks
• Using relevant physical objects, such as money when teaching math skills
• Allotting time for students to create artistic reflections and interpretations of lessons

Not only will these tactics help more students grasp the core concepts of lessons, but make class more engaging.

Prodigy Math Game , for example, is an engaging way to gamify math class in a way that worksheets simply cannot. 👇

To familiarize students with the idea of differentiated learning, you may find it beneficial to explain that not everyone builds skills and processes information the same way.

Talking about your own strengths and weaknesses is one way of doing this.

Explain -- on a personal level — how you study and review lessons. Share tactics that do and don’t work for you, encouraging students to try them.

Not only should this help them understand that people naturally learn differently, but give them insight into improving how they process information.

The think-pair-share strategy exposes students to three lesson-processing experiences within one activity. It’s also easy to monitor and support students as they complete each step.

As the strategy’s name implies, start by asking students to individually think about a given topic or answer a specific question.

Next, pair students together to discuss their results and findings.

Finally, have each pair share their ideas with the rest of the class, and open the floor for further discussion.

Because the differentiated instruction strategy allows students to process your lesson content individually, in a small group and in a large group, it caters to your classroom’s range of learning and personality types.

A journal can be a tool for students to reflect on the lessons you’ve taught and activities you’ve run, helping them process new information .

When possible at the end of class, give students a chance to make a journal entry by:

• Summarizing key points they’ve learned
• Attempting to answer or make sense of lingering questions
• Explaining how they can use the lessons in real-life scenarios
• Illustrating new concepts, which can be especially helpful for data-focused math lessons

As they continue to make entries, they should figure out which ones effectively allow them to process fresh content.

But if you're struggling to see the value of journaling in a subject like math, for example, you can make time specifically for math journaling. While you connect journaling to your own math objectives, students can make cross-curricular connections.

If you want to learn more, check out K-5 Math Teaching Resources for a detailed overview . Angela Watson at The Cornerstone for Teachers also has great math journal resources you can use in your own class!

An extension of journaling, have students reflect on important lessons and set goals for further learning at pre-determined points of the year.

During these points, ask students to write about their favourite topics, as well as the most interesting concepts and information they’ve learned.

They should also identify skills to improve and topics to explore.

Based on the results, you can target lessons to help meet these goals . For example, if the bulk of students discuss a certain aspect of the science curriculum, you can design more activities around it.

Organizing students into literature circles not only encourages students to shape and inform each other’s understanding of readings, but helps auditory and participatory learners retain more information.

This also gives you an opportunity to listen to each circle’s discussion, asking questions and filling in gaps in understanding.

As a bonus, some students may develop leadership skills by running the discussion.

This activity makes written content — which, at times, may only be accessible to individual learners with strong reading retention -- easier to process for more students.

Free study time will generally benefit students who prefer to learn individually, but can be slightly altered to also help their classmates process your lessons.

This can be done by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities.

Consider the following free study exercises to also meet the preferences of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners:

• Provide audiobooks, which play material relevant to your lessons
• Create a station for challenging group games that teach skills involved in the curriculum
• Maintain a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work
• Allow students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from the quiet space

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners — not just students who easily process information through quiet, individual work.

Heterogenous grouping is a common practice, but grouping students based on similar learning style can encourage collaboration through common work and thinking practices.

This is not to be confused with grouping students based on similar level of ability or understanding.

In some cases, doing so conflicts with the “Teach Up” principle , which is discussed below.

Rather, this tactic allows like-minded students to support each other’s learning while giving you to time to spend with each group. You can then offer the optimal kind of instruction to suit each group’s common needs and preferences.

Instead of focusing on written products, consider evaluating reading comprehension through questions and activities that test different aptitudes.

Although written answers may still appeal to many students, others may thrive and best challenge themselves during artistic or kinesthetic tasks.

For example, allow students to choose between some of the following activities before, during and after an important reading :

• Participating in more literature circles
• Delivering a presentation
• Writing a traditional report
• Creating visual art to illustrate key events
• Creating and performing a monologue as a main character or figure

Offering structured options can help students demonstrate their understanding of content as effectively as possible, giving you more insight into their abilities.

Similar to evaluating reading comprehension, give students a list of projects to find one that lets them effectively demonstrate their knowledge.

Include a clear rubric for each type of project, which clearly defines expectations. In fact, some teachers have their students co-create the rubric with them so they have autonomy in the work they'll be completing and being assessed on. Doing so will keep it challenging and help students meet specific criteria.

By both enticing and challenging students, this approach encourages them to:

• Work and learn at their own paces
• Engage actively with content they must understand
• Demonstrate their knowledge as effectively as possible

As well as benefiting students, this differentiated instruction strategy will clearly showcase distinct work and learning styles.

As well as offering set options, encourage students to take their projects from concept to completion by pitching you ideas.

A student must show how the product will meet academic standards, and be open to your revisions. If the pitch doesn’t meet your standards, tell the student to refine the idea until it does. If it doesn’t by a predetermined date, assign one of your set options.

You may be pleasantly surprised by some pitches.  

After all, students themselves are the focus of differentiated instruction — they likely have somewhat of a grasp on their learning styles and abilities.

Even if you’re confident in your overall approach, Carol Ann Tomlinson — one of the most reputable topic thought-leaders — recommends analyzing your differentiated instruction strategies:

Frequently reflect on the match between your classroom and the philosophy of teaching and learning you want to practice. Look for matches and mismatches, and use both to guide you.

Analyze your strategy by reflecting on:

• Content — Are you using diverse materials and teaching methods in class?
• Processes — Are you providing solo, small-group and large-group activities that best allow different learners to absorb your content?
• Products — Are you letting and helping students demonstrate their understanding of content in a variety of ways on tests, projects and assignments?

In doing so, you’ll refine your approach to appropriately accommodate the multiple intelligences of students . It's important to note, however, that recent studies have upended the theory of multiple intelligences. Regardless of where you stand on the multiple intelligences spectrum, the differentiated instruction strategy above remains valuable!

Teaching at a level that’s too easily accessible to each student can harm your differentiated instruction efforts, according to Tomlinson .

Instead, she recommends “teaching up.” This eliminates the pitfall of being stuck on low-level ideas, seldom reaching advanced concepts:

We do much better if we start with what we consider to be high-end curriculum and expectations -- and then differentiate to provide scaffolding, to lift the kids up .

The usual tendency is to start with what we perceive to be grade-level material and then dumb it down for some and raise it up for others. But we don’t usually raise it up very much from that starting point, and dumbing down just sets lower expectations for some kids.

Keeping this concept in mind should focus your differentiated teaching strategy, helping you bring each student up to “high-end curriculum and expectations.”

It has also grown particularly popular in the 2020s as educators have focused more on accelerated learning by "teaching up", as opposed to filling learning gaps.

As Elizabeth S. LeBlanc, Co-Founder of the Institute for Teaching and Learning, writes for EdSurge : "Accelerated learning approaches give a lower priority to repetition or 'skill-and-drill' uses of instructional technology. In other words, it’s not about memorizing everything you should have learned, it’s about moving you forward so you pick things up along the way. "

Differentiated Math Instruction Strategies and Examples

Some EdTech tools — such as certain educational math video games — can deliver differentiated content, while providing unique ways to process it.

For example, Prodigy adjusts questions to tackle student trouble spots and offers math problems that use words, charts and pictures, as well as numbers.

To the benefit of teachers, the game is free and curriculum-aligned for grades 1 to 8. You can adjust the focus of questions to supplement lessons and homework, running reports to examine each student’s progress.

Join over 90 million students and teachers using Prodigy's differentiating power today. 👇

Clearly linking math to personal interests and real-world examples can help some learners understand key concepts.

Working with 41 grade 7 students throughout an academic year, a 2015 study published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education used contextual learning strategies to teach integers and increase test scores by more than 44%.

Striving for similar benefits may be ambitious, but you can start by surveying students. Ask about their interests and how they use math outside of school.

Using your findings, you should find that contextualization helps some students grasp new or unfamiliar math concepts.

There are many math-related games and activities to find inspiration to implement this tactic.

Help students practice different math skills by playing a game that’s a take on tic-tac-toe.

Prepare by dividing a sheet into squares — three vertical by three horizontal. Don’t leave them blank. Instead, fill the boxes with questions that test different abilities.

For example:

• “Complete question X in page Y of your textbook”
• “Draw a picture to show how to add fraction X and fraction Y”
• “Describe a real-life situation in which you would use cross-multiplication, providing an example and solution”

You can hand out sheets to students for solo practice, or divide them into pairs and encourage friendly competition . The first one to link three Xs or Os — by correctly completing questions —  wins. 

So, depending on your preferences, this game will challenge diverse learners through either individual or small-group practice.

Provide differentiated math learning opportunities for your students by setting up unique learning stations across your classrooms, but forgoing mandatory rotations.

The idea comes from a grade 9 teacher in Ontario, who recommends creating three stations to solve similar mathematical problems using either:

• Data — Provide spreadsheets, requiring students to manipulate data through trial and error
• People — Group students into pairs or triads to tackle a range of problems together, supporting each other’s learning
• Things — Offer a hands-on option by giving each student objects to use when solving questions

Only allow students to switch stations if they feel the need. If they do, consult them about their decision. In each case, you and the student will likely learn more about his or her learning style.

Supplemented by your circulation between stations to address gaps in prior knowledge, this activity exposes students to exercises that appeal to diverse abilities.

Downloadable List of Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples

Click here to download and print a simplified list of the 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples to keep at your desk.

Differentiated Instruction Strategies Infographic

Here’s an infographic with 16 ideas from this article, provided by  Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  — an online resource for teaching tools and ideas.

Wrapping Up

With help from the downloadable list, use these differentiated instruction strategies and examples to suit the diverse needs and learning styles of your students.

As well as adding variety to your content, these methods will help students process your lessons and demonstrate their understanding of them.

The strategies should prove to be increasingly useful as you identify the distinct learning styles in — and learn to manage — your classroom .

Interested in other teaching strategies to deploy in your classroom?

Differentiated instruction strategies overlap in important ways with a number of other pedagogical approaches. Consider reviewing these supplementary strategies to find more ideas, combine different elements of each strategy, and enrich your pedagogical toolkit!

• Active learning strategies   put your students at the center of the learning process, enriching the classroom experience and boosting engagement.
• As opposed to traditional learning activities,  experiential learning activities  build knowledge and skills through direct experience.
• Project-based learning   uses an open-ended approach in which students work alone or collectively to produce an engaging, intricate curriculum-related questions or challenges.
• Inquiry-based learning   is subdivided into four categories, all of which promote the importance of your students' development of questions, ideas and analyses.
• Adaptive learning  focuses on changing — or "adapting" — learning content for students on an individual basis, particularly with the help of technology.

👉 Create or log into your teacher account on Prodigy — a game-based learning platform that delivers differentiated instruction, automatically adjusting questions to accommodate player trouble spots and learning speeds. Aligned with curricula across the English-speaking world, it’s used by more than 90 million students and teachers.

Differentiated Math Activities for 1st & 2nd Grade

Differentiated Math Activities With Math Sidekick

What is Math Sidekick? The Math Sidekick is your planning partner – that’s ME! Each month, members of Math Sidekick get access to differentiated math activities, centers, printables, and games!

Who is it for? – Math Sidekick was made for busy first and second-grade teachers that need a huge vault of differentiated math activities at their disposal!

So what’s so great about it? 52% of teachers say that the most difficult part of teaching math is differentiation! Therefore, finding activities that come in multiple levels can be SO time-consuming, so we’re here to help! Let us lighten your workload by providing math resources that come in multiple levels so you can differentiate so much easier!

What’s included in Math Sidekick? Each month, teachers in the Math Sidekick receive instant access to: 

• Math centers: Download hands-on activities, puzzles, task cards, and games! Each math center comes in two levels.
• Print & play activities: These partner games are a hit with students and require zero prep for the teacher! Every activity comes in two levels.
• Print & go worksheets: Assign independent practice activities easily with these differentiated worksheets. Every page comes in three levels!
• Exit tickets: Assessing students is easy with these quick, leveled exit tickets. Choose from three levels for every exit ticket!
• Video Tutorials: Join us each month for recorded tutorials and Facebook Live trainings filled with tips, tricks, and ideas to help support you.
• Facebook Community: Join other first and second grade teachers in our private Facebook community to ask questions and share advice with like-minded teachers!
• Access to the Membership Vault: Access over $100 worth of differentiated math centers, printables, assessments, and more!

With Math Sidekick you’ll be able to easily meet your student’s needs without taking up more planning time!

Join to Hear More!

Ready to be in the know for when the doors are open to join Math Sidekick so you can make planning a breeze? Just leave your information below and you’ll be the first to hear when the time comes!

Now, you’re one step closer to more free time with easily differentiated math lessons! Get more support and updates inside the Simply Creative Teachers Facebook Group here .

• Read more about: differentiation , Math

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Five Ways to Differentiate During Math Stations

Differentiation is one of the leading concerns and needs for classrooms today.  Teachers understand that teaching one math lesson directly to a roomful of students in one sitting does not meet all of the varied learning needs present.  But what should differentiation look like day to day that is sustainable for a busy teacher?  What are the best ways to seamlessly integrate differentiation and meet the needs of students with diverse abilities?  This post shares five ways to differentiate during math stations.

Differentiation During Math Stations

We all experience the great dilemma during whole group instruction in math.  We teach a lesson, and we are torn on whether to push forward, knowing some students need more instruction and practice on the content while also wanting to stall and reteach, knowing some students need to advance to more challenging content immediately.  Guided Math mini-lessons and workstations allow for the best of both worlds.  We can keep on track with our general math mini-lessons but provide much-needed differentiated instruction and student practice during small group workstations.  Let’s break it all down!

Before diving into five ways to differentiate, it’s important to know our goals for differentiation.   Let’s refresh our understanding of the tiers of intervention.  I do this because educators tend to think of Response to Intervention (RTI) and Tier 3 learners when the word differentiation is mentioned.  While we come by this thinking honestly, it’s been on our plates for over a decade, we will address all levels of students through these five ways to differentiate during math workstations.  All students have strengths and gaps in learning.  Targeting all students’ needs through the same differentiation techniques is rewarding, and the entire class benefits.

1. Grouping Students

When planning our guided math student groups or math workstation groups, we want to consider differentiation strategically.  In our Guided Math PD , we discuss different ways to group students for math workstations highlighting the pros and cons of each. No matter how we may group students for their workstations, we want to create a homogenous group at the teacher-led small group table.  Not only is it important to strategically group students for their time out at math stations away from the teacher, but we must also consider how we will meet with students in targeted instructional groups during math workstations.

While mixed ability grouping is a positive in cooperative learning situations, we don’t want to pair students from absolute opposite ends of ability level.  Research shows students do best even in mixed groupings when their groups consist of developmental and ability levels that are not extremely distant from their own.  While we hope our high achievers will scaffold and support our students still approaching learning targets, research shows that it happens more frequently when students have more academic common ground.  This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t create mixed-ability groups containing tier three and tier one students.  However, I would do so while also considering how their personalities will work together in a math activity.  The goal is to group students who work well in academic situations and can function independently of direct instruction from a teacher or aide during a math center.

2. Types of Math Stations/Centers

Designing the student experience is one of my favorite teacher roles.  What do I want students to do during their math station time?  We already know we will spend time meeting with students in a teacher-led small group station, but what else will students experience during their math workstations?  The research on math workstations is clear.  Math workstations provide practice of previously learned skills and concepts .  New skills are not present in workstations other than the teacher-led small group.  Students should be able to recognize and understand the math skill being asked and apply that math skill.  The purpose of this time is to provide refinement of skills through repeated practice in many formats.

Not only do we want to provide practice to students during math stations, but we also want to vary that practice to hit on different formats and modalities.  This means students visit a variety of different age-appropriate workstations.  Below, I share my math STACK system for workstations.  While you don’t need five workstations, these can provide ideas for creating a well-rounded math experience for students.  No matter where students fall in the RTI tiers, a well-rounded math experience will allow varied practice for all levels of learners.

The STACK stations are (teacher-led) S mall Group , T echnology , A pplication Station , C reate or C ommunicate Math Understanding, and K inesthetic Hands-on Math.

The descriptions for each station are ideas and would not all be happening at once.  Here’s how simple you can have your setup.  I sometimes use buckets, bins, or in this example, a simple three-drawer system.  The teacher-led small group is happening with me, so I keep my Guided Math Small Group lessons (not pictured) at my teacher table.  The technology round is Digital Guided Math eLessons so those are not pictured either.  I just push those out to the students in Google or on SeeSaw.  The only thing I have to have out for students are the three stations you see below: Apply, Create, and Kinesthetic.

Let’s take a look inside the drawers.

The apply station is independent practice.  It follows the new learning closely but not today’s lesson because some students will visit this before seeing me in a small group lesson.

The create station is the math journal entry.  Students work in their math journals for this round.

The kinesthetic drawer holds math center games.  These are hands-on math activities.

At the end of this post, there will be grade-level links to math STACK stations if you are interested.

3. Color-Coding Station Choices

Having a variety of workstations is step one of differentiation, but providing more targeted activities within those workstations is where we reach our Tier 2 and Tier 3 students.  A simple assignment of a color level to your groups will allow you to serve better their math learning needs out at stations.  While I may have five groups, I only have three color levels of activities out at workstations.  These three color assignments align with general above-level, on-level, and approaching-level labels.  This means I may have more than one group pulling from the same color level out at their stations.

4. Manipulatives and Math Tools for mathematical thinking

Manipulatives and math tools are very helpful in leveling the playing field for all ability levels during workstations.  Math manipulatives provide hands-on learning and skill understanding.  Providing manipulatives can make a more difficult activity accessible to a less experienced learner.

Below, these three math third grade math center activities on fractions are made much more concrete using fraction pieces, blocks, and models.  Using manipulatives allows students with limited fraction understanding to create models and understand the values of different fractions.

Determine the missing numerator

Compare fractions using the comparison symbols

Math workstation is from Stations by Standard

Create equivalent fractions

Likewise, math tools and mats can provide problem-solving help or information for reference when working mathematically.  First introduced in the teacher-led small group, students learn the procedures and types of tools to reference while working mathematically.  Then when out at workstations, students have their own community set of math tools they can grab when working.

Vocabulary and Strategy Cards from Intervention Solution and Standard Practice

This example shows the part-part-whole mat students can use at any grade level to solve for missing addends or subtrahends.

5. Strategies for Solving

Math is all about the process of solving.  How do we take a problem and find a solution?  What steps will we take to solve?  Sometimes students are overwhelmed just by knowing what process to take to solve.  This is where strategies swoop in to save the day.  In day-to-day math instruction, strategies are introduced and taught explicitly.  These strategies are then prominently displayed so students can easily refer to them for problem-solving.  We ask students to name the strategy and steps for solving as part of our math warm-ups and small group instruction .  Tier One students (everyone) will be taught the basic math strategies that we use most frequently for the skills and concepts of our grade level.  But in the teacher-led small group, I can scaffold the math strategies to fit the needs of the students in front of me as students work through their problems.

Math Word Wall Vocabulary by Grade Levels

Since we used fractions as our example earlier in this post, here are three examples of strategies cards pulled from our grades 3rd-5th math strategies visuals.  Students get comfortable naming the strategy and then showing it as they work.    This post shows more resources for math strategies instruction.

Below, these math strategies were pulled from the standard practice resource.  Their small size makes them easy to use on a focus board.

Intervention Solution for Tier 3 Students

For most of our students, the above differentiation provides effective math instruction and practice to bring students to confident mastery.  For those few students who struggle to respond to differentiation and targeted instruction within the regular guided math day, or they have all of their skills down and need enrichment, it is time for more intense targets and learning goals.  Enter the intervention solution !  This math intervention program allows teachers to effectively provide differentiated intervention, with progress monitoring built right in. Whether you have built-in time for intervention or you want to allow students extra time and practice, this resource provides differentiated tools to support both teachers and students.  You find the lesson probes aligned to the standards. Likewise, you’ll have the tracking and progress monitoring tools built right in for you.

MATH WORKSTATIONS BY GRADE LEVEL

If you are ready to provide a differentiated experience for students in grades K-5, we are here to help!  Our resources are vertically aligned and standards-based, which makes differentiating easy.  We can provide a lower- or higher-level skill with ease of mind.  To search all math activities by grade level, simply click your grade below.

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Examples of differentiated tasks: a way to meet the needs of a range of abilities in one class.

What is a differentiated task?

A differentiated task is a question or activity that allows for multiple entry points as well as multiple ways to solve. One of the purposes of using differentiated tasks is to meet the needs of the varying ability levels of students that we often find in a single math class. Traditional worksheets often require students to focus on solving procedures and the questions are usually the same level of difficulty. See the example below:

In this example we have a worksheet for adding double-digit numbers. If a student doesn’t understand this concept yet, they will not even be able to get started on the worksheet, and those that do know how to add double-digit numbers will be working at a procedural level for the entire worksheet (and in this case, because they are stacked, will likely only be doing digit addition, rather than number addition).

Furthermore you will likely have students who are very quick in doing the procedure and so they will be done before you can even get around to helping those that don’t have a clue how to get started (and these students may not even need this much extra practice of something that they already know how to do well). I am sure many teachers can relate to this scenario; we are often rushing to help those they can’t even get started, and are trying to help the occasional student who ‘gets stuck’ on a certain question, and before we can even get through all of the students who need help there are many who have finished the worksheet and are needing direction on what to do next.

Why Should I Use Differentiated Tasks?

When I use differentiated tasks many of the problems I mentioned above disappear. An added bonus to using the differentiated tasks is that students are working not just on their procedural fluency but also are developing stronger conceptual understanding of the math concepts. Furthermore, they are actually doing number addition rather than simply digit addition, and so are developing stronger number sense. These tasks are open enough that even a student who is not working at grade level mathematics can still access the question and develop their math skills.

For example if we look at the differentiated task “two numbers have a sum of 82, what could those two numbers be?” a possible solution could be 81+1 = 82. Students who don’t yet understand how to add double-digit numbers can still solve this problem by adding a double-digit number to a single digit number. Although we are not yet working on the skill (double digit addition) we are aiming for, I would much rather my students be engaged in solving the problem and developing their math skills, rather than just sitting with their hands up waiting for help. Because we are working on the skill of adding double-digit numbers, I would encourage my students to try to seek out as many solutions as they can using double-digit numbers.

For those students who already have a solid understanding of how to add double-digit numbers, they can be looking for patterns or could be solving a parallel task such as “add two double-digit numbers that have a sum of 82 and one of the numbers has a seven in the one’s place value”. Using this type of tasks engages all the students in your class, regardless of their current the ability level, or skill set and is designed to challenge them at their level.

I also like using these types of tasks because students are actually required to think about the sizes of numbers that they will use rather than just following a procedure (which, by the way, many don’t really even understand why it works). When working with a differentiated task like this one students are also able to work at their own pace; those who are thinking deeply, or process more slowly, or write more slowly, are still learning and are not being penalized for not being as fast and those who work more quickly.

The goal is for students to understand and be able to apply the concept of adding double-digit numbers and this understanding does not happen at the same rate or in the same way for every student, therefore, it makes sense to allow for different approaches and different quantities of practice questions.

Can I justify spending a whole lesson on one question?

It might seem odd to spend 40 minutes working on one question, but I find that my students are doing a lot of important thinking, learning, and practicing while they search for the solutions. I also notice that my students come away with a better understanding of the concept when I do a differentiated task, rather than the traditional style worksheet. It is important to discuss how the students are solving as they tend to come up with many creative strategies for solving the problem and their peers can benefit from examining multiple approaches to the same problem.

I will often have students come up and write their solutions on the board. We then examine the solutions and ensure they are correct. This is very empowering for students, especially those who have traditionally not done well in math. Students love having unique solutions and it is a positive learning experience when there are many correct answers. It is also valuable for students to see and hear the different approaches that their peers took when solving the problem. These types of questions require more thinking rather than simply doing and as we know, mathematics should be a combination of both.

Differentiated tasks you can use in the classroom

You will find below some samples of differentiated tasks for some of the more basic whole number operations. With time and practice, you can create your own differentiated tasks based on the math concept that you are working on. A couple of tips that might help you get started are:

1. Give the students an answer and the operation and ask them to create the questions

2. Give a range of the numbers that can be used to salsa question (this way students can choose easier for more challenging numbers, based on their current skill level)

3. Create a worksheet by omitting part of the question and giving the answer. (See examples of questions below – note that the questions with an asterisk have more than one possible solution)

Whole Number Addition

Differentiated task: Two numbers have a sum of 873. What could the two numbers be?

This task has so many different answers and could be done too simply for some students– because 872+ 1 would suffice. If you want them to work on the skill of adding multi-digit numbers together, then you could try some tasks like these:

1. ) Differentiated Task: Add 2 three-digit numbers that have a sum of 873. What can the two numbers be? Find as many solutions as you can.

2.) Differentiated Task: Add 2 multi-digit numbers that have a sum of 873. What can the two numbers be? Find as many solutions as you can.

3.) Parallel task: Add 2 three-digit numbers that have a sum of 873 and one of the numbers has a nine in the one’s place. What can the two numbers be? Find as many as you can. Do you see a pattern?

4.) Parallel task: Add 2 three digit numbers that have a sum of 873 and one of the numbers is about twice as big as the other. What can the two numbers be? How did you solve this?

Hint: Using Base 10 Blocks makes this activity far easier for most students. However, if the student chooses to solve the problems symbolically but then get stuck, you can ask them to use the Base 10 Blocks as a problem-solving tool, or as a way to get “unstuck”.

Task that shows you if your students understand contexts in which adding is the necessary operation to solve: Create a story problem that would be solved by calculating 345 + 143.

Whole Number Subtraction

1.) Differentiated task: 2 three-digit numbers have been subtracted and have a difference of 163, what could the two numbers be?

2.) Differentiated task: 2 multi-digit numbers have been subtracted and have a difference of 163, what could the two numbers be?

3.) Parallel task: 2 three-digit numbers have been subtracted and have a difference of 163, however one of the numbers has a nine in the one’s place. What’s could the two numbers be? Find at least five different solutions. Can you see a pattern amongst the solutions?

4.) Differentiated task: 2 three-digit numbers have been subtracted and have a difference of 27, what could the two numbers be? What strategy or strategies did you use to solve this? Find at least five different solutions.

Task that shows you if your students understand contexts in which subtracting is the necessary operation to solve: Create a story problem that will be solved by calculating 817-286.

Whole Number Multiplication

1.) Differentiated task: Two numbers have a product of 24, what could the two numbers be? Find all of the solutions you can using whole numbers.

2.) Differentiated task: A rectangle has an area of 36 what can the dimensions be? Find as many solutions as you can.

3.) Differentiated tasks: Two numbers have a product of 196, what could the two numbers be? Find as many solutions as you can. How did you solve this?

4.) Differentiated task: Two 2-digit numbers have a product between 400 and 600, what could the numbers be? Find as many solutions as you can. What was your strategy for finding your solutions?

5.) Parallel task: Two numbers have a product between 400 and 600, what could the numbers be? Find as many solutions as you can. What was your strategy for finding your solutions?

6.) Differentiated task: A number of friends are chipping in equal amounts of money to buy a gift for their teacher. The gift costs between $60 and $70, how many friends chipped in and how much money did they each chip in? Find as many different solutions as you can–which solutions are the easiest find? What strategy did you use?

Task that shows you if your students understand contexts in which multiplying is the necessary operation to solve: Create a story problem that would be solved by solving 4×6.

Whole Number Division:

1.) Differentiated task: David has between $400 and $600, he is going to divide it equally between his children, how much would each child get and how many kids could he have? Which numbers did you choose to make the work easier? Which numbers would you choose for more of a challenge?

2.) Parallel Task: David has between $400-$600 and is going to divide it equally between his 3 children. How much could each child get? Which numbers did you choose to make the work easier? Which numbers would you choose for more of a challenge?

3.) Parallel Task: David has $460 and is going to divide it equally between his 3 children. Show at least two different ways to do this division. (Hint: try breaking up $460 in many different ways that would help make it easier to divide by 3).

4.) Differentiated Task: Jamie has 75 toys and needs to share them equally with 6 kids. How many toys will each kid get? Will there be any toys leftover?

Task that shows you if your students understand contexts in which dividing is the necessary operation to solve: Create a story that would be solved by 45 ÷ 6 and include what any remainders mean in your story.

Give it a try!

I encourage you to try using some differentiated tasks and see, hear and feel how it is different from traditional worksheets and textbooks. Remember to tell your students that the goal is to deepen understanding, explore patterns and strategies and be creative! Please write in and share your experiences (good and bad) so we can all learn from each other. Have fun with it and see where it goes!

Educating Now was created due to teacher requests to have Nikki as their daily math coach. The site has lesson by lesson video tutorials for teachers to help them prep for their next math class and incorporate manipulatives, differentiated tasks, games and specific language into their class. Teachers who use the site can improve student engagement and understanding, in addition to saving prep time, by watching a 10 minute video tutorial and downloading a detailed lesson plan.

My mission is for teachers to feel great about their impact on student learning. I make it easy for teachers to prepare and deliver lessons that will change lives.

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Differentiation in Math: Strategies to Support ALL Students in the Math Classroom

Differentiated instruction.

Just reading or hearing that phrase can sometimes be enough to send math teachers into a panic. Differentiation in math seems like an insurmountable challenge. No two students are the same. They may differ in their cognitive abilities, learning styles and preferences, levels of motivation, culture, socioeconomic status, language…the list goes on. How can math teachers adapt their curriculum and lessons to meet the needs of every single student? Is it even possible? Yes, it is! In fact, incorporating differentiated instruction strategies in the math classroom can be rather simple. If you don’t believe me, keep reading and I’ll tell you how!

Why are Differentiated Instruction Strategies Important in Math?

One size doesn’t fit all. A structured math curriculum is highly unlikely to provide the appropriate level of support for all students. Differentiated instruction strategies tailor lessons to help students reach their highest potential, ensuring that they not only understand important mathematical concepts but also develop a growth mindset and a genuine passion for the subject.

Who exactly benefits from differentiated instruction strategies in math? Differentiation is important for struggling students, advanced students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Even students working at grade level need differentiated instruction. Every student benefits from differentiated instruction strategies. Instead of thinking of differentiation on an individual student basis, we can adapt our whole-class instruction to accommodate every student’s needs.

Strategies for Differentiation in Math that Support ALL Students

Differentiation in math doesn’t necessarily mean giving students different assignments or problems or completely overhauling your existing curriculum. Differentiating instruction can be very simple with small tweaks to your current lessons as they already are.  

1) Offer choices and flexibility.

Allow students to use different problem solving strategies and methods. When they see that the same answer can be reached multiple ways and with different representations (graphs, tables, equations, pictures, etc.), students feel more confident in their abilities and are more likely to take risks in the classroom because they approach math with a growth mindset.

2) Start with concrete examples, manipulatives, and visual models.

Using visual models and representations to introduce a new topic can empower students by providing them the opportunity to discover problem solving strategies and procedures at their own pace and level. You can read more about how I use visual models to teach students how to solve equations here .

3) Allow students to work together.

With partner and group work, students learn from and assist each other and share different perspectives. I have several unique and engaging activities in my store that involve student collaboration. You might like:

• Integer Operations Partner Practice
• Algebraic Expressions Partner Practice
• Algebraic Expressions Group Activity (Create-a-Picture)
• Solving Equations Partner Practice Activities Bundle
• One- and Two-Step Equations Group Activity (Create-a-Picture)
• Multi-Step Equations Group Activity (Create-a-Picture)
• Slope Partner Practice
• Systems of Equations Partner Practice
• Factoring Quadratic Expressions Partner Practice Activities Bundle

Like what you’re reading?

Never miss another blog post from Light Bulb Moments in Math!

4) Utilize technology when appropriate.

Desmos provides free activities that allow students to work at their own pace and share their answers privately with their teacher. Students feel comfortable participating with Desmos because they can answer questions in their own way and receive timely feedback without feeling scared about being called on to speak in class. Many Desmos activities also give students the chance to edit their answers as they learn more and adjust their thinking.

5) Incorporate guided discovery activities.

Guided discovery encourages students to explore mathematical concepts at their own pace and level, fostering a deeper understanding and a sense of accomplishment. This method promotes critical thinking, problem solving skills, a growth mindset, and conceptual understanding of math concepts. Students get the opportunity to develop a deep understanding of how and why mathematical rules, formulas, and algorithms work. Guided discovery is one of my favorite great differentiated instruction strategies because students can experience math in a way that makes the most sense to them. Students can play around with different ideas and strategies and make their own connections with the material. 

I wrote a blog post all about how you can use guided discovery to revamp your lessons. I hope you enjoy it!

If you’re looking for discovery-based activities to use with your students, I’ve got you covered. I have a few discovery-based activities and lessons in my store , but I’m working on creating many more! Here are some of my personal favorites that I know you and your students will also love.

• Slope-Intercept Form Investigation Activity
• Linear Inequalities Notes and Practice Worksheet
• Identifying Functions Notes and Practice Worksheet
• Absolute Value Functions Transformations Investigation
• Quadratic Functions Transformations Investigation

6) Assign low-floor, high-ceiling tasks.

All students can access the task (low-floor), but it can be extended and differentiated for various levels of difficulty (high-ceiling). Students complete the task at their own pace and level of understanding. Low-floor, high-ceiling tasks validate student thinking and help build confidence by focusing on what they CAN do.

My favorite online resources for tasks are:

• Which One Doesn’t Belong?
• Notice and Wonder
• Would You Rather Math
• Estimation 180
• Open Middle Math

Two other types of low-floor, high-ceiling tasks are open questions and parallel tasks. Open questions begin with the same task but allow for many possible answers and problem solving strategies. Teachers can create open questions by:

• Providing the answer. Students come up with the question.
• Asking students to list similarities and differences between two things.
• Asking students to fill in blank values with numbers of their choice. 

Parallel tasks focus on one concept but have different questions for different levels, and students can choose which question they want to complete. An example might look like solving a multi-step equation with all integer coefficients or an equation with fractional coefficients. Students still practice the same skill but at a level with which they are comfortable.

Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction in the Standards-Based Classroom by Marian Small and Carol Ann Tomlinson shares dozens of examples of open questions and parallel tasks with variations for each task as well as sample student responses and possible teacher moves. I really enjoy Good Questions for its excellent ideas for differentiation. I often used the tasks in this book for warm-ups in my classes, and they always got students thinking, talking, and collaborating. (Note: This is not an affiliate link.)

7) Provide individual whiteboards for students to use during whole-class instruction.

Many students feel intimidated to answer questions in class for fear of being wrong, and individual whiteboards eliminate this pressure. Individual whiteboards are perfect for differentiating instruction in math because students can participate at their own pace and answer questions and receive feedback more privately than answering questions verbally in front of the whole class. Students don’t need to be embarrassed about everyone seeing their answers in case they are wrong or if they solved the problem a different way. Students feel safer to actively participate with individual whiteboards.

8) Resist the temptation to lower the bar for struggling students!

How can you scaffold instruction and provide the support that your struggling students need to be successful with grade-level content? I answer this question and more in this blog post about remediation in math through accelerated learning. (SPOILER: Accelerated learning isn’t what it sounds like!)

Incorporating differentiated instruction strategies in our math classrooms is not just about supporting the diverse needs of our students; it’s also about empowering them to become confident and proficient with math. Embracing our students’ diversity and adapting our instruction to support their needs improves academic performance and encourages students to give their best effort and participate freely. The best part is that differentiating instruction in math doesn’t have to be difficult or take a ton of time. By making simple tweaks to whole-class instruction that I’ve shared in this post, math teachers can create a dynamic and inclusive learning environment where every student has the opportunity to reach their highest potential.

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Beyond the Textbook: Why I Create My Own Mathematics Instructional Materials

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35+ Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples for K-12 Classrooms

Personalize the content, process, product, or learning environment.

As a teacher, you already know that every student in your classroom is different. They have their own personalities, their own likes and dislikes, and their own ways of learning best. Differentiated instruction strategies give every kid a chance to succeed by adapting the learning to fit their needs. Add these examples of differentiated instruction strategies to your teacher toolkit so you can use them all year long.

What is differentiated instruction?

Differentiated instruction strategies mean tailoring your teaching so all students engage with the curriculum in meaningful ways. The result of differentiated instruction strategies is that all students learn.  Carol Ann Tomlinson  introduced the concept of differentiation in the 1990s, and now it’s just part of teaching. Tomlinson identified four ways that teachers differentiate:

• Content: What is taught
• Process: How it’s taught
• Product: How students show what they have learned
• Learning environment: The classroom and learning environment

Tomlinson’s differentiation model created new ways for teachers to think about how they provide and shape opportunities for students to engage with content, from flexible seating to choice boards.

Learn more: What Is Differentiated Instruction?

Here are our favorite differentiation strategies to make the aspects of learning work for every student.

Strategies To Differentiate Content

Differentiating content means adjusting lessons and materials based on what students are ready for and depending on students’ strengths and needs. This may mean providing support with vocabulary before students start writing, or helping students build background knowledge before heading into a history unit.

Give pre-assessments

Before you present a new topic, take a few minutes to find out what kids already know. Their responses might change what you decide to teach. If they already know all about area and perimeter of 2D shapes, for example, you may spend less time teaching 2D shapes and move on to 3D shapes.

Use leveled readers

Especially as students learn to read, providing students with books that have sound patterns and words they can read is an important differentiation strategy. As they get older and are reading to learn, provide students with texts that they are familiar with or that you are confident they can access with the reading skills they know. For older students who struggle with reading, using hi-lo books is a great way to give them an engaging experience with text.

Read more: How to use leveled books with the Science of Reading

Use vocabulary lists

When students are writing or working on projects, offer shorter or longer word lists depending on the students’ background knowledge. Vocabulary lists are a great way to build students’ vocabulary whether they’re learning English or they excel in vocabulary.

Use our word lists for summer , winter , and seasonal events like Halloween and Valentine’s Day to start differentiating.

Pre-teach knowledge and vocabulary

Pre-teach the vocabulary and concepts that students need to know before they engage with a lesson. This could be math concepts (perimeter, area), history terms, or science vocabulary. This strategy is especially important for students who are learning English and those who struggle with reading comprehension because of low vocabulary.

Get it: Vocabulary worksheets

Pre-teach a group of experts

Another way to pre-teach is to teach a small group of students. Then, rely on these students to be your “experts” during whole-group learning. Use this strategy regularly, but switch up the student experts.

Use diverse content

Ensure your reading choices include diverse and multicultural characters, settings, and authors . Having diverse books allows students to connect with content, either by seeing themselves in text or by learning about others’ experiences.

Learn more: What Are Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors?

Strategies To Differentiate Process

When we differentiate process, we’re differentiating how students engage in the learning. The way we ask questions, how we teach students to collaborate, and how we organize the learning experience all impact how students learn.

Be strategic with questions

Create ways for students to answer more difficult questions as they learn more about a topic. That could mean that students engage with open-ended questions as they read more about a science event, or that students think through how a math concept applies to real-world scenarios.

Teach color-coding

Color-coding can work in all sorts of classroom applications, including organization, routines, and organizing and highlighting content and notes. The idea is to help students use color-coding to bring organization and focus as students are learning.

Learn more: Color-Coding in the Classroom

Implement a stoplight system

As students are working, it’s important to have a system to ensure they’re learning what you want them to. A stoplight system is an easy, nonverbal (read: quiet) way to check for understanding. Each student has three cups—one green, one yellow, and one red. The color of the cup corresponds with how they feel about what they’re learning. Green means they’re good to go, yellow means they’re struggling, and red means they’re stuck entirely. If you don’t have cups, try this with sticky notes or folded desk tents.

Plan cooperative learning

Cooperative learning describes a strategy where students work together in small groups under supervision to accomplish a goal. Create groups based on student needs and abilities. Once you know your students, you can put groups together quickly, and adjust them based on the activity and goal.

Assign must-dos and may-dos

Not all students need extra time; in fact, some finish everything up too quickly! That’s where the ability to provide enrichment activities comes in handy. For any lesson, be prepared with “must-do” and “may-do” activities. This helps kids prioritize the most important items and gives fast finishers meaningful work to do too.

Learn more: The Case for Must-Dos and May-Dos

Use graphic organizers

Graphic organizers are a way to organize information using a visual. There are standard graphic organizers, like a timeline or this free Venn diagram printable . Or students can create their own graphic organizers to organize what they’re learning.

Learn more: Graphic Organizers and How To Use Them

Have students lead lessons

Assign students a topic or let them pick their own, then ask them each to become an expert and plan a lesson to share with the class. Encourage them to think of creative ways to share the information, planning interactive activities they themselves would like to do in the classroom. You’re bound to get a lot of new teaching strategies yourself!

Give real-life examples

Whenever possible, use real examples to show kids how a topic applies to real life. In math, money activities can be especially effective. In reading, connect assignments to topics that students are genuinely interested in. The more students see the connection to real life, the more engaged they’ll be.

Let students sketch

Give students the option of using sketchnotes to keep track of their thoughts and learning about a topic. Teach students the process and how to decide what to capture in their sketchnotes, then provide the option for students that love this type of note-taking.

Learn more: Creative Ways To Use Sketchnotes in Your Classroom

This one is all about teacher patience. When you ask your class a question, don’t immediately call on the first person to raise their hand. Instead, wait a few more seconds, and call on someone whose hand came up a little later. This allows students who need more time to process a chance to get their ideas out too.

Listen to audiobooks

Unless reading itself is key to the topic you’re presenting, consider letting students listen to an audiobook instead. This lets them focus on the content, rather than just the words and sentences.

Learn more: Places Kids Can Listen to Free Audiobooks

Provide writing supports

If handwriting is a challenge, explore options like special pencil grips or try one of these easy hacks . When handwriting isn’t the learning goal, offer kids options like oral responses or typing instead.

Teach with manipulatives

These aren’t just for little kids! Make math manipulatives available to older students too. Having hands-on materials to work with, whether it’s counting out change or showing how many hundreds are in a thousand, helps make concepts more concrete.

Chunk and scaffold

Provide support for students by breaking down learning into manageable chunks and providing teaching opportunities that move students from one small skill to the next.

Learn more: Ways to scaffold instruction

Assign evens or odds

When giving homework assignments or practice worksheets, give students who need extra time the option to complete only the even or odd questions. This gives them effective practice but keeps them motivated.

Self-paced learning

Use computer programs to help students progress at their own pace. Of course, you’ll need to ensure students stay on task when they’re working independently. Also, remember that a computer program may only have the ability to explain things one way, so be ready to step in and give kids information in other ways when needed.

Many students learn best when their bodies are involved. Active math games, like fishing for numbers, stomping on a number line, or jumping to practice math facts, are great ways to practice learning with students’ whole bodies.

Learn more: Active Math Games and Activities

Think-pair-share

Before students share out in a whole group, have them turn to a partner and share their ideas. This way every student can share in a way that feels more comfortable. And you’ll know that every student has had a chance to participate whether they love sharing in the spotlight or not.

Learn more: Fun Alternatives to Think-Pair-Share to get students talking

In a Jigsaw, students are divided into groups. Each group has a text to read and each student is assigned to become an expert on one portion of the text. This breaks a longer text into manageable chunks and allows each student to become an expert. For students who require more support, assign the introduction or conclusion, where information is typically more explicit.

Strategies To Differentiate Product

Differentiating product means letting students have voice and choice in how they present what they learned.

Choice boards

Choice boards are, well, boards, with a few different choices for students to show what they know. Being allowed to pick and choose encourages kids to take responsibility for their choices. To make this work, determine what goals all students need to achieve. Then, let them come up with ways to demonstrate those goals, or give them a few options that appeal to different types of learners.

Learn more: How I Use Choice Boards To Increase Student Engagement

Book reports with choices

When all students have to read a book and need to report on what they read, differentiate the product with multiple report options. Students can show what they learned through a skit, poster, presentation, and more .

Get it: Free Book Report Printables for Grades 3-5

Alternate assessments

Alternative assessments provide ways to differentiate in your classroom by giving students multiple ways to show what they know. For students who struggle with writing, consider a discussion instead (unless you’re specifically working on writing skills). Instead of a traditional book report, have students turn the story into their own graphic novel. Find ways to help students shine!

Learn more: Alternative Assessment Ideas

Make a game

Students in a high school business class create a game to show the role of Human Resource professionals in a company. We love this idea to turn content into a game! It challenges students to use their creativity to explain concepts that, let’s face it, can be a bit dry.

Strategies To Differentiate the Learning Environment

A differentiated learning environment is one where every student has equal access to learning. It’s about routines and procedures and how you set up and use the space every day.

Small groups

Small groups, whether organized by skill level, interest, or randomly assigned, give students a way to learn together.

Learn more: Small Group Instruction Strategies and Tips for Success

Create different learning spaces

Allow students to choose how they sit (or sprawl) while they’re working. Use pillows, varied lighting, and different types of seating to create spaces for small group collaboration, quiet contemplation, reading, and project work. Provide noise-canceling headphones, fidgets, or other tools to help them concentrate.

Learn more: Types of Learning Spaces To Include in Your Elementary Classroom

Hang anchor charts

Good news! Those anchor charts hanging all over your walls are a popular differentiation strategy. They give students a reference for important information, and allow them to access information after the lesson is over.

Learn more: Anchor Charts 101

Start peer buddies

Pairing students of varying levels as buddies benefits all kids. Some schools pair those with disabilities with a buddy to help them as needed. Others pair older students with younger ones. Whatever you choose, plan your program carefully and monitor pairings to ensure they’re working out.

Get a co-teacher

Just as students have different learning styles, teachers have different instructional styles as well. Use this to your advantage! You don’t necessarily need to co-teach full-time. Work as a team with your fellow teachers to learn what their styles are like, and consider switching things up from time to time by trading duties for certain lessons or subjects.

Learn more: Things Successful Co-Teachers Do

Flexible grouping

Instead of leaving students in the same-leveled reading groups at all times, mix up your groupings by interest, readiness, or learning styles.

Flexible seating

Provide different seating options for students. Wobble chairs, pillows, beanbags, and old-fashioned desks and chairs allow students to choose how they work best.

Learn more: How To Make a Pool Noodle Sensory Chair

Center work allows kids to go at their own pace and work however they want, without feeling the need to keep up with others.

Check out the big list of K-2 literacy centers to get started.

Student surveys

An important way to improve your differentiation is by asking students. Surveying students in conversation or with a formal question-and-answer format, like our printable end-of-class survey, can help you reflect on which aspects of differentiation had the most impact on students and where you can add or adjust differentiation in the future.

Get it: End-of-Class Survey Printable

Differentiated Instruction Strategies Books

• How To Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms (Tomlinson, 2017)
• Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom (Sousa/Tomlinson, 2018)
• How To Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3 (Walpole/McKenna, 2017)
• Differentiation in the Elementary Grades (Doubet/Hockett, 2017)
• Differentiation in Middle and High School (Doubet/Hockett, 2015)

What are your go-to differentiated instruction strategies? Come share your ideas and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, if you enjoyed these differentiated instruction strategies, check out what is scaffolding in education, you might also like.

What Is Scaffolding in Education? A Guide for Teachers

Let's break this concept down to make it easier to understand. Continue Reading

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5 Fun Ways to Teach Word Problems & Engage Students

Problem-solving is vital for math success, which we can all foster in our students. For many, word problems seem intimidating. They cringe at the mere mention of story problems, feeling daunted by the challenge. But who says tackling word problems has to be mundane?

Today, I’m eager to introduce fun ways to teach word problems that will invigorate your math sessions. With these lively methods, you might turn some problem-solving skeptics into enthusiasts!

5+ Fun Ways to Teach Word Problems Your Students Will LOVE

These fun ways to teach word problems will transform the daunting realm of story problems into an engaging and delightful journey. Whether through a word problem scavenger hunt or by tapping into students’ unique interests, these techniques ensure your learners grasp and excel in solving math problems.

You can easily adapt each activity to cater to the individual needs of your students, ensuring differentiation and personalization. For instance, if students grapple with a specific type of story problem, craft a game or activity that zooms in on that challenge. For those who lean towards visual learning, provide a set of illustrations for them to decipher.

1. Make a game out of it! Make word problem activities interactive.

Many students find problem-solving boring and tedious. Adding a gaming element to the mix can bring some excitement back for learners, and the great news is there are so many options for HOW you do this.

Here are two options that my students have loved:

Math Problem Solving Task Card Scavenger Hunt

Turn word problem task cards into a classroom scavenger hunt by posting them in secret locations around the room.

Add 3-4 answer choices on separate index cards under each task card. On the back of the card with the correct answer, give a clue to find the next task card.

If you’re looking for a ready-made set of task cards to start with, here’s a great option: Word Problem Task Cards

Word Problem Escape Challenge

It can be hard to find word problem activities that cater to differentiation. However, this is a great way to scaffold story problems for struggling learners in a way that feels FUN.

Take your problems and break down the skills students will need to have. Each of these will become one step of the escape room, leading to the final step, where they’ll be asked to solve a multi-step word problem to “escape.”

For example, pull all the computations students will eventually do for your problems. Use these to create a secret coded message. Students must solve the message to get to the next step. However, they won’t know they’ve already practiced the math needed for the word problems!

Continue this progression by giving parts of problems and having them work up to problem-solving to escape.

2. Use unique manipulatives to help students visualize the story problem.

It’s easy to get stuck in rote practice of the same problems. Instead, think outside the box! Use visuals and fun manipulatives that are not only engaging for students but also help them better understand the problem.

For example, when working on money problems, you can have students use money to model transactions or create a store to buy items and calculate change. However, this is just one option. I’ve found mini-erasers come in so many different shapes that I can often find examples to help my students better understand the problem. I recently used food-shaped mini-erasers to model a problem to find how many items could be purchased within a given budget. These manipulatives were much more fun and engaging, making it easy for my learner to see available alternatives. You can also find great holiday-themed miniatures at craft stores, like the cute mini gingerbread men you see below.

3. Bring on the drama! Role-play math word problems.

Drama in the classroom may sound like a bad thing. Yet, in this case, it can be a great way to get students excited about math problem solving. Get creative and have students act out word problems by creating characters, setting a scene, and having them act out the problem.

Role-playing has many benefits for learners, including boosting engagement, motivation, and helping students see themselves as problem solvers.

For example, have them create a store scenario where they role-play, asking for change or using coupons. This can help students better visualize the problem. It also makes story problems easier for learners who need to see a story unfold before them.

4. Utilize cooperative learning strategies during word problem activities.

Working with a partner can make math problem-solving much more enjoyable for students. This is especially true if you use cooperative learning strategies to engage learners meaningfully. A few ideas include having students take turns solving parts of the problem, having them check each other’s work and offer feedback, or having students create their word problems to present to the class.

Using cooperative learning strategies allows students to practice problem-solving in a way that is more engaging and encourages collaboration. It also helps develop higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing and critiquing, that are important for success in problem-solving.

5. Make word problems relevant to real-life.

Students often struggle with word problems because they can’t connect with the scenarios. To make word problems more relevant and exciting to students, try incorporating your students’ names, seasonal topics, or holidays into the problem. It will help them connect and tie the math to something real in their everyday lives.

Taking the time to craft word problems around what is happening in their lives makes mathematical mastery easier, more exciting, and enjoyable for everyone involved. It can also make them more willing to engage in the productive struggle required to become master problem solvers.

My Problem of the Day: Daily Problem Solving resources are designed with this engagement strategy in mind! Each month’s problems incorporate seasonal themes and holidays, and weekly problems center around a fun fact and single theme to engage learners.

Available for grades 2-8, click your grade level below to grab a free week to try it out with your learners and learn more.

Problem Solving doesn’t have to be boring!

Math problem solving is a critical skill for students to acquire. Incorporating fun and interactive strategies such as making a game out of it, using manipulatives, role-playing, cooperative learning, and making it relevant to real life can make all the difference in ensuring your students are confident problem solvers and further developing their love of math.

By applying these fun ways to teach word problems, you can make math problem-solving practice more enjoyable for your students. Not only will they be engaged in the word problem activities, but it will also help them develop a deeper understanding of the concepts. Give it a try and see how your students respond! Good luck!

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Differentiated Problem Solving: A New Approach

I know so many of you have been looking for a way to build deep math thinking with your intermediate students–I know this because I get questions about it all the time!  

 You want your students to be challenged in new and interesting ways—and be easily able to differentiate so that ALL your students can benefit, right? Here’s the problem…what’s challenging for some is way too tricky for others, right?  Or you want to give a task–and you do–and then 1/3 of your class is finished in minutes and asking for more while others have barely gotten started.  (Tell me that I’m not the only one this happens to!)

I often get people asking me what a “typical” math class looks like in my room–and I have to be honest.  THere is no such thing.  I feel like I operate on a menu system…I have all these “tasty” things and I serve them up when I think it makes the most sense!  That being said, here are a few suggestions for working these quality tasks into your day. *Use as a “bell ringer” or warm up task. The goal of this should not be getting a correct answer, but the actual WORK of doing the problem solving! Each question has a starting point which can be used whole-class (you choose how much modeling/help) and then parts 2 and 3 can be used for everyone—or just for students who are ready! The colored slides are perfect to project from your computer…you can click to the next slides to show parts 2 and 3…but if students aren’t ready, no big deal! The original problem appears on every slide! *Print and laminate and use as task cards at a problem solving station. These half-page cards are low ink and are perfect for math rotations, math workshop, guided math, or for fast finishers.  Whether you do rotations or organize your stations differently, having quality problems ready to go really saves your time. *Use as a reproducible problem-solving journal. I typed these problems up in a journal format with a full page of work space for the first part of the problem–with parts 2 and 3 copied on the next page. Copying the entire journal only takes 12 pieces of paper (without the cover) and is full of the 36 tasks. These can be used in so many ways—and even flexibly within a given classroom. I have some students who only do part of the collections–and others who might have the time and motivation to do much, much more. *Consider using open-ended tasks as enrichment opportunities for students needing just a bit more. This is perfect–whether you have one student or a handful.  They can work together, practice that accountable math talk, and push each other.

Problem solving is not easy!

Like many of my resources, this set of problems is certainly not meant to be a time filler! It is meant to be a rich and meaningful problem solving experience for you to use with your students. HOW you use it is up to you!  I know we are all busy…but the time we invest in modeling some of the thinking and strategies needed with this type of problem REALLY pays off in the long run as students become more and more independent. 

When I use tasks like this with MY students, there are a few things I like to make very clear and I think really contribute to building a culture for problem solving.  One of the most important things that I think teachers need to keep in mind is that we often “overteach”.  We TELL too much.  We push our own strategies and ideas onto them–even if they aren’t quite ready for them.  Before I used this problem with my students, I thought about how I would solve this as an adult–and then thought about what might get students off track.  In this case…I did NOT want to show students my “boxes” (although for a few students I did coach them in this direction after they had worked awhile), but I DID want to make sure students understood the task–and the terms (like digits) so that they didn’t waste time.  I didn’t TELL them what the task was…but students worked in pairs to make sense of it, then we came back as a whole group to discuss it and get on the same page.

Push Yourself!

Interested in checking out this set of problems?  Just click HERE or the image below.

Want to pin this for later?  Here you go!

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Making Sense of Mathematics

Differentiating: Using parallel tasks in your math lesson

At the start of this school year in our elementary school, we decided to focus on differentiation strategies all teachers can use in their classroom. To be more specific, we invited all teachers to explore strategies they can use during Tier 1 instruction (RTI), not necessarily differentiating for students with moderate or severe disabilities, but strategies that can make the learning accessible for all students in the classroom.

Students that require Tier 2 or Tier 3 instruction benefit rom support from the Math Learning Support Specialists AND benefit from these Tier 1 interventions and learning experiences in their classroom.

During our first team meetings, all teams from kindergarten to 5 th grade explored a variety of strategies we could learn about and put into practice, and were invited to develop a professional team or individualized goal as part of our annual professional growth and evaluation model.

“Parallel tasks” was a popular strategy the teachers identified. I’d like to share some simple strategies so you can give it a try.

Mathematically Gifted

Let’s not forget about our students who are able to show proficiency during the pre-assessment! We also need to intentionally plan for them. I am not referring to students who get answers quick or have memorized algorithms that give the impression of understanding mathematics; I’m talking about students who can problem solve by choosing the most efficient strategy to solve a problem, show their thinking with a pictorial or more abstract model, and can explain how they solved a problem and why they chose a particular strategy. Do you have some of those students? We do. There are not many, but there are some.

There are many strategies for them, however in this blog I will only explore parallel tasks. However, I do want to mention some strategies to AVOID with these students:

• MOTS : More Of The Same work. This is the least appropriate way to respond. Students might start to hide their abilities.
• FREE TIME: Students might find this rewarding, but it does not maximize their intellectual growth. Students will hurry to finish without giving it their best effort. Other students that require more thinking time, will feel they are “not good at math”.
• HELPERS : This does not stimulate their intellectual growth, and will put students in socially uncomfortable and undesirable situations.
• PULL-OUT : This practice tends to be unrelated to the regular math classroom, and it does not allow students to go deeper in their understanding of the math content they are learning in class. Unfortunately, many of us did this for years!
• COMPUTER TIME : Although there are great apps to practice math skills, it does not engage students in their conceptual understanding of math, increase their problem solving ability, nor increase their reasoning and communicating skills needed to justify their thinking.

Parallel Tasks

Parallel tasks are 2 or 3 tasks that focus on the same learning task/learning objective but offer different levels of difficulty. All students should be able to participate in the “Share-Out” at the end of the lesson which is the most important part of the lesson because this is where the teacher learns how students are tackling the problem, what strategies are they using, and what misconceptions they might have.

You can assign students to a particular task or you can give them options. I prefer to provide different options as this gives students more ownership of their learning pathway. If they choose a task that is too difficult, they can move to another one.

Learning target: Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction

Lesson objective: Use place value knowledge to subtract within 100

Standards: 2.OA.1, 2.NBT.5, 2.NBT.7

There are many great things to notice about these two slides.

First of all, the teacher will use the “slow release” function, to release each sentence one by one allowing students to notice and wonder about the context of the problem. Using Numberless Word problems is essential when creating parallel tasks. (To learn more about Numberless Word problems click here: https://bstockus.wordpress.com/numberless-word-problems/ by Brian Bushart )

For example, she/he might ask students, how many kinds of apples are there? Or how many apples could there be? (Estimation180 is a fantastic website that can support this type of thinking and dialogue in your class).

After the “release” of how many apples each child has, students might wonder about the question, and will then come up with the best questions. Give them a chance to discuss with a partner first before you ask a student. This gives them the chance to practice their question, and/or craft a question with their partner.

Next the teacher will show the 2 nd slide; this is when students have the choice of numbers they can choose to solve the problem.

Notice how ALL students will be showing the strategies they used to solve the problem, explaining how they solved it, and making sure that their argument supports their work (Claim-Evidence-Reasoning).

If students need to use manipulatives to solve, the first set of numbers allows them to use any type of manipulatives such as discs, unifix cubes, or single cubes. The second set of numbers will require ones and tens.

If you want students to move from using base ten blocks in order to try other strategies, encourage students to use the third set of numbers as they will have an incentive to think about another strategy.

For problems involving computation, you can add multiple sets of numbers to allow for ways to vary the difficulty level. You could also use parallel tasks to vary the level of problem solving and reasoning.

Open Middle

“Open Middle” is a great resource created by Robert Kaplinsky www.openmiddle.com that provides parallel tasks for the same standard, however the lesson objective might vary because students will show proficiency of it using deeper problem solving skills, than only computational skills. Take a look.

“Open middle problems generally require a higher  Depth of Knowledge  than most problems that assess procedural and conceptual understanding.   They support the  Common Core State Standards  and  provide students with opportunities for discussing their thinking.” Robert Kaplinsky.

During the active engagement of your lesson, walk around to observe the strategies and different approaches that students are using to tackle the problem. This is where the teacher plans which students will be sharing their ideas making sure that a variety of strategies are shared. The teacher uses this time to look for opportunities to help students make connections between the different ideas shared.

Last week, I was in a 1 st grade classroom when the teacher asked a student to share how he persevered when solving a tangram puzzle. It was a fantastic share-out moment, and we all learned from this 6 year-old talking about not giving up!

Next steps …

When you are thinking about creating parallel tasks for your lesson, start by identifying the big idea you want to focus on and think about what your students might need. You could start by using different sets of numbers, the number of operations they can use, or making them open to allow for deeper problem solving, etc.

Start with a task from your original lesson then create parallel tasks in order to allow students to choose the task they will work on while making sure that sometimes the most difficult task is the first one. This will ensure that students consider all options before choosing their task.

If you are interested in reading more about parallel tasks, refer to “Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics” by John A. Van de Walle.

Other samples of parallel tasks:

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Published by Caty Romero - Math Specialist

Passionate about learning and making sense of mathematics. Teacher, Math Learning Specialist, K-8 Math Consultant, and Instructional Coach. Student-Centered-Learning is my approach! Contact me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @catyrmath View all posts by Caty Romero - Math Specialist

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Problem Solving Activities: 7 Strategies

• Critical Thinking

Problem solving can be a daunting aspect of effective mathematics teaching, but it does not have to be! In this post, I share seven strategic ways to integrate problem solving into your everyday math program.

In the middle of our problem solving lesson, my district math coordinator stopped by for a surprise walkthrough. 

I was so excited!

We were in the middle of what I thought was the most brilliant math lesson– teaching my students how to solve problem solving tasks using specific problem solving strategies. 

It was a proud moment for me!

Each week, I presented a new problem solving strategy and the students completed problems that emphasized the strategy. 

Genius right? 

After observing my class, my district coordinator pulled me aside to chat. I was excited to talk to her about my brilliant plan, but she told me I should provide the tasks and let my students come up with ways to solve the problems. Then, as students shared their work, I could revoice the student’s strategies and give them an official name. 

What a crushing blow! Just when I thought I did something special, I find out I did it all wrong. 

I took some time to consider her advice. Once I acknowledged she was right, I was able to make BIG changes to the way I taught problem solving in the classroom. 

When I Finally Saw the Light

To give my students an opportunity to engage in more authentic problem solving which would lead them to use a larger variety of problem solving strategies, I decided to vary the activities and the way I approached problem solving with my students. 

Problem Solving Activities

Here are seven ways to strategically reinforce problem solving skills in your classroom. 

Seasonal Problem Solving

Many teachers use word problems as problem solving tasks. Instead, try engaging your students with non-routine tasks that look like word problems but require more than the use of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to complete. Seasonal problem solving tasks and daily challenges are a perfect way to celebrate the season and have a little fun too!

Cooperative Problem Solving Tasks

Go cooperative! If you’ve got a few extra minutes, have students work on problem solving tasks in small groups. After working through the task, students create a poster to help explain their solution process and then post their poster around the classroom. Students then complete a gallery walk of the posters in the classroom and provide feedback via sticky notes or during a math talk session.

Notice and Wonder

Before beginning a problem solving task, such as a seasonal problem solving task, conduct a Notice and Wonder session. To do this, ask students what they notice about the problem. Then, ask them what they wonder about the problem. This will give students an opportunity to highlight the unique characteristics and conditions of the problem as they try to make sense of it. 

Want a better experience? Remove the stimulus, or question, and allow students to wonder about the problem. Try it! You’ll gain some great insight into how your students think about a problem.

Math Starters

Start your math block with a math starter, critical thinking activities designed to get your students thinking about math and provide opportunities to “sneak” in grade-level content and skills in a fun and engaging way. These tasks are quick, designed to take no more than five minutes, and provide a great way to turn-on your students’ brains. Read more about math starters here ! 

Create your own puzzle box! The puzzle box is a set of puzzles and math challenges I use as fast finisher tasks for my students when they finish an assignment or need an extra challenge. The box can be a file box, file crate, or even a wall chart. It includes a variety of activities so all students can find a challenge that suits their interests and ability level.

Calculators

Use calculators! For some reason, this tool is not one many students get to use frequently; however, it’s important students have a chance to practice using it in the classroom. After all, almost everyone has access to a calculator on their cell phones. There are also some standardized tests that allow students to use them, so it’s important for us to practice using calculators in the classroom. Plus, calculators can be fun learning tools all by themselves!

Three-Act Math Tasks

Use a three-act math task to engage students with a content-focused, real-world problem! These math tasks were created with math modeling in mind– students are presented with a scenario and then given clues and hints to help them solve the problem. There are several sites where you can find these awesome math tasks, including Dan Meyer’s Three-Act Math Tasks and Graham Fletcher’s 3-Acts Lessons . 

Getting the Most from Each of the Problem Solving Activities

When students participate in problem solving activities, it is important to ask guiding, not leading, questions. This provides students with the support necessary to move forward in their thinking and it provides teachers with a more in-depth understanding of student thinking. Selecting an initial question and then analyzing a student’s response tells teachers where to go next. 

Ready to jump in? Grab a free set of problem solving challenges like the ones pictured using the form below. 

Which of the problem solving activities will you try first? Respond in the comments below.

Shametria Routt Banks

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2 Responses

This is a very cool site. I hope it takes off and is well received by teachers. I work in mathematical problem solving and help prepare pre-service teachers in mathematics.

Thank you, Scott! Best wishes to you and your pre-service teachers this year!

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Differentiated Instruction

7 Strategies for Differentiated Math Instruction

Math classrooms are mosaics of strengths and experiences. When we have students with diverse backgrounds—with various languages, achievements, and interests—in the same space, everyone learns from each other and broadens their world.

On the flip side, though, teaching math to a broad array of students can be challenging. Do you struggle to reach all of your students? Are you a newer teacher who is looking to improve your practice? The strategies for differentiated instruction provided here might help you out.

What Is Differentiated Math Instruction?

Differentiated math instruction refers to the collection of techniques, strategies, and adaptations you can use to reach your diverse group of learners and make mathematics accessible to every single one. Dr. Timothy Kanold , former president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM)—and HMH author— clarifies that differentiation in a math lesson is “differentiation on the entry points into the task for support or the exit point to advance student thinking.”

By applying various tools and strategies, such as incorporating technology, assigning hands-on projects, and teaching in math small-group formats, you can help every student meet expectations. We know that there are different schools of thought regarding what differentiation means. When we use the term, we are talking about providing student choice, voice, and agency. Differentiating instruction isn’t meant to add more work to your day. Quite the opposite, in fact; it’s meant as a teaching approach that will help you to reach more students in terms of accessibility and equity, making your job both easier and more effective in the long run.

Why Is Differentiating Math Instruction Important?

Some people think that math, more than any other subject, is the best fit for differentiation. Even though a 2018 survey by Texas Instruments found that 46% of kids said they really liked math, there are hundreds of books, websites, and memes discussing the difficulty of the subject. From the anxiety caused by there being only one correct answer to the cultural buy-in to the myth of being—or not being—a “math person” to the fear of solving a word problem, many students struggle with math. In addition, many students and educators alike find it hard to make the connection between math and the real world, which only increases disillusionment with the subject. That’s why it’s especially important to be open to new ways of providing instruction .

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) promotes differentiating math instruction for differences in learning as well as differences in achievement, interest, and confidence. NCTM advises that the need is greater in middle and high school, as higher-level math relies on more complex reasoning. When you differentiate your math instruction, you support all learners by targeting and addressing specific needs of groups and individual students.

Examples of Differentiated Instruction in Math

Do you need ideas for how to differentiate your teaching to be sure your math students are progressing? Below are seven differentiation strategies for math instruction, along with ways that you can use them in your math classroom. They serve as examples of differentiated instruction in math and may work better for some classrooms and math topics than others. Customize these ideas however you need to serve you and your students.

Strategy 1: Math Centers

For this, you’ll need to come up with a few activities your students can rotate through (be sure to browse our library of free activities and resources !), such as watching a video, reading an article, or solving a word problem. We spoke with Kristy McFarlane, an instructional supervisor at Sandshore Elementary School in New Jersey, about differentiation. She says math teachers at her school spend about 10 minutes on a mini-lesson for the whole class and then students spend about 15 minutes at various math centers. “They might meet with the teacher in a small group for extra help, use math software, do a game or project at the hands-on station, or do seat work based on the day’s mini-lesson,” she says.

Math centers are a powerful way to facilitate independent and small group learning within your classroom. Our Go Math! program, for example, is known for embedding resources and instructional time to math centers. If a select group of your students are all struggling to, say, add fractions, they may benefit from an activity that has them practice finding least common denominators. Think about ways to customize the groupings and centers so they’re perfect for your students’ strengths, misconceptions, and interests, and make use of tools that strategically group students and recommend activities for you.

Strategy 2: Activity Cards

Choice is an important part of differentiation, and letting students decide how they want to spend their time is a great way to appeal to various learning preferences. You’ll need to come up with math problems, tasks, or questions. As much as possible, use or create cards that span several lessons and offer options to work independently, with a partner, or in a small group. Ask for feedback so you can adjust future learning accordingly. Many of HMH’s math programs , including Into Math , Go Math! , and Into AGA include inquiry-based task and project cards that help teachers differentiate.

Strategy 3: Choice Boards

As we just mentioned, giving students the ability to make decisions about their learning is an important part of differentiation. A choice board is a graphic organizer that gives students activities to choose from. There are different types of choice boards, but they need to focus on specific learning needs, interests, and skills. Choice boards increase student ownership; students pace themselves and get to decide how to engage with information, along with how to demonstrate their learning. Some teachers create different versions of the same choice board; others will color-code options to signify topic, activity type, or expected level of challenge. Check out the choice board we developed for remote learning. This board covers all subjects but also includes a free template to get you started on a math-only version.

Strategy 4: Math Journals

Having students write about math is a great way for them to reflect on what they’ve learned and incorporate ELA instruction into the math classroom. Encourage your kids to summarize key points, answer open-ended questions, tie math into everyday experiences, or write about the most interesting or challenging math lesson. It’s also a way to provide an entry point for all students, including multilingual learners , as they can write a little or a lot in English or in their native language. Those who need extra support might be given sentence starters. Students might also be given the choice to illustrate their ideas instead of writing them. Similar to activity cards, math journals are included in many of HMH’s math programs, including Into Math and Into AGA .

Strategy 5: Learning Contracts

If metacognition is the ability to think about thinking—including about how you learn—we owe it to students to help them develop and expand their metacognitive skills. One way to do this is to work on learning contracts. Throughout the year, ask students to reflect on important lessons and set learning goals, including skills to learn or improve as well as new areas to explore. Use these learning contracts to help students learn to organize their thoughts. “One of our district’s goals is to have personalized learning opportunities for all students,” says McFarlane. “Each student creates a personalized success plan at the beginning of the year and does regular check-ins.” More broadly, metacognition is an idea that can be taught and practiced in the classroom and applies broadly to any subject.

Strategy 6: Math Games

Games are fun, motivational, and can help students deepen their mathematical reasoning. Some games encourage students to develop strategic and problem-solving skills or improve computational fluency. Seek out games where the math learning objective matches the game objective as a way for students to find joy in learning. Go Math! was designed to include both ready-made games for math centers and recommended games for differentiation within the teacher’s edition.

You can also use non-math games to provide a short mental break or a context for having math discussions. Look for ways to turn the game into mathematical discourse. How could you have scored more points? How much time did it take? What strategies did you use?

Strategy 7: Digital Math Practice

There are also lots of math apps and online tools that are designed to reinforce foundational understanding by allowing students to practice arithmetic and other math standards. In particular, seek out apps that are not simply timed drills with fun graphics, which are likely to make math anxiety worse for students who are not yet fluent in math facts. For digital math practice that extends far beyond just practicing arithmetic, our newest Go Math! for Grades K–6 has adaptive and personalized practice that aligns to our supplemental practice program, Waggle .

to you, consider giving your students problem-solving tasks with open-ended solutions. A single math problem can reveal different ways that students think about mathematics, which might be a less time-consuming way to assess student progress and determine an effective way to differentiate.

When you think critically about how to transform math instruction into differentiated math instruction, students will be more engaged because the content will be more relevant. They will achieve more success because they’ll be experiencing different types of activities, using various modalities, and contributing to the best of their abilities as they continue to grow.

HMH offers a variety of math classroom solutions to help you reach every student. Just looking for more articles and resources to help you differentiate math instructions? Try one of these to keep reading!

This blog post, originally published in 2021, has been updated for 2022.

How to Use Technology to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom

Explore the challenges of differentiated instruction and how technology can help. Using technology to differentiate instruction assists in automating the process.

Kathleen Richards

December 29, 2023

10 Math Intervention Strategies for Struggling Students

These math intervention strategies for struggling students provide lessons, activities, and ideas to support Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 math students who are two or more years behind grade level.

Richard Blankman

May 7, 2024

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Creating a Differentiated Mathematics Classroom

What Is Mathematical Learning Style?

The style-strategy connection, fair and thoughtful tests, constructing a differentiated mathematics classroom.

Version 1: Classroom Strategies That Work Approach.

As a result of this unit, I will be able to

Use what I have learned about division to make calculations quickly and accurately.

Explain how and why I solve division problems the way I do.

Understand key terms: divide, divisor, dividend, quotient, remainder, fraction, decimal.

Use problem-solving strategies to solve challenging word problems about division.

Recognize when division is a useful strategy and apply it to everyday situations.

Personal goals during this unit: I will...

(Adapted from Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001)

Version 2: Differentiated Instruction Approach

During our study of division, we want to provide opportunities for you to learn about the topic in ways that work best for you. Number your choices from 1 to 6 (1 = easiest, 6 = most difficult).

__using manipulatives

__observing demonstrations

__sketching out the math situation

__comparing your work with a partner

__solving complex problems in a team

What do you already know about division?

What does “division” mean?

How would you explain doing division to someone in a younger grade?

What are some examples of division that you know how to do?

Where do people use division? And why?

(Adapted from Tomlinson, 2001)

Version 3: Combined Approach

In this unit, you will learn

How to use division to calculate quickly and accurately.

How to connect and apply division to everyday situations.

How to develop good explanations about how and why division works.

How to use problem-solving strategies, especially diagrams, to solve challenging word problems.

What's your interest?

We will be investigating a number of situations in which division is applied to situations in the real world. Rank these in order of interest, from 1 (most) to 4 (least):

___ sharing food fairly;

___ figuring out how fast a car is going;

___ making money;

___ spending money.

What does division mean?

Can you give an example of divisor, dividend, quotient, and remainder?

What is division for? Why do we need it?

What makes division difficult?

• Do different students possess different styles of mathematical learning?
• What is the relationship between the research on effective strategies and student styles of mathematical learning?
• What constitutes a fair and thoughtful assessment of student progress in mathematics, given students' personal differences when it comes to learning mathematics?
• The Mastery style: People in this category tend to work step-by-step.
• The Understanding style: People in this category tend to search for patterns, categories, and reasons.
• The Interpersonal style: People in this category tend to learn through conversation and personal relationship and association.
• The Self-Expressive style: People in this category tend to visualize and create images and pursue multiple strategies.

In interviews we conducted with more than 200 students over the past seven years, we consistently found these patterns of thinking. For instance, we presented students with the following problem:Nineteen campers are hiking through Acadia National Park when they come to a river. The river moves too rapidly for the campers to swim across it. The campers have one canoe, which holds three people. On each trip across the river, one of the three canoe riders must be an adult. There is only one adult among the 19 campers. How many trips across the river are necessary to get all the children to the other side?

• Students favoring the Mastery style learn most easily from teaching approaches that emphasize step-by-step demonstrations and repetitive practice. Students in this group struggle with abstractions, explanations, and non-routine problem solving. They define mathematics as proficiency in calculation and computation.
• Students favoring the Understanding style learn most easily from teaching approaches that emphasize concepts and the reasoning behind mathematical operations. These students struggle with work that emphasizes collaboration, application, and routine drill and practice. They define mathematics primarily in terms of explanations, reasons, and proofs.
• Students favoring the Interpersonal style learn most easily from teaching approaches that emphasize cooperative learning, real-life contexts, and connections to everyday life. Students in this group struggle with independent seatwork, abstraction, and out-of-context, nonroutine problem solving. They define mathematics primarily in terms of applications to everyday life.
• Students favoring the Self-Expressive style learn most easily from teaching approaches that emphasize visualization and exploration. These students struggle with step-by-step computation and routine drill and practice. They define mathematics primarily in terms of nonroutine problem solving.

Barb Heinzman, a 5th grade teacher, describes the connection between style-based differentiation and curriculum design for mathematics in this way:What I saw right away was that not only did different students approach mathematics using different learning styles, but real mathematical power required using all four styles. Think about it: If you can't compute accurately, explain your ideas, discover solutions, and apply math in the real world—you don't know math. Miss even one of these and you miss the boat. The problem with most math programs is they emphasize just one of these and leave out the rest. By building every unit so it includes all four styles of learning, I support all my students, and I stretch them into areas where they wouldn't naturally go. (cited in Strong, Silver, & Perini, 2001)

• Rotate strategies: Identify learning goals, then deliberately use multiple strategies over the course of a unit to guarantee that all students believe that the variety of strategies both validates their dominant style and challenges them to work in less preferred styles.
• Use flexible grouping: Identify a common purpose, such as developing accurate explanations in a unit on time, rate, and distance problems, and then divide students into different style groups that use alternate strategies. Style groups can validate or challenge students' dominant styles, depending on whether groups are style-alike or style-diverse.
• Personalize learning: When students struggle or need an extra challenge, shift the strategy to individualize their instruction. For example, a middle school math student with a penchant for creativity and imaginative exercises was having trouble internalizing the steps in the operation-solving process. His teacher then used a Self-Expressive strategy to challenge him to create a metaphor—he chose digestion—for the operation-solving process.
• Include all four dimensions of mathematical learning—computation, explanation, application, and problem solving—in every unit we teach;
• Help students recognize their own mathematical learning styles—Mastery, Understanding, Interpersonal, or Self-Expressive—along with their strengths, their weaknesses, and where they need to grow;
• Use a variety of teaching strategies to explore mathematical topics; and
• Create or revise our assessments to reflect all four dimensions of mathematical learning and all four learning styles that students use to approach those dimensions.

Briggs, K. C., & Myers, I. B. (1962/1998). Myers-Briggs type indicator, form M . Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Hanson, J. R., & Silver, H. F. (1991). The learning preference inventory . Woodbridge, NJ: Thoughtful Education Press.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works . Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Silver, H. E., & Strong, R. W. (2003). Learning style inventory . Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ: Thoughtful Education Press.

Strong, R. W., Silver, H. E., & Perini, M. (2001). Teaching what matters most . Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Tang, E. P., & Ginsburg, H. P. (1999). Young children's mathematical reasoning: A psychological view. In L. V. Stiff & F. R. Curcio (Eds.), Developing mathematical reasoning in grades K-12 (pp. 45–61). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Thomas, E. (2003a). Styles and strategies for teaching high school mathematics (2nd ed.). Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ: Thoughtful Education Press.

Thomas, E. (2003b). Styles and strategies for teaching middle school mathematics (2nd ed.). Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ: Thoughtful Education Press.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms . Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2003). Differentiated instruction: The complex issue of academically diverse classrooms [Compact Disc]. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Matt Perini is senior director of publishing for Silver Strong & Associates and cofounder of Thoughtful Education Press where he oversees all aspects of content development, including publishing, training designs, customized curriculum development, and content-based marketing, providing educators with tools and strategies they can put to use immediately.

Perini has authored more than 20 books, curriculum guides, articles, and research studies covering a range of educational topics, including learning styles, multiple intelligences, reading instruction, and effective teaching practices. He is coauthor of ASCD’s bestselling The Core Six and The Strategic Teacher as well as series editor and contributing author for the award-winning Tools for Today’s Educators series.

Harvey Silver is president of Silver Strong & Associates and Thoughtful Education Press. An experienced educator, presenter, and coach, Silver has conducted thousands of workshops for schools, districts, and state education organizations throughout the United States.

Silver is the author of several articles and books on instructional tools and strategies, including some ASCD bestsellers:  The Core Six ,  The Strategic Teacher ,   So Each May Learn , and  Teaching What Matters Most .

With the late Richard Strong, Silver developed The Thoughtful Classroom—a renowned professional development initiative dedicated to "making students as important as standards” and collaborated with Matthew J. Perini to develop the Thoughtful Classroom Teacher Effectiveness Framework.

Richard Strong has been a contributor to Educational Leadership.

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action., from our issue.

Differentiated Guided Math Lessons

Many teachers ask me about differentiated guided math lessons to meet the needs of individual students., this discussion is an integral part of my teacher professional development workshop because this is one of the biggest transitions teachers will make..

In order to help teachers in this task of creating differentiated guided math lessons, I will walk you through several activities that have been used in classrooms.  This example covers the math standard addition to thousands and algebra.   This lesson also incorporates several math process skills.  This lesson can be adapted to Kindergarten and first grade by using part-part-whole mats, which are the beginning foundation of algebra and function charts! (See the bottom of this post for Pre-K to 1 grade ideas.)

3.C.1: Add and subtract whole numbers fluently within 1000.

3.AT.6: Create, extend, and give an appropriate rule for number patterns using multiplication within 1000.

4.C.1: Add and subtract multi-digit whole numbers fluently using a standard algorithmic approach.

4.AT.1: Solve real-world problems involving addition and subtraction of multi-digit whole numbers (e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem).

First these function tables were made and laminated for student use.  Make sure you have about three extra for your largest Guided Math Group.

Guided Math Function Table

Then the teacher worked with the lowest group.  She had a discussion about how this form is just like an addition equation.   The students asked questions because they didn’t understand how.

• They asked, “Where would you start?”
• The teacher’s response was, “Where do you think we would start?”
• The kids discussed options.
• Then the teacher added the first number in the input column.  The students were told this number was the first addend in the equation.
• Many questions and connections followed.
• Students recalled that meant there had to be a second addend.

The teacher then asked the students what they thought the rule was.  Since she had set up their thinking about connecting to addition, students came to the idea that the adding part goes there.

• A short discussion about the sum is placed in the output column rounded out the discussion.
• You can see in this picture the teacher wrote the input numbers and the rule at the top.
• (Notice that a big part of this lesson is the teacher guiding the students to discover the learning with questions and connections.)

The teacher writes the input number and the rule on the Guided Math Board.

The students also had dry erase boards to do the computation work on.  Then they recorded their sums in the output column.

• Each student worked at their own pace.
• The teacher guided the students as they asked questions or needed help.
• This work continued until the time limit was up.
• If students didn’t finish, the teacher does not keep the lesson going because students will practice more tomorrow.

Because the teacher is using differentiated guided math lessons, the teacher adds more to the next board.  These students are ready for more.  Look at this Guided Math Board to see the differentiation.

Differentiating in guided math groups

Notice the teacher add decimals and did one together with the students so they could understand the connection.  Then the students in this higher guided math group practices addition at their level.  Same basic lesson with extensions.

When the highest math group came for this lesson, a new challenge presented itself.  One student worked at a faster pace, so the teacher added a new rule at the top of the board for any students who finished early .

• (The directions were if you know how to do this new rule, then do it.
• If you think the math can’t be done, then skip that one for now, i.e. -1409 + 427 = ?
• She had to think of this on the spot because one student finished early.
• Next time, she will plan ahead and have a better new rule 🙂

Guided Math Group Lessons can be extended for faster paced students.

This way of differentiating can be done for any grade level and with any math concept lesson.  To do this, just think of the next math skill to be taught connected to the one you are teaching. I hope this helps you to see how differentiated guided math lessons can be planned for and used with your guided math groups.

• Email me if you have more questions about doing this.  [email protected]

This part part whole mat can be used to teach addition and algebra in guided math groups.

The Kindergarten and First Grade version of this activity would be to use a part-part whole mat.

• Show the students the number 5.
• Have them put 5 counters in the first part side.
• Ask them to add 3 in the second part side.
• To find the sum, they need to push the 5 and 3 into the whole section and count them.
• After doing this with the students throughout the month, the next step would be to have them also write the equation on a dry erase board.
• (The teacher will have to model this for several weeks before.

How about using this version in guided group stations after you have practice using the mat with students in guided math groups?  Fun!  This is the next step of taking the differentiated guided math lessons and adding an activity a few weeks later to your skills review station.

This part part whole plate can be added to Guided Math groups.

• Mathematics

Differentiating Instruction in Mathematics

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• The University of Sydney

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