At its most basic level, differentiating instruction means "shaking up" what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn. In other words, a differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, processing or making sense of ideas, and developing products.
Specifically, differentiated instruction is:
 Proactive
 More qualitative than quantitative
 Aimed at offering multiple approaches to content, process, and product
 Student-centered
 A blend of whole-class, group, and individual instruction
Teachers in differentiated classrooms begin with a clear and solid sense of what constitutes powerful curriculum and engaging instruction. Then they ask what it will take to modify that instruction so that each learner comes away with understandings and skills offering guidance in the next phase of learning. Essentially, teachers in differentiated classrooms accept, embrace, and plan for the fact that learners bring many commonalities to school, but that they also bring the essential differences that make them individuals. Teachers can allow for this reality in many ways to make classrooms a good fit for each individual.
Source: Adapted from The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, by C. Tomlinson,
1999, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Differentiation is a fine motor skill. The way to get there is for teachers to look at kids as individuals and to let kids show you what they can do. That means that lessons should be designed to be open-ended, letting students go as far as they want, keeping in mind that children need varying degrees of structure. Some will take off; others need the lesson broken down into small steps.
How Differentiation Works
"Anything that’s worth doing is complicated," SAYSs Tomlinson, who says we’re way past the point when a patchwork quilt of “flavor-of-the-month" fads was expected to address classroom diversity. "Differentiation can work — at all age levels."
How? In classrooms where it’s alive and well, teachers:
 Keep the focus on concepts, emphasizing understanding and sense-making, not retention and regurgitation of fragmented facts.
 Use ongoing assessments of readiness and interests, and preassess to find students needing more support and those who can leap forward. They don’t assume all students need a certain task.
 Make grouping flexible. They let students work alone sometimes and also in groups based on readiness, interests, or learning styles. They use whole-group instruction for introducing ideas, planning, or sharing results.
 See themselves as a guides. They help students set goals based on readiness, interests, and learning profiles — and assess based on growth and goal attainment.
While conducting staff training nationwide, Tomlinson also finds that it’s an evolutionary process: "Teachers are at different points in their professional journey, and we need to accommodate them.”
Escalators, Not Stairwells
Tomlinson says teachers need to envision their classroom as an "escalator" going higher and higher, not as a "stairwell" that takes students to a certain grade-level landing where they stop. Tasks have to be "respectful of kids, hands-on, engaging and thought-provoking."
Although she’s passionate about differentiation, Tomlinson knows clearly that "there’s no magic wand in education." She estimates that differentiation can take as long as seven to 10 years to really institutionalize. But, she thinks, it’s worth it.
"We know huge amounts about how individuals learn. Most of us have memories of being in places where we thought we were going to scream if someone repeated one more time something we'd understood seemingly forever — and places where we were about to explode with frustration because we simply could not grasp the ideas at the pace they were presented.
We also all know what a difference it makes if we can work alone when we need space to think things through by ourselves, or work in a group when we need sounding boards.”
If we know and respect these things about ourselves, she asks, don’t we owe the same to our students?
Source: Adapted from The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, by C. Tomlinson,
1999, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Exploring the RTMSD Library Resources
1.
Log on to the Rose Tree Media Home Page using this address: www.rtmsd.org
2.
Scroll down to Library Homepage and click to reach the page displayed above.
3.
To look for books and websites using DESTINY, click on the sun (“Library
Resources”) and then select your school library.
4.
To look for information using District Online Databases (elibrary, Grolier
Encyclopedias, Newsbank, Gale Student Resources, World Book), click on the resources. If you are accessing this page from a remote location (any computer not located in the RTMSD), you must use the Passwords and IDs below.
5.
To look for information using Power Library resources, click on that icon, then click on Power Library again*. If you are interested in accessing Power Library resources from home, you must click on the Delco Library System Homepage and use your library card as your password to access the resources.
Encyclopedias & Reference Databases with Passwords & IDs
Bigchalk/elibrary: ID: subrosetms19063
Grolier Sources: ID: rosetree
Password: 12345
Password: remote
Grolier Multimedia, New Book of Knowledge, New Book of Popular Science, Lands and
Peoples
Newsbank: ID & Password: 15958
Student Resource Centers: ID & Password: Medi67017
Contemporary Authors, Student Resource Center Gold, Student Resource Center
Health, General Reference Center Gold
World Book Encyclopedia: ID: Media Password: 19063
* Power Library resources will soon be available with just one click, instead of two.

BASIC SEARCHES USING
1.
Log in to any computer.
2.
Click on the Library Resources icon to go the RTMSD Library Homepage.
3.
Click on the “Sun” to reach Destiny.
4.
Click on the name of your school to search your collection first.
5.
Click on the “Catalog” tab near the top.
6.
Type the word or phrase you want to look up in the “Find” box.
7.
If you type a phrase in the “Find” box, you must enclose the words in quotation marks, (i.e. “ice hockey”).
8.
If you’re not sure how to spell your word or you want all possible forms of the word, use an asterisk (*) to truncate it. For instance, if you type croc* in the “Find” box you will get crocodile and crocodiles. If you type teach* your results will be teach,
teacher, teachers, teaches and teaching.
9.
Destiny will always begin searching in your library. If you want to search other libraries in the district or all the libraries in the district, make your selection from the
“Look in” box.
10.
Next, select the kind of search you want to perform.
11.
The final step is to click on the tab that reads “Search All Words”.
Hot Tip: When you perform a “keyword” search, Destiny searches through the entire record.
If you get too many or too few results then you must use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT –
ALWAYS TYPED IN CAPITAL LETTERS).

 cats AND dogs gives you only the titles that mention both cats and dogs. cats OR dogs gives you all titles that mention cats or dogs or both.
 cats NOT dogs gives you only the titles about cats that do not mention dogs.
Keep in mind that AND narrows a search, giving you fewer results; OR expands a search, giving you more results.
Make sure, also, that you don't use OR if you mean NOT.
For example: You want to find a nonfiction book by Isaac Asimov that isn't about science.
If you search for asimov NOT fiction OR science , your results won't include fiction but
will contain science. You should search for asimov NOT fiction NOT science .
Hotter Tip: If your first search is unsuccessful, click on the “Refine your search” link at the top of the “Search” and you don’t have to retype your entire entry in the “Find” box.

MAKING A
USING
1.
Log in to any computer.
2.
Click on the Library Resources icon to go the RTMSD Library Homepage.
3.
Click on the “Sun” to reach Destiny.
4.
Click on the name of your school to search your collection first.
5.
If you have a unique login, click on the Login box in the upper right corner of the screen.
At the pop-up, sign in with your name and password. You can make a booklist without signing in, but it will not be saved when you log off.
6.
Click on Catalog tab to reach the search screen.
7.
If you have your own unique log in, always check your saved Booklist from the action buttons at left. If there are already books saved, you may click Search to continue if you are still researching the same topic. If there are no books in the list, click Search on the left to begin a new list.
8.
If there are books in your list and you want to begin researching a new topic, click
Remove All at the bottom of the page to clear the titles before you begin. A pop-up screen will request double check clearing the list by clicking OK. Then click Search on the left to continue.
9.
Search for your desired materials by using any of the appropriate searches, action buttons, and search techniques.
10.
When you find a title that you are interested in, click Booklist It on the right.
11.
At any time, you may click on View Booklist on the left to see the list of items you haved selected.
12.
The bottom of the screen will indicate Create Bibliography. At the drop-down box, you may sort your bibliography by Call Number/Author, Author/Title or Title/Author.
13.
If you wish to include the summary of the resource, click in the Show Notes box.
14.
Then click Go to view the bibliography of materials from your booklist.
15.
Select File and Print.
16.
Your booklist will be automatically saved when you leave Destiny.

USING
IN
Only those logged on as teachers have access to the State Standards.
1.
Click on Catalog tab to reach the Search Page.
2.
Click on State Standards from the action buttons at left. The screen below will appear.
3.
You may click on Search or Browse from the choices at right.
To Search:
4.
Select Search at right and at the first drop-down box, select Pennsylvania for state and name of the school in which you wish to search for resources.
5.
In the Find box, type the key word for the topic you’re interested in pursuing.
6.
In the Subject and Grade boxes, you may limit your search to the appropriate subject area and grade level for which you’re searching, but this is optional.
7.
Click the Search button next to the Find box to retrieve a list of appropriate standards.
8.
Now click the Find It at the end of the standard you are interested in to get a list of recommended materials. Use tabs for Web Sites and Titles at top to toggle back and forth among desired formats.
9.
If your list is too long, use Boolean operators AND or NOT to control your topic.
10.
If your list is too short add more search terms as OR is the default for State
Standards.
To Browse:
11.
Select Browse at right and click on the folder of the subject you wish to view.
12.
Choose the grade level you’re interested in seeing.
13.
Select the standard you are interested in viewing and click Find It at the end of the standard to see the list of resources that relate to that standard.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO DIFFERENTIATE INSTRUCTION
There are three things that a teacher can differentiate - content, process and product.
For example, differentiating instruction by process may look like some students using a traditional print encyclopedia to complete a research task in a classroom as some students use Internet bookmarks collected by the teacher and still other students use a multimedia encyclopedia that provides audio support. Each of these learning centers may provide the students the information necessary to answer the question "What are the three branches of the United States government?" but in very different ways.
Technology integration and differentiated instruction complement each other in many ways. Some technology tools that can be utilized for this purpose are: WebQuests,
Inspiration Software, Internet Sites, Educational Software, Internet Scavenger Hunts,
Power Points, and Excel.
Here are some websites that are great for lessons that incorporate differentiated instruction: www.quia.com
Funbrain.com
http://lakelandschools.org/EDTECH/Volcano/volcano.htm
(differentiated by interest) http://lakelandschools.org/EDTECH/lesliediff/space.htm
(differentiated by learning style and by product) http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Lessons/ (creative, fun math lessons. Skip right to the bottom of the page to easily find out which lessons are best to use with your students. By placing your cursor over the links listed at the bottom of the page, find out the grade level and a short description of the lesson.) http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/ (contains encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, physics and math. Includes a search engine, crossreferences, figures, and occasional animated graphics.) http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/ http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/mspot/ (science mysteries to solve) http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596/about_webquests.html
(Webquest guru Bernie Dodge’s excellent site for teaching educators exactly what a webquest is and how to use one.) http://www.kidspsych.org/index1.html
(online puzzles and games that are designed to help children, ages 6- 9, with thinking skills, and deductive reasoning- it’s fun as well!) http://www.chesskids.com/ (A free, online chess course.) http://www.artmuseums.com/ http://www.postcardsfrom.com/t1/arcin.html
(A creative way to learn about the states.)

USING TECHNOLOGY TO DIFFERENTIATE INSTRUCTION
IN
AREAS
GROVE MUSIC ONLINE : A Power Library resource, this is an integrated music resource, including the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition; 29 volumes), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes) and The New Grove Dictionary of
Jazz (second edition; 3 volumes). Grove Music Online will be updated annually to ensure it remains the most up to date music reference work on the Internet.
Key features

Full-text search with advanced capabilities

Over 3000 links to related sites, including sound archives and illustrations

Regular editorial updates
To enable you to get the most out of this resource, they have incorporated full-text searching with advanced capabilities, which is organized around the following themes:


Search the full-text by concept, pattern and boolean methods
Browse to see articles at your leisure

Explore the dictionary by subject classifications
: Music lessons galore to explore!
http://www.speechteach.co.uk
: Speech therapy resources http://www.esmerel.org/misc/speech.htm: A portal to links dealing with speech therapy http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/speechtherapist/ : A Speech and Language Therapist Portal
http://www.pecentral.org/ http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/curricul/health/healthe.html
: Lesson ideas, curriculum