Adapts an existing lesson or unit for mixed readiness levels using tiered assignments, flexible grouping, and scaffolds that fade – without lowering the learning objective.
Adapts an existing lesson or unit for mixed readiness levels using tiered assignments, flexible grouping, and scaffolds that fade - without lowering the learning objective. Use when someone says "differentiate this lesson", "I have students at three levels in one class", "add scaffolds and extensions to this unit", or needs one lesson to reach struggling and advanced learners at once. Do NOT use for writing a lesson from scratch - use lesson-plan-builder instead; for sequencing units across a term or auditing standards coverage, use curriculum-mapper.This is the skill's description: the text your AI reads to decide when the skill applies.
differentiated-instruction/SKILL.md
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name: Differentiated Instruction
description: Adapts an existing lesson or unit for mixed readiness levels using tiered assignments, flexible grouping, and scaffolds that fade - without lowering the learning objective. Use when someone says "differentiate this lesson", "I have students at three levels in one class", "add scaffolds and extensions to this unit", or needs one lesson to reach struggling and advanced learners at once. Do NOT use for writing a lesson from scratch - use lesson-plan-builder instead; for sequencing units across a term or auditing standards coverage, use curriculum-mapper.
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# Differentiated Instruction
Differentiation is not creating separate lessons for every student. It is designing one lesson with intentional entry points, flexible pathways, and multiple ways to demonstrate mastery - same objective for all, different paths to it. The costly failure it prevents is quiet tracking: struggling students fed only low-complexity work are being denied grade-level learning while the paperwork says they were "supported."
## Operating procedure
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before modifying anything; label unknowns as guesses to verify with a formative check:
- The original lesson or unit, its learning objective, and the core task as written.
- The readiness spread, from recent formative assessment data - not historical placement or last year's labels. If no data newer than three weeks exists, run a short formative probe first; differentiating on stale data re-creates the ability groups it is supposed to replace.
- Known learning needs (IEP/504 accommodations, language support) and rough group sizes per readiness band.
- What the teacher can actually manage: number of simultaneous versions, para/aide availability, time to prepare.
### Step 2: Protect the core task
Identify the core task every student will do, at the full learning objective. This is the anchor; everything else is scaffold or extension. If a proposed modification changes what is being learned rather than how it is accessed, reject it - that is dilution, not differentiation.
### Step 3: Choose the differentiation type - readiness first… load the full skill through Skill MeClick to play with sound.