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• Non-negotiable Number Two: Respectful Activities
In order to define respectful activities, it might be easier to begin by considering the kinds of activities that would not be considered respectful of students’ time. It is not respectful to ask students to work with curriculum that is developmentally inappropriate, consistently too challenging or too easy, disconnected to their lives, contrasting to their life experiences, or unrelated to key skills and key understandings about themselves and the world they live in. “Busy work” is not respectful. Work that focuses solely on rote memorization and regurgitation of facts is not respectful. Neither is work that elevates the status of one group of students while denigrating others.

What is respectful is work that is engaging and challenging for all students and that leads students to ever-increasing success with key skills and understandings. Respectful work is equally engaging for all learners in a classroom, whether they are all doing the same thing or are completing different activities. Respectful instruction expects that all students, not just the most advanced, achieve at optimal levels—that no matter the child’s background or previous knowledge, he or she is expected to grow as much as possible as quickly as possible. When teachers and the students work together to figure out the best ways to achieve these goals in an atmosphere of mutual respect and shared excitement, there is greater possibility for personal achievement and growth.

• Non-negotiable Number Three: Flexible Grouping
Flexible grouping refers to the teacher’s consistent and purposeful methods of grouping students for instruction. In a differentiated classroom there is a place for all kinds of grouping configurations, including whole-class, direct instruction, paired- or small-group work, and individual work. The key to successful grouping is teachers' awareness of their instructional goals, the characteristics of their students, and the external constraints on school such as time and space.

In a differentiated classroom, a teacher is careful to group students for instruction in a variety of ways so that no student feels labeled by any one facet of their educational profile. We do not want students to feel that they are always in the “low” or “high” group. We want students to see themselves as learners with a variety of strengths and weaknesses who can make meaningful contributions to the classroom. We want students to recognize that in the differentiated classroom, they work in a number of different ways, with a number of different students, on a number of different tasks, all in pursuit of essential knowledge, skill, and understanding. Teachers in a differentiated classroom must reflect often on their grouping practices to ensure that they are not overusing any one type of differentiation, particularly differentiation on the basis of readiness. If teachers only group for instruction on this basis, they may find themselves heading down the perilous path of tracking, which often implies that no matter how much students vary in learning style, readiness, or ability to improve, they are set, perhaps permanently, in a “low” or “high” grouping. Tracking often assumes that students are gifted, average, or below grade level in all subjects, virtually excluding the possibility that a student could be proficient in one area and struggling in another. And perhaps worst of all, tracking directly impacts students' achievement because it often results in low expectations for those students placed in the lowest tracks (Oakes, 1985; Slavin, 1987).

In a differentiated classroom, students are grouped and regrouped in many different ways and according to many different parameters. One day students may find themselves working with other students who are reading at the same level. Another day they may be grouped according to a common interest. Still another day, they are likely to find themselves working with a heterogeneous group with varied ways of working. The key to ensuring that the differentiated classroom does not become or is not perceived as a tracked classroom is the teacher’s commitment to “mixing it up,” ensuring that over time students work with a variety of students in a variety of configurations.

Before deciding how—or if—they should differentiate a particular lesson, teachers must have a clear idea of the learning goals for the unit or lesson as well as a solid understanding of the students in their class. Once learning goals are clear and students' needs have been considered, the teacher can make informed decisions about the type of differentiation (interest, learning profile, or readiness), the homogeneity or heterogeneity of student groups (if groups are called for), and the way in which groups will be formed or tasks will be assigned (self-selected, teacher-selected, or at random).

• Non-negotiable Number Four: Ongoing Assessment
It is difficult to imagine how a teacher might differentiate instruction effectively if he or she does not constantly and carefully study the students for whom this differentiation is designed. How can we know what students are interested in, how they learn, and what they already know, understand, and are able to do? The answer is to pre-assess before the learning begins, continue to assess along the way, and assess at the end of the experience to decide what should come next. It is particularly important that teachers not stop with pre-assessment, for it is sometimes the case that students do not perform well on pre-assessments but can progress rapidly when everything "clicks" after a day or two of instruction. It is also possible that students perform well on a pre-assessment even though the knowledge and skills assessed are not as solid as they seemed. Ongoing assessment, both informal and formal, can help the teacher diagnose and prescribe for student needs that often change throughout a learning experience.

Teachers in a differentiated classroom use all the information they can gather about students when planning and carrying out these assessments. Certainly, diagnostic skill tests, formal chapter pre-tests, ready-made interest inventories and learning style questionnaires are helpful, but so are quicker, more informal assessments such as KWL charts, Frayer Diagrams, exit cards, and journal prompts. An especially useful method of ongoing assessment is observing the student carefully to see how they perform in various tasks and what tasks they choose when given options—and recording observations in student records or in teacher plan books. Of course, teachers can also ask students and parents for information about readiness, interest, and learning profiles too! Students tend to be quite honest about their skills and interests—especially if they see that a teacher acts upon this information to make the classroom more responsive to their needs.

Differentiated Instruction Today and Tomorrow
In some ways, differentiated instruction may seem to be the newest educational buzz words. Yet good teachers have always recognized that “one size fits all” instruction does not serve students well. Particularly in today’s world, where the backgrounds of our students are so diverse and their needs so numerous, teachers must find ways to reach more kids more often. We can greatly increase our chances by recognizing and responding to our students’ varied readiness levels for new learning, honoring and celebrating their diverse interests, and understanding their unique preferences for how they learn new information and practice new skills. A daunting task? Surely. An impossible one? Definitely not.

About the Author
Cindy A. Strickland received her Ph.D. In Educational Psychology from the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, VA. Her publications include contributions to Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiation Curriculum, Grades 5–9 and In Search of the Dream: Designing Schools and Classrooms that Work for High-Potential Students from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds. Pending publications include The Parallel Curriculum Model in the Classroom: Applications Across the Content Area and Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Book for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 9–12. Ms. Strickland is an international consultant in the areas of differentiation of instruction, the Parallel Curriculum Model, and gifted education, and has led workshops and seminars for school districts, colleges of education, and educational conferences and associations.

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