In her book, The Differentiated Classroom (1999), Carol Ann Tomlinson encourages teachers to facilitate teaching and learning in their classrooms based on the premise that learners differ in important ways. According to Tomlinson, teachers should be ready to engage students in learning through different modalities, appealing to different interests, and varying the rate and complexity of instruction. Tomlinson identifies a number of principles that guide teaching and learning in differentiated classrooms:

• The teacher focuses on the essentials of teaching and learning by articulating the essential information for students to recall, understand, or be able to do for a particular lesson or project.
• The teacher attends to differences among students by unconditionally accepting them as they are and articulating high expectations for them.
• Assessment cannot be separated from instruction and is ongoing and diagnostic more than summative.
• The teacher modifies content, process, and products, and technology tools are used to support teachers in this endeavor.
• The teacher helps all students participate in respectful work by respecting the readiness level of each student, expecting all students to grow and develop, offering all students the opportunity to develop in accordance with their individual needs and abilities, and offering all students equally interesting, important, and engaging tasks.
• The teacher and students collaborate in planning and monitoring individual and whole class learning.
• The teacher takes into account group and individual norms in assessment, instruction, feedback, and grading.
• The teacher employs a wide range of instructional strategies that focus on individuals, small groups, and the whole class.

For more information about the differentiated classroom, see The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999, and Differentiating Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities by William N. Bender, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2002.

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