Differentiated Instruction in Minnesota Classrooms
A criterion-led pilot on accommodating curriculum for diverse learners, modifying curriculum for varied learning levels, and adapting curriculum to individual needs.
Differentiated Instruction in Minnesota Classrooms
- 1Start with the learning target and the learner
- 2Accommodate curriculum for diverse learners
- 3Modify curriculum for varied learning levels
- 4Adapt curriculum to individual needs
- 5Monitor progress and refine the decision
- 6Apply the framework
Clock hours
3 clock hours claimed; measured design demand approximately 272 active minutes
Mandatory area
Accommodating / modifying / adapting
Format
Self-paced online professional learning
Assessment
20 questions · 80% to pass
Differentiation is a decision process, not three separate student tracks
Identify a shared learning target, distinguish productive learner variability from deficit labels, and locate the barrier that makes the target inaccessible.
- Differentiated instruction begins with a common question: What is the essential learning, and what is preventing this learner or group from reaching it?
- A useful planning sequence has four parts: (1) name the essential target; (2) define what success will look or sound like; (3) identify an observable barrier using more than one source of...
- Target: The essential knowledge, skill, or practice students are expected to develop.
- Barrier: A mismatch between the learner and the current materials, task, environment, language demand, timing, or response mode.
- Support: A deliberate change chosen to reduce the barrier while protecting dignity, agency, access, and progress.
Use the three terms precisely, and respect the decision boundary
Operationally distinguish accommodation, modification, and adaptation while recognizing that legal documents and local practice control the support a student receives.
- PELSB's renewal rubric uses three verbs: accommodating, modifying, and adapting.
- These distinctions help a teacher reason clearly, but they are not universal legal definitions.
- Decision boundary. A classroom teacher may offer many universally available access supports and differentiate daily instruction.
Match an accommodation to the barrier, target, and context
Select and justify an accommodation that removes a documented barrier without invalidating the intended learning.
- An accommodation is strong when the support, barrier, and target form a visible line of reasoning.
- Accommodations should not erase productive challenge.
- Use a five-question match test:
Design accessible materials before adding individual workarounds
Redesign a classroom material for broader access while preserving required individual accommodations.
- Universal design and individual accommodation work together.
- For digital and print materials, use the following minimum design checks:
- the UDL Guidelines invite teachers to vary engagement, representation, and action/expression.
Modify deliberately, never as a shortcut around instruction
Determine when a task adjustment preserves the target and when it changes the breadth, depth, complexity, output, or success criteria.
- Teachers routinely vary examples, grouping, practice quantity, scaffolds, and challenge.
- Use the target-integrity test:
- Example: All students analyze how a character's choices influence the plot.
Build a multi-level task without building a status ladder
Design pathways with meaningful thinking, transparent success criteria, student dignity, and opportunities to move based on evidence.
- Poorly differentiated tasks announce a status hierarchy: one group receives rich inquiry while another fills blanks; one group uses real materials while another receives a visibly “baby”...
- Grading and reporting must match the target actually taught and the local policy.
- Student voice is evidence.
Create an individual adaptation from a learner profile, not a disability label
Use strengths, needs, context, student voice, and multiple evidence sources to design an individualized adaptation.
- An individualized adaptation should be traceable to a current need in a specific context.
- Build a concise learner profile with six parts:
- Then use the ADAPT cycle: A nchor the target; D escribe the barrier and strength; A lign the smallest effective change; P lan implementation and evidence; T est, talk, and tune.
Make the adaptation specific enough to implement consistently
Write an adaptation plan that another responsible educator can implement and monitor without guessing.
- “Provide support as needed” is not an implementable adaptation.
- Implementation fidelity is not rigid sameness.
- Implementation research distinguishes several components of fidelity, and the distinctions matter in classrooms because each fails differently.
Measure access, learning, independence, and belonging
Choose a small set of indicators that show whether a support improves progress without creating a new barrier.
- A support is not successful merely because it was provided.
- Collect a baseline when feasible, identify the review interval, and use a measure sensitive enough to detect change. [S25] “Student improved” is too vague.
- Interpret cautiously. Improvement after a support does not prove the support caused the change; lack of immediate improvement does not prove the student is unable.
Collaborate without handing off responsibility
Prepare a concise evidence-based team communication that respects student/family expertise and clarifies implementation roles.
- Differentiation is shared professional work.
- Use the BRIDGE brief:
- A strong brief might ask: “Should the team review the response mode because the student can explain the concept orally with the visual model but written output remains a barrier despite six...
Case lab: keep the target, name the change, defend the evidence
Analyze three learner cases and justify an accommodation, modification, or adaptation without using deficit assumptions.
- Case A: same target, access barrier.
- Case B: required individual plan.
- Case C: varied level and greater depth.
Capstone: build a defensible differentiated lesson plan
Produce a standards-aligned plan that demonstrates accommodation, modification analysis, individual adaptation, monitoring, and collaboration.
- The capstone is the course's professional-learning artifact.
- The capstone is complete when every section is present, the same essential target can be traced through instruction and assessment, plan-required supports are respected, and every...
- A compliant capstone fills every section; a strong capstone coheres.