Differentiation that Fits Your Classroom: Flexible Strategies and Manageable Instruction - #Pre-Order SPC26044

Graduate-Level Credit / Non-Credit Hours
3 Semester Credits or 45 Clock Hours

Early enrollment is now open for the new self-paced course:
Differentiation that Fits Your Classroom: Flexible Strategies and Manageable Instruction

• The course will be available in January 2027.
• You’ll receive an email notification as soon as it’s ready.

Course Description

Differentiation doesn’t have to mean creating multiple lessons, adding hours to your planning, or trying to meet every student need at once. This course focuses on practical, manageable ways to make small shifts in instruction that can have a meaningful impact. Participants will explore what differentiation can look like in a real classroom, unpack common misconceptions, and consider how student readiness, interests, and learning needs can guide everyday instructional choices. Drawing on Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson’s differentiation framework (including Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2023), Universal Design for Learning connections from CAST’s UDL Guidelines 3.0 (2024), and contemporary research on differentiated instruction and teacher professional development (including recent meta-analyses and reviews such as Kahmann et al., 2022, and Langelaan et al., 2024), educators will learn to adjust content, process, and assessment through scaffolds, flexible grouping, and formative checks. Technology and applications for differentiation will also be explored, including educator AI tools that reduce repetitive work. After completing this course, participants will be prepared to implement a personalized, sustainable differentiation plan tailored to their unique classroom needs.

Global Outcomes/Goals of the Course

To deepen and/or apply the content and skills of the teacher’s existing professional knowledge base by meeting the following global goals of the course:

1. Analyze research-based principles of differentiated instruction and evaluate common misconceptions that make differentiation feel unmanageable for busy teachers.
2. Design manageable content and process adaptations that maintain shared learning goals while responding to student readiness, interest, and learning needs.
3. Apply efficient formative assessment and feedback practices that guide decisions without adding unnecessary data collection.
4. Evaluate technology and educator AI tools to differentiate materials and learning pathways in ways that reduce teacher workload.
5. Create sustainable classroom systems, routines, and professional boundaries that make differentiation a maintainable habit rather than an add-on task.

• Online Self-Paced