When we think about differentiation, we often think about our students who need extra scaffolding and support to access the curriculum. As teachers, we want to help all our students succeed, and the challenges facing these students are significant and clear. Differentiation, however, is defined as tailoring instruction to meet individual needs—and that means the needs of all students. Although they may appear to be doing just fine with whole-class instruction, advanced learners need differentiation, too. That’s why differentiated instruction for advanced learners is critical.
Legal documents like individualized education plans (IEPs) exist to help make sure students facing academic challenges get the support they need and deserve. While such legal protections are not often in place for children performing above grade level, their needs are no less legitimate. Providing for such a wide range of needs may sound overwhelming, but many of the strategies that support advanced learners can lead to benefits for on-level students and those who need extra support as well.
Defining “advanced learners”
What exactly do we mean by the term “advanced leaners”? This is a somewhat subjective term, and there is no one, simple answer. In fact, many people have strong beliefs about who “counts” as an advanced learner, and attempts to define the term can be contentious. For the purpose of differentiation, there are several general profiles that need to be considered.
Some students pick up new concepts more quickly and with less repetition than their peers. Others have a knack for “doing school.” They generally enjoy school and work hard; they often complete assignments quickly and speak up during class discussions. Students in this group might also be avid readers or “quick finishers” in math. There can be quite a bit of overlap between these first two groups, and students in one or both of them are likely to have been identified for special services, such as talented and gifted (TAG) or gifted and talented education (GATE) programs. It is easy to see that they exceed grade-level standards, and they can often be described as hungry for more learning.
Not all advanced learners are so easy to spot, however. Some students who are “hungry” for learning demonstrate the same negative behaviors as children who are physically hungry! Advanced learners are not always the well-behaved, quiet students; some exhibit negative behaviors because they need more challenging or more engaging work. They might refuse to do tasks that they see as boring, too easy, or a waste of their time, and they might be quick to argue with adults or resist working with peers.
Other children whose abilities might not be obvious at a surface level are those who are not fluent in English or don’t come from language-rich environments. Because they are often not performing above grade level, their need for differentiated instruction might seem, on the surface, to be less significant, but their needs are no less real, and they can bloom when barriers to their success are removed from assignments.
While all these advanced learners have different characteristics and different needs, one thing they have in common is that they’re all hungry for more and need additional challenges that they can really sink their teeth into.
Planning differentiated instruction for advanced learners
Perhaps the most crucial element in creating a classroom where advanced learners thrive is the one that comes before any lessons are planned or assignments are made: creating a supportive classroom environment. Just like any students, advanced learners are at their best when their classroom promotes a strong context for learning. Academic risk-taking and divergent thinking should be encouraged rather than quashed, and diverse student voices should be honored. Along with this, students need to have meaningful agency in their daily lives in the classroom. Choice is one way to make students feel heard, and it is a powerful driver of motivation and engagement.
Building strong relationships with students is something that’s often identified as a foundation necessary for the success of students with documented needs, but those connections are equally necessary for advanced learners. They allow students to feel seen and supported and provide teachers with insights into what their students need and what motivates them. By building strong relationships with their students, teachers are able to understand and acknowledge students’ backgrounds and interests. They can use what they learn to develop advanced curriculum or assignments that will be engaging and meaningful for the children sitting in front of them.
When it comes to the nuts and bolts of providing differentiated instruction for advanced learners, the most important thing to remember is that it’s ok to start small. In an ideal world, advanced learners (and all other students!) are appropriately engaged and challenged in every subject every day. But the fact that this is clearly not a realistic goal should not deter you from taking the first step, no matter how small. As we’ve said, advanced learners are “hungry,” and any intellectual nourishment is better than none. Also, differentiation gets easier with experience and practice. Making one small change can lead to others, whether that means modifying additional assignments in the same way or continuing to refine one strategy to make it more effective. It is important to note, however, that simply increasing the workload of assignments is not differentiation; students who have mastered two-digit multiplication need something that extends their thinking, not just a bunch more two-digit multiplication problems to plow through.
Shifting mindsets
While starting small is perfectly acceptable and far better than doing nothing, the ultimate goal of differentiation is to change the approach rather than just the activity. This requires a shift in mindset for some teachers.
It’s tempting to simply search for one-time activities that are fun for advanced learners, but doing so does not meet their underlying academic and intellectual needs. Providing fun activities to fill the spare time of advanced learners is like giving them dessert when they really need a healthy meal. The bonus activities can certainly be enjoyable for advanced learners and fill the time they may have after finishing an assignment. However, the goal is not to entertain them, but to ensure they’re making the same kind of academic growth that we expect from all other students.
The typical implementation of differentiation can be arranged along a continuum. The first step into differentiation is starting to sprinkle in individual, discrete assignments that might engage advanced learners or even challenge them but that are not tied to curriculum in any deep, intentional, or meaningful way. Ideally this stage is a stepping stone to more approach-oriented differentiation. As teachers become more comfortable with differentiation, they frequently begin to make this change to their approach, often having two separate pathways for instruction. At the other end of the spectrum, differentiation is integrated into daily instruction. Teachers use strategies, approaches, and assignments flexibly in ways that meet the needs of all learners in the class without singling out specific elements as being only for one group or another.
Of course, no teacher is going to move smoothly from one end of the continuum to the other. You might find it easier to differentiate in one subject than another, or you might try a new approach and then fall back into something that feels easier while you reflect and evaluate before diving back into planning.
Specific advanced learner strategies
With a shift to an approach mindset over an activity mindset, you can elevate the potential of existing curriculum and activities with research-based strategies.
A research review published in Gifted Child Quarterly considers information from 38 different studies to identify 15 of the most frequently referenced strategies for successful differentiation for advanced learners. The strategies mentioned include things like providing higher-order thinking opportunities, catering for interests, inviting choice, inquiry, mixed-ability grouping, and peer teaching, among many others. Though so many of these strategies could be explained at length, we chose a few accessible strategies you could use in your classroom tomorrow and have listed them below.
Among the many options you have for differentiation strategies, note that some common threads are interwoven throughout most of them:
- Choice: Provide opportunities for students to choose how they show their thinking, what type of approach to take, or what type of activity in which to engage
- Challenge: Provide meaty and accessible tasks that force higher-level thinking to support learning for the diverse set of students you have
- Collaboration: Provide experiences that lend themselves to varied and purposeful student grouping to maximize the potential to learn from others
- Creativity: Provide chances for students to showcase their interests, originality, flexibility, or novel ideas
1. Parallel tasks
Parallel tasks involve presenting students with two related prompts (one more complex than the other) that get at the same foundational purpose. Students choose one or even both tasks to complete on their own before the class discusses the two tasks in parallel.
This strategy offers choice to students (which allows them to challenge themselves as needed), a higher ceiling and lower floor for points of entry, an opportunity to make connections across two contexts instead of just one, and a chance to benefit from seeing how to do both tasks, even if they only completed one on their own. Advanced learners benefit from the agency, the challenge built into the whole-class curriculum (rather than something they do when they finish), and the chance to show their thinking to their peers.
Example parallel tasks
- A rectangle has an area of 24 square units. What could be its length and width? OR A rectangle has a perimeter of 20 square units. What could be the possible areas of the rectangle?
- What are some words the author uses to set the tone in the first chapter of The Year of the Dog? OR What are some words the author uses to set the tone in the first chapter of Esperanza Rising?
2. Open questions
Open questions go beyond the single-correct-answer approach to typical formative assessments. Students could go about answering the open question in many ways and come up with many different answers. (For more on this, see “Opening up students’ mathematical thinking using Open Middle math problems.”) They have the chance to justify their answer(s) to their peers and hear how other students may have answered the question, too. Advanced learners benefit from the ability to answer a question multiple ways, justify their thinking, critique the reasoning of others, make connections across different strategies or contexts, and ask even more questions that arise from the context.
Example open questions
- Two numbers are almost 50 apart. When you add them together you get almost 110. What could the two numbers be?
- Why does the author use sensory details to describe the setting?
3. Rich or thinking tasks
Rich tasks or thinking tasks are similar to open questions; they provide opportunities for students to dig deeper into the content and exercise higher-level thinking. Students must go beyond the processes and strategies they may already know to come up with a unique method or idea for solving the task at hand. Students can work alone or collaboratively in groups to dive headfirst into problems that have real depth. Advanced learners benefit from the complexity of the tasks presented, the frequent open-endedness of the tasks, the non-prescriptive method for solving them, and interactions with peers.
Example rich or thinking tasks
- How many unique squares (of any size) can you find on a chessboard?
- In Frindle, who was more important to the success of Nick’s new word: Nick or Mrs. Granger?
Differentiated instruction for advanced learners benefits everyone
When your strategies for differentiation begin to encompass a shift from “things students who finish early can do” to “opportunities baked right into the core instruction of the class,” you begin taking a holistic approach to meeting the needs of advanced learners. And when that approach is visible and accessible, the entire classroom benefits from your purposeful planning.
The student who always chooses the simpler of two parallel tasks to complete may one day gain the confidence from their peers to try the more complex task. The student who needs more context to understand the big idea of a lesson will get to make connections to what their advanced learner peer brings to the table.
Differentiated instruction for advanced learners does more than meet the needs for just those students—it raises the bar for all students’ opportunities, expectations, and potential.
