THEORY INTO PRACTICE, 44(3), 185193

Paul S. George

A Rationale for Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom

This article articulates what might be called a value-based argument, a philosophical statement, one that emphasizes principles and perspectives that have remained precious to the author throughout 40 years in the field of education. It is the authors perspective on research and the school experience rather than a review of the research literature and, as such, strongly reflects a point of view. The author argues that heterogeneous classrooms and differentiated instruction must form the core of the classroom experience for students in a democracy that works.

Americans appear deeply divided in a number of crucial areas of national concern. Education is one of those critical areas, suffering from the effects of greatly contentious disagreement over goals, strategies, and methods of accountability for public schools. All over the nation, advocates for various groups of students continue to differ over what appear to be
N THE EARLY 21ST CENTURY,

Paul S. George is a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Florida. Requests for reprints can be sent to Paul S. George, 2215 Norman Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611. E-mail: pgeorge@coe.ufl.edu

conflicting goals and priorities for those learners and, consequently, for the school as a whole. To satisfy these varied and potentially conflicting constituencies, policy-makers and educational leaders may simultaneously support both the inclusion of some students and the removal of other students from the regular classroom. A profusion of magnet programs, charter schools, and voucher systems, growing from attempts to satisfy varied advocacies, further challenges the viability of the traditional public school. A pessimistic forecast, based on the ultimate outcomes of such prolonged struggles, might suggest that citizens will discover that public schools, a decade or two ahead, have become little more than pauper schools serving the few remaining uncategorized students. This scenario may be all too likely if affluent parents and advocates of students with perceived special needs reach a point of complete disillusionment with public education, withdraw their children from conventional public schools, and join the already sizable system of quasi-private and private education based largely on the ability to pay or the capacity to serve special needs. In the face of these challenges, educators committed to public education must find ways of providing excellence and challenge to all students, while integrating most students whenever appro-

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priate, into the life of the regular classroom. Success for all students is more than a slogan or even a laudable goal; it may be a key to the survival of the American public school as society has come to know it. As an educator who has spent many years studying the arguments for various configurations of classrooms and schools, I am persuaded that solutions to this nation-wrenching dilemma lie along two pathways that I describe here. First, I believe that educators must continue to vigorously support a school-level structure and culture that prizes diversity in the public schools, a culture that demonstrates to parents that: (a) their children are safe; (b) there are adults at the school who know and care about their children; (c) their children are making friends with the right kind of kids; (d) their children will get the attention and support they need; (e) their children will experience success in some important way; (f) their children enjoy learning and are motivated to continue; and (g) the children are well-prepared for the next level of education or work. To accomplish this, I believe that educators must continue to support school-level strategies for enhancing the education of students in heterogeneous classrooms, strategies that persuade their parents that the traditional public school remains a viable and attractive place for their children to learn (Renzulli, 1999). Second, I think that educators must move forward, rapidly and visibly, in the successful implementation of classroom-level strategies that provide differentiated curriculum, instruction, and assessment; strategies that, when implemented effectively, result in challenging and supporting all students within the regular, mixed-ability, heterogeneous classroom (Tomlinson, 2001). To fail in these two closely related, immensely time-sensitive tasks may be to guarantee that the sustainability of the American system of public education, with its long rich history, faces considerable peril in the very near future. Why is the Heterogeneous Classroom of Crucial Importance? There will, of course, always be some learners whose learning needs are so widely varied

from others of their age that they will require more specialized assistance than might be feasibly provided in a regular classrooms (C. Tomlinson, personal communication, December 15, 2004). That said, differentiating instruction, the heterogeneous classroom, and public education, are, in my judgment, all essential and inextricably linked; any rationale for differentiating instruction must focus on why the heterogeneous, mixed-ability classroom is, in this century too, almost always preferable to homogeneous grouping in public schools. Fortunately, there are many reasons why those involved in public education should continue to favor heterogeneous classrooms as the nexus for the educational success of virtually every type of student in American schools. Goal Consistency The heterogeneous classroom, as we have known it, provides a learning environment that may be more consistent with our nations democratic goals, where students who will one day work, worship, and live together can learn together today, while permitting each to achieve educational success on their own terms. Thus, the heterogeneous classroom may prepare students more effectively for real-life situations, now and in the future. This is important because this diverse nation hopes and expects that adults of all ethnicities will interact frequently and positively in the years to come in the American workplace, in places of worship and, ideally, in the neighborhoods where they live. Just as the contributions of adults in the workplace are expected to differ in their impact and effectiveness, but to do so in a common effort, so is learning expected to have variable outcomes dependent on student needs and characteristics. The heterogeneous classroom can provide a real-life laboratory for the development of important interpersonal and social knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential to success in adult life, while simultaneously providing opportunity for varied types and degrees of academic achievement. In my mind, this alone justifies an emphasis on the heterogeneous classrooms.

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A Rationale for Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom

Racial Integration Sadly, it is currently the case that advanced classes in schools still characterized by rigid tracking systems are disproportionately composed of White and more affluent students; low end and remedial classes are disproportionately composed of students of color from lower economic circumstances (Lee, Ready, & Welner, 2002; Mickelson, 2002). The heterogeneous classroom, by contrast, can help prevent this type of undesirable and potentially illegal in-school segregation and isolation along racial, ethnic, or social class lines. In my 3 decades of experience with this issue, when homogeneous grouping is the primary strategy for organizing students in schools with significant racial and ethnic diversity in the student population, the result is almost always deep, and often starkly obvious, divisions of students on the basis of race, ethnicity, and social class. Surely, when we evaluate the utility of homogeneous grouping, even if such a method led to increased academic achievement for some students, we would reject that method outright if the results of that method led to schools where racial and class segregation became the norm, even if it was not against the law. Accurate Placement When students learn together in diverse classrooms, without the need to classify students according to their ability, there is also much less risk of labeling or stigmatizing high or low achievers. A considerable literature testifies to the frequent and life-altering errors that can creep into complex grouping decisions made all too quickly by educators under various pressures (Seyfried, 1998). Emphasizing the heterogeneous classroom can lead to the reduction of time usage, expenditures, and errors related to identification and placement of students. Awareness of Individual Differences I contend that when whole classes of students are not organized as homogeneously as possible in terms of the prior achievement of students, the circumstance likely heightens teachers awareness

of individual differences. It is possible, therefore, that opportunities for individual growth and development are maximized in the heterogeneous classroom, that greater opportunity for detecting late developing talent, or for preventing premature labeling, is offered there. In an effective heterogeneous classroom (one where curriculum and instruction are properly differentiated), students and teachers, I think, are more likely to view their differences as assets that strengthen the whole school. There are even some who have said that the heterogeneous classroom can also make the average student special. Two decades of research in these situations (when not interpreted from the point of advocacy of any particular group of students) does suggest that the diverse, heterogeneous classroom can promote effective peer-to-peer learning, may improve the self-esteem of all students, and can facilitate an education for future citizenship (George, Renzulli, & Reis, 1997). Effort I believe that classrooms not organized by narrow gauges of ability can also more effectively support an emphasis on the importance of effort and persistence in success. Every student needs to know that diligence is a key ingredient of personal success, that natural ability is important but rarely sufficient. I find it ironic that, after 3 decades of almost servile adulation of the Japanese school system, Americans have not widely realized that endurance with enthusiasm is recognized by educators and parents in Japan as the most crucial aspect of success (George, 1989; LeTendre & Akiba, 2001). In any well-differentiated classroom, American or Japanese, a focus on teacher and student responsibility for individual growth emphasizes the importance of diligence in extending ones own academic horizons (Tomlinson, 2003). Equity I assert that when students learn together in heterogeneous classrooms, there is a much greater chance for the equitable distribution of teaching talent and other school resources in every class-

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room (Noguera, 2001). Heterogeneous classrooms help ensure that all students are exposed to a complex, enriched curriculum, and to spirited instruction. Such circumstances enhance the likelihood that all students receive the opportunity for adequate preparation for rigorous high school courses and college life. A great deal of evidence suggests that this is not the case in highly grouped classroom environments (Stone, 1998). Able Learners Heterogeneous classrooms hold particular benefits for the most able learners, benefits that may be less available in pull-out programs or strictly homogeneous classrooms. Among these is the possibility that learning to a level of mastery approaching automaticity makes effective acquisition of new skills much more likely. Some research (Marsh, Chessor, Craven, & Roche, 1995) indicates that a gifted students academic self-concept may decline during participation in traditional pull-out gifted programs. Compared to the self-concept of gifted students in heterogeneous classes, students in pull-out gifted programs may suffer from a constant comparison of themselves to only the most able learners in the school. Able learners in regular classrooms may, therefore, have a more realistic, and more favorable, picture of themselves as students, compared to others. Differentiation provides a variety of ways for all students to feel affirmed, challenged, and successful: flexible grouping, appropriately challenging tasks for individuals, and emphasis on personal growth as one criterion for success. An effectively differentiated classroom offers consistent opportunities for advanced learners to extend their knowledge, thought, and skill in exactly the same way that such a classroom offers other students to advance from their point of entry (Tomlinson, personal communication, December 15, 2004). Constructivist Opportunities I believe that when students, of any ability or need, engage in elaborated helping of other students, it is the helper who frequently ends up

learning more than the student who is thought to be helped. This is not the case, of course, when one student simply supplies answers to another. Elaborated helping means that the helper engages in complex explanations, checks the reasoning of others, and views issues from varied perspectives (Webb & Farivar, 1994). Good teachers have known for decades of the wisdom in the saying that You dont learn it until you teach it. The consensus of recent research in learning seems to support the position of constructivists who argue that the best learning comes when students build their own mathematics, language skills, or science knowledge by arguing, challenging, explaining, solving problems, and having their own ideas examined by others (Serafino & Cicchelli, 2003). Effectively differentiated classrooms are characterized by flexible grouping, through which students have opportunity to make meaning through interaction with a variety of peersincluding those whose readiness level is currently much like their own. Frequent flexible grouping and regrouping should help avoid a situation in which roles become frozen so that some are always the tutor and others the tutee. Contact Theory Learners who are immersed in the life of the regular classroom are likely to realize important gains in peer acceptance and social skills. The long history of contact theory in the field of social psychology (Allport, 1954) makes it clear that the more one type of learner interacts with others, the more all students are likely to think of each other as friends, emphasizing their similarities as persons rather than their differences. In such circumstances, the best kind of interpersonal tolerance flourishes. Other social competencies essential for all students (leadership, communication skills, conflict resolution habits, and problem-solving strategies) may find their most fertile soil in regular, heterogeneous classrooms (Slavin, 1995). There are, then, many good reasons for educators, and parents of all children, to prefer the heterogeneous classroom in public education. Educators seeking support for differentiating instruction need to be able to clearly articulate and

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demonstrate through classroom action these benefits to parents, who may be unaware of the opportunities available to their children in the regular classroom.

Why Must Instruction in the Heterogeneous Classroom be Differentiated? Humans Essential Diversity The best teachers have always recognized that every student is unique and, to a degree, deserves and requires special attention and adaptation of the learning experience to fit those unique needs, interests, abilities, and attitudes. In the 21st century, however, teachers are being asked to work with ever more broadly diverse groups of learners. The American public school is, literally, bursting with diversity and our awareness of that diversity increases apace (Orfield & Kurlaender, 2001). Providing differentiated classroom instruction (i.e., the adaptation of classroom strategies to students different learning interests and needs so that all students experience challenge, success, and satisfaction) that responds effectively to this diversity is absolutely essential. Differentiated instruction properly implies the development of classrooms in which students sometimes exercise varied learning options, work at different paces, and are assessed with a variety of indicators appropriate to their interests and needs (Tomlinson, 2003). Differentiated instruction, then, can involve the alteration of content, instruction, and assessment to meet the needs of unique learners. For Gifted Learners The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development program (ASCD, 1994), Challenging the Gifted in the Regular Classroom, argued that differentiated instruction is especially important if gifted students are to be placed in the regular (heterogeneous) classroom. Gifted students may otherwise be overlooked in teacher planning, because they are perceived to do well in class, exhibit task persistence, frequently

make good grades, and cause few discipline problems. In classrooms where a single curriculum is covered by all learners, many of these students may find school restrictive, frustrating, and uninspiring. In ineffective classrooms, some able learners receive good grades with minimal effort and can come to see themselves as impostors who are not really as capable as people believe them to be; others become addicted to high grades, rather than focusing on learning itself. In such circumstances, able learners may fail to develop study and production skills appropriate for their learning capacities. Without differentiation of instruction, advocates for the gifted assert, able learners may decide that school is a place to be tolerated and that real learning takes place elsewhere. Some of these students may lose interest in developing their abilities altogether. Others become discipline problemsand as a result, school staff members are less likely to perceive these students as highly able. In classrooms where instruction is appropriately differentiated for learners, gifted students are more likely to feel challenged, to encounter both struggle and success, to be called on to develop advanced study and production skills, and to be able to develop their particular interests in the context of the classroom (Reis & McCoach, 2000). Differentiating instruction, then, is a key to creating learning environments that effectively accommodate the diversity typical of todays classroom, especially where the needs of able learners must be accommodated (Tomlinson, 2000). For Less Able Students and Those With Learning Disabilities The mainstreaming and inclusion movements have placed at-risk students in many classrooms, further challenging the effectiveness of whole class instruction. Methods that worked in a homogenous, tracked classroom often are no longer effective. Good teachers, committed to educating all students in a personalized and motivational way, reject the existence of one single best way to teach and, instead, aim to accumulate an arsenal of approaches appropriate in different circum-

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stances (Kilgore, Sindelar, Griffin, & Webb, 2002, p. 8). In particular, in classes with large percentages of less successful students, the traditional tell em-and-test em methods are clearly inadequate. Differentiating instruction, difficult as it may be, is the choice for teachers who will not accept a classroom where growing numbers of students are increasingly less successful. Instruction for Democracys Future There is another, equally compelling, reason for supporting differentiated instruction in todays classrooms. Many educators are increasingly uncomfortable with what they perceive to be the lack of fit between the traditional classroom experience and the needs of tomorrows citizens, especially those who ought to reasonably be expected to assume positions of leadership (Kohn, 2004). The traditional teacher-centered classroom, dominated by whole-class instruction and a single curriculum, may create a culture in which students depend on the teacher for everything, do nothing on their own initiative, and strive to keep up (or back) with the rest of the class. This can happen, unfortunately, even in many advanced, honors, and gifted classes, where the objectives of primarily learning more, faster, are still out of step with the needs of students who will be tomorrows leaders, independent thinkers, researchers, professionals, and artists. Such classrooms can reward conformity, when nonconformity may be a more critical outcome. Traditional teacher-centered classrooms may reinforce other-directedness, when self-direction is the key to increased motivation and a broadened sense of personal and social responsibility (ASCD, 1994; Kohn, 2004). Knowledge and Information An additional motive for differentiating instruction has to do with what is commonly termed the knowledge explosion and the information revolution that has accompanied it. Most Americans are familiar with the effects of both of these forces on the lives of Americans in almost every facet of lifeexcept the classroom. It has been said that if

Rip Van Winkle woke up today, the only thing he would recognize would be the type of teaching going on in todays schools. American classrooms remain, in the face of an incredible information overload, places where many teachers continue to think of their duty as primarily the provision of information by talking. Theodore Sizer (1984) has long argued that education ought to be an experience where the student is the worker. Says Sizer, there simply is very little reason to support the traditional conception of teaching as primarily the provision of information. Teachers can and should assume important new roles of classroom manager and facilitator of learning. Differentiation of instruction becomes an important strategy for achieving new roles and relationships in the classroom.

The Nature of the Learning Process Neither educators nor policy-makers seem prone to devote much attention to how the learning process actually unfolds, short of frenetic activities focused on driving up scores on standardized tests of academic achievement. The laws of the learning process have not been suspended, however, simply because the learning process receives little attention. A century of investigating the process whereby human learning develops has yielded a paradigm accepted by virtually all who have studied the process (Glaser & Bassok, 1989; Winch, 2002). I believe that a clear understanding of this paradigmhow learning happens most effectively, efficiently, and meaningfullystrongly supports the practice of differentiating instruction. The consensus of that scholarship generally suggests that the foundation of meaningful human learning begins with what might be called deeply felt needs or, perhaps, intrinsic individual needs (McCombs, 2003). Such needs are the genuine, basic requirements of the actualized human life, related first to survival, then to relatedness, competence, a success identity, even the need for the presence of beauty and joy in ones life. Human learning happens as a result of the presence of, and in service to, intrinsic, deeply embedded, some-

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what idiosyncratic human needs which insistently demand to be met (Rogers, 1969). It is these deeply felt needs, then, that lead directly to, and provide the impetus for, the generation of authentic individual interests in each person. These authentic interests are, in a sense, the result of an individuals persistent scanning of the environment with a constant and eager eye toward the satisfaction of the needs that gave rise to the interests. Interests that are needs driven, in their turn, give rise to motivation to learn; humans are motivated, primarily if not exclusively, to learn what matches their individual interests and, therefore, helps them meet their deeply felt needs. School learning, without this kind of authentic motivation, can be stupifyingly dull, irritatingly distracting, and of short duration, occurring only with the accompaniment of varying levels of bribery, coercion, and fear (Kohn, 1999; Rogers, 1969). I am persuaded that, for centuries, when teachers have made earnest attempts to show students the connections between the curriculum and the things students care about, and when teachers created curriculum that inspires authentic new interests in students, students have responded with energy, enthusiasm, and focus. This long experience in education clearly indicates thatbecause human needs, interests, and motivation are so dizzyingly idiosyncratic, even in school settingssignificant learning (that which is personally meaningful, satisfying, transferable, and long lasting) must be, absolutely must be, mediated by the differentiation of instruction (Rogers, 1969; Tomlinson, 2000). Add the following ingredients to this learning mix: the influence of intelligence, the power of prior achievement, the existence of a range of specific learning styles, personality, peer group influences, and the impact of home life and social context. It is quite impossible to imagine that real, permanent, productive learning experiences, let alone those simple ones connected to state standards, could happen in any context other than one in which the differentiation of instruction figures prominently. Sadly, these realities do not appear to deter some educators and many policy-makers from their quest to drive standards-based reform to its inevitable and predict-

able ends. If we continue to act as if the laws of learning do not exist, we will, as it has been written, reap the whirlwind. Conclusion Changing ones instructional style and capability is much easier to talk about than it is to do, as difficult as it is essential. Many teachers seem quite willing to continue with the traditional teacher-directed, whole class instructional model, even if they harbor deep uncertainties about their fundamental effectiveness. Further, few teachers have the time, energy, or support for making substantial changes in how they teach, let alone the opportunity to arrive at a determination to do so. This is a real professional dilemma. On the one hand, many educators and policy-makers strenuously and publicly affirm that diverse classrooms are best, while acknowledging that such classrooms only work well when all students, including the most able learners, experience challenge, success, and satisfaction. On the other hand, every reflective educator knows how hard it is to change the way one teaches; moving from virtually total reliance on whole-class instruction to doing a satisfactory job of differentiating instruction will require more than wishful thinking or traditional staff development. Abandoning the heterogeneous classroom will certainly seem easier. The heterogeneous classroom, however, is a central, critical, indispensable factor for accomplishing the traditional mission of the American public school. Differentiating instruction is, in the same way, essential for accomplishing successful learning in the heterogeneous classroom. Without differentiation of instruction, the heterogeneous classroom will likely pass away and authentic learning will also perish; without such classrooms, public schools of the future are far less likely to serve the democratic purposes for which they were designed. Because I believe that the public schools have been the foundation of the nations greatness, I find very little appeal in contemplating such a future, for our schools, our children, or ourselves. I believe, however, that there are realistic strategies

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that can help teachers create diverse classrooms where authentic human learning is served, and where all students are successfully and meaningfully challenged. I believe that the profession can and must move in this direction, and must do so without simply and loudly imploring teachers to make impossible, Herculean, changes in their instructional style and blaming them, even more loudly, when they cannot.

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