In an ongoing effort to provide options we wanted to make you aware of several courses in the area of differentiated instruction are available online through ASCD.  The courses are available for college credit but you need to check carefully to see if the college credits offered serve the purposes you need for Master’s programs, salary step increases or licensure renewal. To answer any questions you have about these courses, please check their Frequently Asked Question section.

Each course costs US$99 and each faculty member is able to receive up to US$400 per year for graduate credits.

• Differentiating Instruction  - This 5 lesson course is designed to enhance participants' understanding of how to better meet the needs of different learners. Participants will examine the characteristics of a differentiated classroom; learn how to frame instruction around concepts and essential understandings; identify techniques for differentiating content, process, and product; and explore how to differentiate on the basis of students' readiness, interest, and learning profile. Participants will also reflect on their beliefs and practices relative to differentiation, read and analyze examples of differentiated learning activities, and design a differentiated activity.
  • INSTRUCTOR: Leslie Kiernan
  • View the Table of Contents and Sample Lessons

Success with Differentiated Instruction - Differentiated instruction is responsive instruction — that is, instruction that responds to students' needs. In this seven-lesson course, we'll examine the characteristics of high-quality differentiation. By the end of the course, you will be able to articulate a rationale for differentiation; identify ways to introduce differentiation to students, parents, and your extended learning community; explain the roles of quality curriculum, respectful activities, and flexible grouping in quality differentiation; identify ways to assess for readiness, interest, and learning profile; describe and apply a range of instructional strategies that support differentiation for readiness, interest, and learning profile; reflect on your own classroom practices that fit in with the philosophy of differentiation; and devise a plan for continued professional growth in differentiation. Our goal for this course is to facilitate learning for each student of differentiation's journey as we collectively strive to rise to the challenge of providing the best learning opportunities for all of our children.

o        INSTRUCTOR: Cindy Strickland

o       View the Table of Contents and Sample Lessons

 Using Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom - In a differentiated classroom, assessment is ongoing and diagnostic. Its purpose is to help students learn rather than to simply catalog their mistakes. Differentiating instruction requires that teachers respond to variations in students' readiness, interest, and learning profiles, information best gathered through appropriate use of assessment. In this professional development online course, we will identify uses of assessment to pinpoint students' learning needs, reflect on some principles of differentiated instruction, and analyze uses of continual assessment that inform instruction.

o        INSTRUCTOR: Diane L. Jackson

o       View the Table of Contents and Sample Lessons