Differentiating for Many Students at Different Grade & Proficiency Levels in Same Class

There is a variety of ways to teach classes with a range of grade and proficiency levels with the curriculum. I've included some thoughts below but it's always difficult to know what to recommend without knowing you, your students, or your context.

My favorite overall structure for a class is the Gradual Release of Responsibility model with some tweaks. I recommend carefully choosing specific, concrete, measurable goals your average students in the class can reasonably achieve in the time you have. Then teaching them what they need to know at the whole group level, then splitting up into small groups to practice more, and then finally requiring each student to pass the goal on their own individually. Those who complete the goal(s) get game time while the rest of the students work towards completing the goal(s). For stronger students who will likely complete the goals quickly and easily, you can give extra materials with extra rewards of some kind. For weaker students, you can scaffold the goal(s) so that they are able to step up to the challenge or at least complete first steps required toward achieving goals like it in the future. With this strategy, you are able to focus on teaching content well and not driving yourself crazy by trying to teach five or six classes at the same time. The curriculum works well with this strategy since the lessons all include scaffolds for lower-level students as well as extra resources for stronger/faster students.

Another strategy is breaking up into small groups based on grade and/or proficiency level and then giving different content to each group. Breaking off into groups can definitely be a good strategy to differentiate for different abilities, especially if students have such a wide range of abilities. But if students aren't being productive in small groups, you can end up running around like crazy trying to keep everyone on track only to end up achieving very little. With this strategy, you definitely will want to spend a fair amount of time training them first before you can really dig into any real content. Practicing how to practice in small groups with simple quick goals and then rewarding those students who achieved the goal with a quick activity can be a great way to set expectations and create motivation for when you assign more challenging tasks and need students to work independently. You will still need to spend time with each group to get them going with the content and goals you want them to complete. The curriculum works well with this strategy since there is a wide range of levels included with the curriculum. Each group can work through a different level's content at their own pace, going up through the lessons and units in order, checking in with you as they complete content.

I hope that makes sense. I'm grossly summarizing to avoid writing another book. Here are a few resources that might be helpful:

Book: Most in-depth

Kid-Inspired Teacher - Book on How to Organize Wildly Productive Lessons with Your ELLs ->

Articles:

Curriculum:

Kid-Inspired ELL Curriculum Membership ->