Abstract:

Educators at all levels of education continue striving to meet the needs of their students. Differentiated Instruction has become an effective approach for meeting the diverse needs of students in traditional classrooms and online environments. Online environments give educators some special opportunities to provide instruction that is both individualized and collaborative. This paper explores the learner components and the Instructional design components that impact the effective development and delivery of instruction incorporating differentiated approaches. The learner components will be addressed by looking at learners’ background information, needs, and learning styles that a course designer needs to recognize before designing the course for those individual diverse students. The instructional design components will be addressed by looking at the instructional strategies and activities that are not suitable for diverse students, but also align with the course goals, objectives, and learner outcomes of a particular educational institution. Examples and best practices will be identified for the effective design and development of online courses.

Keywords:

Differentiated Instruction, Instructional strategies.