Differentiating with SMART

Differentiating your instruction can be difficult at times. Besides needing baseline data to determine exactly where a student is, you need to create lessons that will meet everyone's needs. At the secondary level, you are often teaching the same content several times a day. You can use SMART Notebook software to help you differentiate your materials in many different ways.

For instance, you can group your different levels within one notebook. Each group can be used for a different class, but be contained in the same Notebook. This will keep things organized and easy to keep from year to year. One group might have audio support with tough words linked to your voice saying the word and others might have extension activities.

You can also color code your lessons. For instance, if you have a choice activity, the more challenging choices can have one color, the "average" another and the simpler choices yet another color. You can tell students which color they should choose. This will allow everything to be on one page and easily identified by you, but not by the students.