Both the current school reform and standards movements call for enhanced quality of instruction for all learners. Recent emphases on heterogeneity, special education inclusion, and reduction in out-of-class services for gifted learners, combined with escalations in cultural diversity in classrooms, make the challenge of serving academically diverse learners in regular classrooms seem an inevitable part of a teacher's role. Nonetheless, indications are that most teachers make few proactive modifications based on learner variance. This review of literature examines a need for "differentiated" or academically responsive instruction. It provides support in theory and research for differentiating instruction based on a model of addressing student readiness, interest, and learning profile for a broad range of learners in mixed-ability classroom settings. Introduction: A Rationale for Differentiating Instruction Today's classrooms are typified by academic diversity (Darling-Hammond, Wise, &. Klein, 1999; Meier, 1995). Seated side by side in classrooms that still harbor a myth of "homogeneity by virtue of chronological age" are students with identified learning problems;

The literature on differentiation offers insights and recommendations on principles, models, and pedagogy. There has been minimal evidence presented, however, about how an inservice teacher learns about differentiation and virtually no research about how a preservice teacher comes to understand and practice responsive teaching.This qualitative study attempts to describe how an inservice and preservice teacher come to understand and practice differentiation and how that process affirms or refutes existing research about competence in addressing student diversity.The study focuses on one inservice and one preservice teacher over four months in a fifth grade classroom. The key components for data collection were eight interviews with the preservice teacher and six with the inservice teacher, seven observations of the preservice teacher and three of the inservice teacher, and reflection journals from both participants that spanned the entire study. A case study in the final report presents general and particular description of each participant and their lived experience together.Evidence of rigor in the research includes triangulation through interviews, observations, reflection journals, documentation, and videotaped lessons; peer debriefing; member checking; and attestation of an audit trail.The following four assertions emerged from the study: the practice of differentiation is dynamic, influenced by changing beliefs and knowledge; beliefs and understanding about differentiation are enacted through continuous assessment; a context that supports differentiation is critical for successful translation of beliefs and understandings into teaching and learning; and key differences exist in the process of understanding and practicing differentiation for the preservice and inservice teacher.By bringing together what and how a preservice and inservice teacher learn about differentiation it is possible to define specific developmental stages as the content, context, and process of their experience takes shape. While they often find themselves at the same point in development, they move through each stage at different rates of speed and levels of sophistication. Self-system processes, prior experiences, and the complexities of learning to differentiate define the distance between them. The findings show that, in contrast to existing research, the novice teacher is capable of beginning to teach by addressing diverse student needs. However, it is clear that extensive support structures are necessary to remove roadblocks and enhance the progress of the preservice teacher as well as to sustain the momentum of the inservice teacher as they refine their efforts to respond to student variance. Leadership, Foundations, and Policy

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