According to Tomlinson (1999), there are 3 principles for differentiated instruction:

1.      intelligence varies; it is fluid and multifaceted

2.      the brain hungers for meaning

3.      students learn best with moderate challenges

All three of these principles are addressed by using BrainSavvy.  It engages the students, attracts their attention and holds it.  Betts (2004) describes 3 levels of differentiation:

According to Tomlinson (1999), there are 3 principles for differentiated instruction: 

(1) intelligence varies, it is fluid and multifaceted,

(2) the brain hungers for meaning,

(3) participants learn best with moderate challenges. 

One creative process that can easily be incorporated into a differentiated classroom is collaboration.  Collaboration is a purposeful relationship formed to solve a problem, to create or discover something, to change something or to review something.  Collaboration involves sharing responsibilities; it involves each team member being equal and contributing to the process.  Participants learn about themselves in collaborations.  They learn to identify each other’s strengths and talents as well as increase self-esteem by sharing and achieving a common goal.  They gain social capital be productively contributing to a team.           Creating an environment that is relaxed and focused makes effective collaboration an art, not a science.  Collaborative environments are designed to support the various processes of interaction – conversations, sketches, arguments, agreements.  Collaborations are creative because they result in something new.  In collaborative activities, participants learn:  to deal with differences, to recognize each other’s strengths, to show respect by acknowledging contributions of all group/team members, to take turns, to gain practical experiences in dealing with people who are culturally, academically or physically different from themselves, to engage in the process of sharing their experiences and ideas Some positive outcomes from a collaborative learning environment are:

          We all know the number one most frightening thing to do is public speaking, so as trainer/facilitators we, once again, need to employ our natural risk taking tendencies and apply it to instructing differently in order to reach different learning styles and levels.  We’ve got to take a risk that doing it differently will still get as high, if not higher, scores and competency ratings. 

Differentiating instruction is one way to arouse curiosity and creatively present, review or assess materials.  It is also a way for teachers to unleash their own creativity and the creativity of their students with open-ended questions or problems to be solved.  In a differentiated classroom, teachers dispense knowledge as well as facilitate the learning process of all students.  In order to meet the differentiated needs of gifted learners, teachers provide choices and increase opportunities for learner driven experiences.  Teachers use what they know about students to provide varied learning options and build learning experiences around the important concepts of the content (Tomlinson & Kalbfleisch, 1998).  Providing choices and increasing learner driven experiences requires creativity on the part of the teacher. 

Before we began our traditional learning experiences as children, we were expert learners who used all of our senses and motor capabilities to create.  We learned by experiencing, such as sticking a crayon into our mouths, ears or noses.  We learned by seeing what the crayon could do, such as drawing, mashing, eating or crumbling it.  We learned by comparing the crayon to other things that marked or were colorful.  All of us began life as experiential creative learners.