ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of differentiation and the roles it may play in education of high ability and high potential learners. The term "differentiated instruction" is used in a variety of ways by a variety of individuals. In the chapter, the term will be used to refer to an instructional model that provides guidance for teachers in addressing student differences in readiness, interest, and learning profile with the goal of maximizing the capacity of each learner. Students in multi-age classrooms where teachers differentiated instruction performed better than students in single-grade classrooms on 75" of measures used. The chapter discusses the model of differentiation is not so much a single entity as a synthesis of practices from a variety of educational specialties. In addition to research that supports addressing student readiness, interest, and learning profile in the classroom, other elements in the model of differentiation in the chapter.
