How can you differentiate instruction when integrating cross-curricular content?

1 Know your students

Before you plan your cross-curricular lessons, you need to know your students well. What are their strengths and weaknesses, their learning styles and preferences, their prior knowledge and skills, their interests and motivations, their goals and aspirations? You can use various tools and methods to gather this information, such as surveys, interviews, portfolios, assessments, observations, and feedback. Knowing your students will help you design cross-curricular lessons that are relevant, engaging, and challenging for them.

3 Vary the process

The process of learning cross-curricular content can also be differentiated according to the students' needs and abilities. You can use different strategies and methods to guide the students through the learning process, such as direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning, and so on. You can also provide different levels of support and scaffolding, such as modeling, questioning, feedback, hints, clues, examples, and so on. This will help you adjust the level of complexity and challenge for each student.

4 Offer choices

One of the most effective ways to differentiate instruction when integrating cross-curricular content is to offer choices to the students. You can allow the students to choose the topics, themes, or resources that interest them, the strategies or methods that work best for them, the products or outcomes that showcase their learning, and the criteria or standards that assess their learning. You can also give the students some control over the pace, time, and place of their learning. This will help you foster the students' autonomy, ownership, and motivation.

5 Group strategically

Another way to differentiate instruction when integrating cross-curricular content is to group the students strategically. You can use different criteria and methods to form the groups, such as ability, interest, readiness, learning style, personality, and so on. You can also use different types of groups, such as homogeneous, heterogeneous, mixed-ability, flexible, and so on. You can also change the groups according to the purpose and goal of the lesson. This will help you promote the students' collaboration, communication, and social skills.