According to DI guru Carol Ann Tomlinson, a lot of confusion exists about what differentiated instruction is and isn't. One myth that plagues differentiation is that it is in conflict with standards-based education. Tomlinson offered two major reasons why this is not so.
First, standards guide what to teach, and differentiation guides how to teach. No matter what you're teaching, it will be learned better if taught in a way that's responsive to a learner's needs.
Next, differentiation is about providing a variety of means and supports for mastering a standard, not changing the content of standards. A richer framework of meaning helps students more effectively learn, recall, relate to, retain, and retrieve content. Tomlinson concluded that differentiation is a means of achieving standards by making them accessible to a wider array of learning styles and student interests.
