Component 2 - Differentiation in Instruction
Component 2 - Differentiation in Instruction is a portfolio entry built from student work and your analysis of it. The assessors look for evidence that you know your students, design access to rigorous CTE content, and adjust instruction based on what the work reveals. In a lab-based program, differentiation must preserve industry standards while changing the route: scaffolds for reading technical manuals, math supports for measurement, visual task cards, flexible grouping, and extended tasks for advanced learners.
Core rules
- Analyze work, not intentions: quote or describe specific evidence from the samples.
- Keep the standard fixed and vary support, product, or pacing.
- Address the whole task, including safety, tools, and academic embedded skills.
- Show a feedback loop: what you saw, what you changed, what happened next.
Worked example
A culinary student with dyslexia cannot follow a long recipe during a timed service. A weak entry says 'I read the recipe aloud.' A stronger entry shows a color-coded, photo-supported recipe card, a station checklist, and a peer checkpoint at two-minute intervals. The student meets the same knife-cut and sanitation standard. A second, advanced student receives an extension: cost the plate and propose a seasonal substitution. The analysis explains why the scaffold reduces working-memory load without lowering the culinary standard, and it cites the student's annotated work and a later performance as evidence.
Traps that cost marks
- Describing a differentiated activity without analyzing its effect.
- Lowering the technical standard instead of removing barriers.
- Selecting only compliant students who make the entry tidy.
- Overlooking safety or accommodation requirements in a lab.
- Claiming growth without a baseline or later artifact.
Evidence habit
Annotate the student work at the point of evidence; then write the paragraph that explains the decision. Do not make assessors hunt.