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While the concept of "differentiated instruction" can be defined in many ways, as good a definition as any is ensuring that what a student learns, how he/she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he/she has learned is a match for that student's readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning. A readiness match maximizes the chance of appropriate challenge and growth. An interest match heightens motivation. A learning profile match increases efficiency of learning. Effective differentiation most likely emanates from ongoing assessment of student needs.
The question of where responsibility resides for differentiating instruction in response to learner needs seems, at first glance, virtually a nonquestion. It is difficult to summon a scenario in which a student would be deemed to have predominant responsibility for classroom instruction. I am convinced, however, thai somewhere on my family tree is a link to Tevye who, in Fiddler on the Roof, periodically stands in a field and debates with himself (and God) the competing sides of each significant issue in his life. So, while I can most readily make the argument that primary responsibility for differentiated instruction lies with the teacher, I see merit to assigning some responsibility for "goodness of fit" between learner and what transpires in the classroom to the learner him or herself as well.
The Argument for Teacher Responsibility
Clearly the teacher is the professional in a classroom who is both trained to develop and/or implement effective curriculum and instruction and assigned legal responsibility for doing so. Knowledge of child development, learning goals, assessment strategies, use of assessment data to shape instruction, use of available time, use of time and resources, and flexible classroom organization are just a few of the skills implicit in teaching that are effective both for the class as a whole and for individuals who comprise the whole. Clearly these are not abilities and insights we expect to see manifest in a 6-year-old or even a 16-year-old. In fact, it is likely that consistent and robust evidence of these skills in a teacher signals that the teacher works at a high level of expertise. In other words, we have no reason to expect the skills to be well developed in a beginning teacher, let alone a K-12 learner.
