Layering (Layered Learning; Layered Curriculum)

Differentiated Instruction is a teaching emphasis intended to meet the varied learning needs of all students. Most of its discussion is focused on diversities covered by Learning Styles Theories, Cognitive Styles Theories, and Developmentalisms, but attention is also given to socio-cultural sources (e.g., socioeconomic status, language, culture) and biologically rooted differences (e.g., gender, brain injuries).

Learning Styles Theories comprise dozens of discourses that purport to characterize and categorize ways that individuals take in information. The most popular versions focus on diverse perceptual preferences (e.g., hearing versus seeing), modes of engagement (e.g., active doing versus passive watching), and format of information (e.g., concrete versus abstract), but the spectra span such concerns as social structures, affective settings, and time of day.

Cognitivism is explicitly developed around the metaphor “brain as computer.” It thus focuses on how information is acquired, processed, and organized. Learning is seen in terms of integration of new information into existing structures through processes of internal codification.