Individualized Instruction

Today I found myself reflecting upon the differences between differentiated instruction and individualized instruction.  I was speaking with a former colleague of mine on the phone.  She recently moved out to San Francisco and we were just "catching up" yesterday.  We both were talking about our recent professional development days and how they both revolved around differentiated instruction.

She went on to talk about how she has a diverse group of learners in downtown San Jose and how some of her fifth grade students merely cannot write an entire paragraph in English because it is not their native language.  She talked about how some students must work hard to write one paragraph, while for others she is able to raise her expectations to a common "5-paragraph essay."  She was concerned about how this would be perceived by her other students. 

I told her I was under the impression that differentiated instruction did not merely talk about length requirements, but focused more on the different learning styles: visual, auditory, and tactile.  I started to wonder about everyone's different perspectives on this most talked-about topic.  Mary Blow talks about it in her blog about "Individualizing Writing Assignments."  She says, "First, let me begin by clarifying that there is a difference between differentiating instruction and individualizing instruction. According to Patti Drapeau, 'Differentiated instruction does not mean you must provide a different lesson or allow for different products for every single student . . . The teacher does not meet with each student individually unless there is only one student working on a particular skill' (Differentiated Instruction: Making It Work, 2004)." 

I think that this quote is exactly what my friend and I were trying to talk about without having the proper terminology.  Either way we are talking about how we meet the needs of all of our students whether they have different academic levels or different learning styles, but we are looking at two truly different instructional decisions.  So, what do we do next?  How do we decide to make modifications to our lesson plans?