I think the situation on letting a student be a peer-tutor or differentiating their material really depends on the student themselves. I have had situations where higher-level students worked as amazing peer tutors. They prompted other students, helped them through examples and the whole situation worked out beautifully. On the other hand, I have had students who, as peer-tutors, just let others copy off of their paper or got frustrated and ignored the person they were supposed to be tutoring. So, before making this decision, make sure you observe the student to see if they are fit to be a peer-tutor. I believe peer tutoring is very beneficial to both lower and higher students because it provides individualized attention and help, if the students can work together productively.

Differentiation can be excuted in several ways, so you could allow the higher and lower achievers to both complete activities that will encourage academic growth. Meaning, you could still allow the higher achiever to serve as a peer tutor to the lower achiever. However, in addition, you could assign the higher student to write a report to articulate the process and strategies they utilized to assist their peer, and provide an explanation of if they felt it was beneficial or not. If they respond that it was not, they then will give an explanation of what they think they could have done differently. For the lower achiever, having a peer to assist them and present the information in another way will benefit them significantly if they focus and retain the information accordingly. It has been tested and proven that students sometimes learn from their peers more conpared to their teachers. So hopefully, this predicament will not be any different.

The challenge of differentiating instructions for a wide range of learns is not uncommon to teachers. I would create similar assignments, yet differentiate and provide scaffold support within the assignment for students who need support. Students who excel will complete their challenging assignment first, then tutor their classmates. Therefore, you ensure that all students have been challenged.

I believe there should be a mixture of both. The higher student should serve as a peer tutor because if they can teach the material then you know they are fluent in that skill. Once they have done that, then they are ready for an extension of the skill to do independently.