How to Differentiate One Lesson with Claude
Most explanations get pitched once, at whoever's in the middle of the group. That's efficient to write, but it means a struggling learner loses the thread early while an advanced one is left waiting for something they already understood minutes ago. A tenth-grade biology teacher explaining photosynthesis to thirty students is really explaining it to three or four different starting points at once, and one script can't serve all of them.
Warning
One explanation aimed at the middle doesn't serve the middle either. It just means everyone is slightly the wrong distance from where the explanation was actually pitched.
An explanation that works for everyone at once usually isn't calibrated for anyone in particular.
Why a single explanation underserves both ends
Writing one explanation forces a single choice about vocabulary, pacing, and depth, and that choice can't simultaneously be simple enough for someone new to the concept and rich enough for someone ready to go further. Something always gets sacrificed, usually without you noticing which direction you defaulted toward. Most teachers default toward the advanced end without realizing it, because writing at your own level of understanding is the path of least resistance, and it's the struggling learners who quietly fall behind first.
Picture a high school chemistry class covering molarity for the first time. Half the room is still shaky on what a mole actually represents, and the other half worked through a similar calculation in a summer program and is ready for a multi-step dilution problem. One worked example, pitched at the room's rough average, leaves the first group lost by step two and the second group coasting through material they've already mastered. Neither group is being taught at the level where real learning happens.
Before: write one explanation, pitched at an average level, use it for the whole group regardless of where each learner actually is.
After: give Claude the explanation you've already written, and ask for a simplified version and an extended version built from the same core idea, so each learner gets something calibrated to them.
A process for reshaping one explanation into two
- 1
Start from an explanation you've already written
Use your existing draft as the source, not a fresh rewrite. Working from one anchor keeps both versions grounded in the same core idea instead of drifting into two different explanations that happen to share a topic. If you start each version from scratch, it's easy for the simplified version to accidentally skip the actual concept and the extended version to wander into a tangent that isn't really what you taught.
- 2
State the real constraint for the simplified version
Ask for something specific, no technical vocabulary, or an analogy a beginner would recognize, rather than "make it simpler." A vague request tends to produce a version that's shorter but not actually more accessible, since cutting words isn't the same as removing the conceptual load a struggling learner is tripping over.
- 3
State what the extended version should add, not just lengthen
Ask for a specific deeper layer, the underlying mechanism, an edge case, a connection to a related concept, rather than just more detail. Length alone doesn't make a version more advanced, and an advanced learner can tell the difference between genuine depth and padding almost immediately.
- 4
Check both versions still teach the same core idea
Read both back and confirm the same underlying concept survived in each, just at different depths. If the simplified version drops the actual idea to stay simple, it's not simplified, it's a different, thinner explanation, and the struggling learner ends up with something that sounds accessible but doesn't actually connect to what the extended version, or the eventual test, is asking for.
Here's my explanation of photosynthesis for a general audience. Adapt it into a simplified version using no scientific vocabulary, and an extended version that introduces the role of chlorophyll at the molecular level.
”For a subject where the two ends of the room are unusually far apart, like a mixed class with both first-time learners and students who've seen the material before in another course, it helps to ask for the two versions with an explicit gap between them rather than assuming Claude will guess how wide to make the split.
This class has a wide spread: some students have never seen algebraic fractions, others have already worked with them in a prior course. Widen the gap between the simplified and extended versions more than you normally would, and tell me specifically what changed between the two.
”
Inside Claude Tutorial
Calibrating the same idea to different starting points is transferable.
Reshaping one explanation for where different people actually are, instead of pitching a single version at an average, applies well beyond teaching. The app has a full lesson on it, with practice that carries over to any time you're explaining something to more than one person at once.
When a learner needs something between the two versions
Two fixed versions won't always be the right fit. Sometimes a learner needs a version that's simple in vocabulary but includes one specific advanced detail they're curious about, a blend rather than a clean split. This comes up more often than the two-version split alone can handle, especially with students who are confident in most of a subject but stuck on one particular piece of it.
Tip
Ask Claude to build a version that keeps the simplified vocabulary but adds in one specific piece from the extended version. A one-off blended explanation is often faster than trying to make one of the two fixed versions fit by hand.
This student follows the simplified version fine but keeps asking why chlorophyll specifically matters. Write a version that keeps the simple vocabulary throughout but adds in that one detail from the extended explanation.
”The same blending approach works in the other direction too. An advanced student sometimes has one genuine gap buried underneath otherwise solid understanding, a specific term they never quite locked down, and reteaching the whole topic at a simplified level to patch one hole wastes the parts they already have. Naming the exact gap, rather than defaulting to "explain it again," gets a version that respects what they already know.
This student clearly understands the overall process but keeps confusing the light-dependent and light-independent reactions. Write a short, targeted explanation of just that distinction, assuming they already understand everything else about photosynthesis.
”Continue reading
- Turning Quiz Results Into What to Reteach, Not Just Who to Flag: finding out which learners need the simplified version before you write it.
- Giving Feedback on Student Work Without Softening the Real Issue: calibrating feedback the same way, to the learner in front of you rather than an average.
- Building a Rubric-Aligned Assessment From Your Actual Lesson Content: assessing whether both versions of an explanation actually landed.