Classrooms increasingly contain groups of children with a wide range of individual differences. These differences include various physical, perceptual and mental disabilities, as well as giftedness in children who need academic challenges of various kinds. There are also classes of children who are different in age, children with different ethnic origins and those who speak English as a second language. All these children require provision which is responsive to their special individual needs within the regular classroom. Many schools are now seeking alternatives to the practice of grade retention. These alternatives are challenging some of the instructional methods which were particularly effective when children in the regular classroom were expected to learn and achieve in similar ways.

It is also being increasingly recognised that children have a much wider range of capabilities than they have usually been permitted to show in the regular classroom. In order to show these capabilities, however, they need learning environments which are responsive to the many individual differences which influence learning. Some children, for example, have a special interest in, and early mastery of, symbol systems. Others understand best through much and varied hands-on manipulative experience. Children learn in different ways, have different styles, and build on very different backgrounds of experience. Children also achieve at a higher level in school if they are interested in what they are doing and interests can vary considerably within an average class group.

Both research and developments in education have recently led to instructional innovations designed to make the classroom into a learning environment which is more responsive to the varying learning needs and interests of individual children. For example, there is increasing curriculum integration: continuity between the children's learning in the different subjects. There is more opportunity to relate home and school learning. There is concern for memorable learning as well as memorized learning. Children are expected to work cooperatively on complex and open-ended tasks as well as follow instructions in step by step learning. The project approach provides one way to introduce a wider range of learning opportunities into the classroom.