  Teachers' response to the real-time needs of diverse learners in the
classroom is important for each learner's success. Teachers who give
differentiated instruction (DI) provide pertinent support to each student and
acknowledge their differences in learning style and pace. However, due to the
already complex and intensive routines in classrooms, it is demanding and
time-consuming for teachers to implement DI on-the-spot. This study aims to
explore how to ease teachers' classroom differentiation by enabling effortless,
low-threshold student-teacher communications through a peripheral interactive
system. Namely, we present a six-week study, in which we iteratively
co-designed and field-tested interaction solutions with eight school teachers,
using a set of distributed, interactive LED-objects (the 'FireFlies' platform).
By connecting our findings to the theories of DI, we contribute empirical
knowledge about the advantages and limitations of a peripheral interactive
system in supporting DI. Taken together, we summarize concrete opportunities
and recommendations for future design.
