Differentiation through Flexible Seating

The article “Optimal Seating Plans? Letting Your Students Choose”, by Emelina Minero, is a case study of a California high school that has embraced the idea and technology of flexible seating which has led to variety differentiation opportunities in their high school.

They have categorized four different seating arrangements that help kids make the decision of what seating arrangement will help them be the most successful. Each one of these seating arrangements has it’s own differentiation potential. Since it’s spring time now and a sense of trust and respect for the classroom as been grounded, and teachers have a clear picture of the needs of their students, this would be a really interesting next step to try this in a classroom.

Independent Work Time: This is a time when kids are not in need of collaboration and work solely by themselves. The teachers in this video and article have them facing a wall so that there is little to no distractions. This also signals to the teacher that this student has a plan and they are working to meet it. Individual desks or tables work well with this type of seating plan.

• Differentiation Potential: In this seating arrangement, students who are more self-directed learners can work by themselves to accomplish the learning target and success criteria. Many students prefer to work alone because it creates a more focused environment which makes them feel more successful. The teacher could easily come and peek over their shoulder to check in to provide feedback. 

Collaborative Work Time: Students are seated at the front of the room with room enough for 4-5 students to sit and work together. There are usually more than just one table so the collaborative groups aren’t so big that students get off task. These groups have a goal they want to achieve and work together to gain better perspective and understanding of the task. Small tables or a few desks pulled together to form a table would work well with this type of seating plan.

• Differentiation Potential: This seating arrangement is meant for those who work better in a more collaborative setting. Kids who need this type of seating benefit from bouncing ideas off of one another and to receive peer feedback. This is also easy for a teacher to monitor and to have quick check-in conversations with the group as they progress through the task. 

Mini-Lesson Work Time: This seating arrangement is usually one small group who would like some one on one time with the teacher to ask questions and practice a skill they have deemed they need help on. A teacher could also create this group based on assessment data they have received and now have an opportunity to work closely with them to ensure they are leaving the mini lesson with a better understanding and practice. A small table or a few desks pulled together to form table would work well for this type of seating.

• Differentiation Potential: This seating arrangement is most beneficial for kids who have been absent or have not shown growth on a particular standard. The teacher can provide a pre-teach or re-teach model and additional practice for those who need it. This could also be a check-in time for students who want or need a one on one conference with their teacher about their progress. 

Whole Group Work Time: Students in this configuration are usually facing one another in a large circle. This arrangement is great for whole class discussion, such as a Socratic Seminar. In the video a girl makes a comment that sometimes it's easier to understand a concept when you are able to make eye contact. Possibly not having any tables, but a circle of chairs would work well for this seating arrangement.

• Differentiation Potential: Students hearing other students ideas is one way for them to comprehend a concept or skill. This seating arrangement is also for those auditory and verbal students who learn best when they can share their thinking aloud. This is also a great opportunity for the teacher to identify and address misconceptions the class as a whole may have.

Even without the fancy tables, many teachers could make these types of seating arrangements in their classrooms. Might take some imagination, but kids might think it neat to come into a room that has been totally rearranged! Offering them the seating choice might also up their engagement level as the sun starts to make its way to the Pacific Northwest!

Quick Check-Ins:Student Choice with Formative Assessments

Classroom Scenario from Mike Anderson’s Blog:

“Chris Ward’s fifth graders have been practicing long division for most of the period. While some understand it well, others are still struggling. Tomorrow, Chris wants to offer appropriate choices to enable students to practice what they need, so today she’ll use a quick check-in—a simple formative assessment—to determine those choices.There’s a dilemma here, however. If she uses an assessment targeted at the middle of the group, she’ll miss key information. She already knows that some students can easily compute 453/7 and others will find it overwhelming. So she offers students a choice. She writes three problems on the board—453/7, 625/5, and 4,357/18—and says, “For today’s math exit ticket, you’re going to choose a division problem to help show where you’re at. There are three on the board for you to choose from, and you may also create your own. Solve a problem that feels just right for you—one that is challenging enough to give you a push and that you think you can solve successfully. This will help me plan for tomorrow.” Offering a variety of problems, she gains a broader understanding of how she can set up tomorrow’s math work to be appropriately challenging for everyone.”


Ideas for Implementation:
1."Create good choices. Choices should align with learning goals and success criteria. They should resonate with students—matching success their varied interests, needs, and abilities. These check-ins should involve light prep on your part and about the same amount of time for students to complete."


2. “Help students choose well. Give students some guidance about which choice might be best without overly directing them. A teacher might say, ‘Think about which of these choices will best help you highlight your understanding of the topic we are learning. For example, you might choose one that matches your interests.’ Another example of what a teacher might say is, ‘If one of these problems seems to match up with how you’re doing on the topic, you might pick that one. If you think making one up will best help show your level of understanding, that also might be a good choice for you.’”


Strategies for the Classroom:
1. “Key Idea, Question, or Challenge: Students write a key idea they’ve learned, a question they have, or something they’re finding challenging.”

Bridget and Brooke say:
Using the scenario above, a teacher could ask kids what was a key idea or way of solving this math problem. Kids could ask a question about the steps to solving this type of math problem. Or, students could explain how challenging solving the problem was. 

Based on their choice of how they express their understanding you will find that it's a bit easier to inform your instruction for the next period. To help students choose well, you may have them try another way of expressing their understanding if they are using one of the three choices more than once or twice. For example, "I see you've been asking a lot of questions about what we've been learning. Have you considered writing down a key idea or something you find challenging?"

2. “T or V: Students can choose to summarize information using either a T-chart or a Venn diagram, whichever will best help them communicate their understanding.”

Bridget and Brooke say:
Using the classroom scenario, the teacher could use the Venn Diagram to have students compare the different fractions OR create a T chart that has the equation on one side and the steps to solving it on the other.

Since T-Charts and Venn Diagrams ask kids to do different thinking skills (categorizing and comparing respectively), you might find it interesting to see why and how they will categorize or compare. This gives kids a way to show you their perspective on the learning they have done. It can show you where kids may need support, too.

Collection Systems for Formative Assessments

Ever find yourself drowning in the assessment data you’ve been collecting since September? Haven’t quite figured out a streamlined way of organizing this data? Or, do you have a HUGE binder stuffed with student work that needs to be organized?

Google Forms is one way to keep your formative assessment data orderly and easy to access!

In this short and informative article, it explains how Google Forms can be the perfect solution to your collection system problems. Google Forms automatically creates a spreadsheet of your data that you can store and organize AND access whenever you need it.

Thanks to Kimberly Allison's expertise, here are some helpful websites you can visit to get you started:

· A “How To” from Google: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/forms/get-started/

· A formative assessment example: http://alicekeeler.com/2016/03/29/google-forms-quiz/

· An article that addresses the quiz option: https://edtechchange.blogspot.com/2016/08/google-apps-for-education-updates.html

Please know that you can contact Kimberly Allison ( kallison@tahoamsd.us ) if you need any support with using Google!

Visit our previous blogs for formative assessment ideas to help you create an assessment to use with Google Forms.

As always, we gladly take suggestions for future instructional tips.

Frequently-asked Questions on Lesson Closure

Frequently-Asked Questions on Lesson Closure

Does every lesson need a closure? 

Closures should occur at the end of each learning target and at least once during that day’s lesson. Whether it’s a review day or a test day or a work day for students, the end of the learning target should culminate in a closure.

What are the minimum components in an effective lesson closure?  

·       a formative assessment aligned with the learning target and success criteria. This could be formal or informal.

·       a student evaluation/reflection aligned with the learning target and success criteria

·       a feeling of wrap-up and a transition to the next learning target or lesson

Does my closure have to be at the end of the period? 

Absolutely not. The closure should come at the end of the learning target and unit, whether they fall during your lesson or at the end of your lesson.

What should I do if my time is short?  

A well-crafted student reflection/evaluation aligned with the learning target and success criteria can also be a formative assessment, showing you where kids see themselves and where you need to help them grow. This can help you kill two birds with one stone.

How long does my closure need to be? 

It might be a 2-3 minute wrap-up with an informal formative assessment and self-reflection, but at least occasionally you will want to gather formal data. Most closures are 5-10 minutes, although a unit closure might run longer.

What are some quick closure strategies?

• ·       Have kids pack up and return to seats. Have someone read aloud the learning target, and give students 30-60 seconds to reflect on specific evidence as to how they met the learning target. Cold-call on students to share out. This will serve as your formative assessment.  You could do a quick thumbs-up or fist of five to have them share how well they individually met the learning target.
• ·       Give students a Post-it. Ask them to place the Post-it on an arrow you’ve drawn on the whiteboard to show where they are on  the path to meeting the learning target. If they’re not 80% of the way there, they must record which of the success criteria is keeping them from a score of 4 or 5 (example, using transitions or reducing the fraction in the problem).
• ·       Have students write a one-minute summary of their learning today on a 3 x 5 card as the formative assessment. Then, put the success criteria on the screen, and have students rate themselves regarding their mastery of the success criteria on the back (example: 1, 5, 3, 3, 5).  You can review the cards quickly, looking for scores of 1-2, and deciding what you will need to reteach.

What Does Lesson Closure Include?

Last week's Teaching Tip was an introduction to lesson closures, which we compared to "sticking the landing" as a gymnast.  You were given some end-of-lesson strategies or formative assessments to incorporate into your lesson closures. Here is the link to that Teaching Tip in case you would like to reread it.

This week we continue with the concept of closure. Ann Sipe of Grandview School District created a handout entitled "Lesson Closure with Examples, or 40 Ways to Leave a Lesson."  You can read her entire handout, along with 40 formative assessment/closure activities here.

We have also captured some of Sipe's great ideas below and added a few of our own:

What is Lesson Closure?

• what the instructor does to wrap up the lesson in a meaningful way and smoothly transition to the next lesson
• a quick review to remind students what they have learned (or should have learned) in terms of meeting the learning target. This works best when students are doing the thinking, not when the instructor is summarizes for them
• a part of the lesson that includes formative assessment to tell you:
• how well students have met your learning target, can summarize main ideas, can evaluate class processes, can answer questions posed at the beginning of the period, and can link to past and future learning
• if additional practice is needed
• whether you need to re-teach the concepts or skill, or can move on to new learning
• not complete without student self-assessment and reflection against the learning target and success criteria
• an opportunity for students to draw conclusions, connect learning to past learning or personal experiences, make inferences, ask questions, deepen their understanding of concepts, and begin to draw connections to upcoming lessons
• something you can do in five minutes
• something that takes place at the end of the learning target, which may or may not be at the end of the period

A Few More Fun Formative Assessments

 Last week we featured a few creative, new formative assessment ideas for you to try out.  Since most buildings are continuing to fine-tune their formative assessment skills and to pack their toolboxes full of strategies, we are offering a few more fun strategies this week for you to try out.

These ideas are adapted from “56 different examples of formative assessment,” a Google Slide show curated by David Wees, Formative assessment specialist, New visions for Public Schools.  You can view the entire slide show at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nzhdnyMQmio5lNT75ITB45rHyLISHEEHZlHTWJRqLmQ/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=

1. 3x Summarization: To check understanding, ask students to write three different summaries: One using 10-15 words, one using 30-50 words, one using 75-100 words. Students can compare/contrast with peers and/or look at teacher models via the document camera.  The differing lengths  require different attention to detail and can help you to see how well students understand the content.
2.  Three Things: Students should list three things/strategies/ideas on a 3 x 5 card or a Google Doc that a peer might misunderstand about the topic.  Instantly you can assess your students' depth of knowledge.
3.  Chalkboard Splash:  Position 5-7 individual students around the room in front of a whiteboard or large butcher paper sheet.  You might have small groups of students stand beside/behind the student who is writing. Give students a prompt, a problem, or a question, and ask each of the students to respond individually.  Their small groups can either help them , or evaluate their work . You can sit at the back and observe all working simultaneously. You can also point out unique or astute ways of solving the problem.
4. Partner Quizzes: Have partners work together to solve a problem or answer a question, providing feedback to one another. Then give them a similar problem that they must solve independently, which is then submitted to you.

These strategies are from “Focus On Student Learning - Instructional Strategies Series Book Two: 60 Formative Assessment Strategies,” by Natalie Regier, M. Ed.    http://www.stma.k12.mn.us/documents/DW/Q_Comp/FormativeAssessStrategies.pdf​

1.        One Minute Essays: The one-minute essay is a quick formative assessment strategy that allows you to gauge student understanding of a particular topic. Pose a question to the students, and have the students respond. Tell them that they have one minute to write down their response. Use questions that cause students reflect on learning and make personal connections with their own lives.
2.         Response Cards:  Ask a question, and have students respond by choosing to hold up one card from a pile of cards he/she has been given. The most common response cards are yes/no questions, but you could also use “a,” “b,” “c”, “d” cards for multiple choice; “agree” or “disagree” cards; true/false cards; math operations cards; punctuation cards; etc., cards with your students.
3.        Three Facts and a Fib, or Three Truths and a Lie: This is a great strategy to find out what students have learned about a unit of study. Students write down three facts and one fib about the  topic. They take turn sharing their three facts and a fib with a partner, in a small group, or with the entire class. Students must identify the “fib” and explain why it is untrue. 

FUN Formative Assessment Strategies

As we swiftly move through September, we are all coming to a point where kids’ understanding of our content’s standards should be our focus. Providing formative assessments helps us not only know where kids are, but they are also tell kids where they are as they navigate through their own understanding of the content and standards.

This week’s instructional tip is a few new and exciting (and dare I say, even fun) formative assessments to shake things up in your classroom.

Here are some strategies compiled by K. Lambert of OCPS Curriculum Services. Note, most of these strategies make for a great closure activity! Bonus!


Onion Ring: Students form an inner circle and an outer circle facing a partner. The teacher asks a question and the students are given time to respond to their partner. Next, the inner circle rotates to one person to the left. The teacher asks another question and the cycle repeats itself.


Analogy Prompt: Present student with an analogy prompt. Example: (A designated concept, principle, or process) is like ___________________ because_________________.


ABC Summaries: Each student in the class is assigned a different letter of the alphabet and they must select a word starting with that letter that is related to the topic being studied.


Fill in Your Thoughts: Written check for understanding strategy where students fill in the blank. Example: Another term for rate of change is ___________or ___________. (This is a good reading formative assessment for ALL content areas)


Idea Spinner: The teacher creates a spinner marked into 4 quadrants and labeled “Predict,” “Explain,” “Summarize,” and “Evaluate.” After a new material is presented, the teacher spins the spinner and asks students to answer a question based on the location of the spinner. Example: If the spinner lands on the “Summarize” quadrant the teacher might say, “List the key concepts just presented.”


One Word Summary: Ask students to select (or invent) one word that best summarizes the topic. You can have them share this word in a variety of ways: to you at the door, on a sticky note or note card…


Have fun trying out a variety of these engaging formative assessment strategies!

And as always, we’d love to hear from you and are glad to take any suggestions for our instructional tips.


Bridget and Brooke

Help Your Students Use Formative Assessment Data

This video shares some strategies for helping students to use formative assessment data to assesses their own learning, determine goals, and monitor progress over time (6.5).  These strategies can help students take ownership of their own learning.

If you prefer read a print version, check out this blog post written by Tanner Higgin.

Checks for Understanding vs. Formative Assessment

What's the difference between a Check for Understanding and a Formative Assessment? One essential factor:

With Formative Assessment, you use the information to inform future instruction. That instruction may occur in the next few minutes, days, or later in the school year, but the teacher uses the information gained from the assessment to adjust instruction to meet student needs. You may find that no adjustments are necessary because your Formative Assessment showed you that your students are right on track.

Click here to see a list of Formative Assessment strategies you can use right now.

Assessment for Learning Strategies

Happy Wednesday!

Looking for an easy way to quickly access formative assessment strategies in one place? Look no further!

This week we have compiled several frequently used and effective formative assessment strategies that teachers are finding helpful to collect data to drive instructional decisions. These strategies are geared toward elementary level students. Ideas shared in previous coach tips have also been added to this document. Click here to access the document in Google Docs, and preview below:

We hope that this will be a helpful tool when lesson planning. As always, let us know how we can be of help!

Smiles,
Kristin, Nicole and Shelly

Increasing Student Achievement Through a Growth Mindset

According to Hattie’s research, “Developing assessment capable students who know the learning target for the lesson, can describe where they are in relation to the criteria for success, and can use that information to select learning strategies to improve their work is the number-one factor for improving student achievement” We all want that for our students and our own children, but how do we develop assessment capable students?

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix posted on Pinterest that we can share to help answer that question. Trust us, we’ve spent countless hours trying to find one! What we have discovered from the research is that there is a clear connection between developing assessment capable students and a Growth Mindset.

Dr. Carol Dweck, the author of Mindset; The New Psychology of Success describes this connection in a recent article: Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'

"My colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students’ mindsets—how they perceive their abilities—played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could “grow their brains” and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits."

As we learn more about the power of the Growth Mindset, we will definitely share. Recently we learned that ClassDojo (an online behavior management system) has worked with Stanford University’s Project for Ed Research that Scales (a group that studies students’ motivation and resilience) to create a 5 part series to help teachers, students, and parents learn about the growth mindset. Check out the following article and videos to learn more.

ClassDojo’s Critters Want to Teach You About Growth Mindsets

ClassDojo Videos

There is also a great resource for parents to assist them in talking to their child about Growth Mindset on our very own Tahoma website. 

Growth Mindset on the Tahoma website

Finally, you might consider reading Mindsets in the Classroom, which is currently being offered as an on-line book study and will be offered again in the spring.

Of course the best way for all of us to learn is from each other. Please share your stories with us so we can all grow together!

Kristin, Nicole and Shelly

Formative Assessment - Best Practices

Best Practices:  Formative Assessment

Formative Assessments Should…	Formative Assessments Should Often…
Align with the learning target and success criteria	Result in Differentiation
Give both the teacher and student information about student’s progress towards learning target.	Include “no opt out” or “total participation” strategies so that information can be gathered from each student
Result in the teacher making an informed decision on next steps in instruction	Provide information on individual students or on patterns in the classroom
Result in feedback that moves learning forward.	Provide structures so that students frequently use assessment data to assess their own learning, determine learning goals and monitor progress over time.
Be used throughout the lesson and as a part of closure.	Result in an immediate change in the instruction or in creating a pre-planned intervention strategy
Reinforce a growth mindset	Be embedded in the learning activity or may be separate

Two Quick Formative Assessment Strategies

Are you exhausted from your end-of-semester responsibilities? Here are two quick and fun formative assessment strategies (3.5, 6.3)  that you can incorporate tomorrow in your classroom.

Back-to-back and face-to-face

Partners stand back-to-back and wait for a question or prompt.  After listening to the prompt and being given time to think about the response, students face one another and take turns responding. For formative assessment purposes, the teacher can cold-call on one team to respond, and then ask everyone who had the same response to raise their hands.  The teacher can then call on those with different responses to share, and would have a clear picture of the level of understanding and the diversity of thought.

To add interest, this could be done with an inner circle and outer circle. The inner circle could rotate, so students would have a new partner for each prompt.

RSQC2

Give each student a 3 x 5 card.  Allow two minutes for them to students recall and list in rank order the most important ideas from today’s lesson (or they could write evidence of reaching the learning target); in three more minutes, ask them to summarize those points in a single sentence, write one major question they want answered, make a comment about their level of understanding, and make a connection to either the unit or course goals or to an analogy outside the course.  The teacher now has information on those students who may need more help with the learning target and which questions they need to have answered.

Pose/Pause/Pounce/Bounce–Formative Assessment and Student Talk Strategy

Who doesn’t love a 2 for 1 deal, right? Here is a great strategy that allows an opportunity for student talk AND formative assessment! Click here for resources

What? 

A student talk and formative assessment strategy that elicits evidence of student learning. High engagement classrooms have a significant impact on student achievement. This high engagement, no opt-out strategy creates accountability for individual student learning and allows teachers insights into student understanding.

Why? 

According to formative assessment guru Dylan Wiliam, there are only 2 reasons to ask students questions: to cause thinking and to provide information for the teacher about what to do next. Meaningful student talk is a strategy to elicit evidence of student thinking and learning. It becomes formative assessment if and only if evidence of learning is elicited and used by the teacher and or students to inform next steps. As teachers listen to student responses they should listen less evaluatively (listening for correct answers) and more interpretively (listening for student THINKING…misconceptions, fuzzy areas, understanding of topics and strategies). This information will allow teachers to make in the moment, informed decisions about how to move instruction forward.

How?
Strategy: Pose-Pause-Pounce-Bounce 
POSE: Teacher poses a thoughtful question
PAUSE: After posing the question, pause for at least 5 seconds to allow think time 
POUNCE: Randomly choose one student to answer the question (popsicle sticks, randomizer app, etc.)

BOUNCE: Bounce to another student at random asking “What do you think of that answer?” Students can respond by agreeing, disagreeing, adding on, asking a clarifying question, etc. using student talk stems. If a student is truly stuck, they can phone a friend for help before providing an answer.
As students talk, the teacher listens interpretively and uses the evidence gathered to inform next steps. Looking for a simple recording sheet? Click here

Bonus: Here is a great visual defining formative assessment, and comparing it with both pre-assessment and summative assessment from Crockett's Classroom Blog: 

Write About – Formative Assessment Strategy

Read below for rationale, how-to directions and modification tips. You can find the pre-made documents for Kinder, Primary & Intermediate classrooms here.

What? A concrete tool for use in classroom or at home where students summarize what they have learned about a topic using key words and pictures then combine their thinking into a written summary.  This tool is for use with a single concept (ex. Underground Railroad) within a larger unit (ex. Civil War). 

Why? This strategy helps students with long term retention of information and it helps them process information they have learned.  It allows the teacher to see at a glance trends in the information students are grasping and then allows the teacher to fill in gaps where needed.  

How?

1. Provide “Write About” sheet to students at end of lesson.
2. Model how to complete sheet by brainstorming key words and drawing a picture to represent main idea.  The level of independence will be depend on your class and grade level.  This might need to be modeled multiple times, depending on grade level.
3. Demo how to write a summary using the key words from your brainstorm.  Be sure to check off the words as you use them and circle them in your summary.
4. To start, you might want to use the gradual release of responsibility model, first guided by you, then as a whole class, then in pairs and finally on their own, when ready.
5.  Collect paper and provide feedback to students.  You are looking for mastery.  One suggested feedback tip is to use a check to show a student understands most terms and ideas but still has to master others.
6. Plan instruction for the next lesson to fill any gaps in student’s understanding.  Your follow up can be whole class, flexible grouping, or tiered based on data you collected.

Modifications: Expert Groups/Jigsaw, provide template with portions filled in (ex. key words supplied) and have them compete the rest, etc.

You can find the pre-made documents for Kinder, Primary & Intermediate classrooms here.