Differentiation Strategies

Looking for new ways to differentiate in your classroom?

Last week at the Teacher Leadership Institute, teacher leaders from all 4 elementary schools shared ideas about how they are currently differentiating for students in their classrooms. There were so many great ideas, we just had to share! Differentiation allows us to respond to student learning needs, and deliver responsive instruction based on information gathered through formative assessment.

We used a strategy called "Give One, Get One" to share strategies for differentiation

Differentiation Strategies generated by teachers:

• Visual and verbal modeling
• Level 4 tutors (students who are at a level 4 become tutors)
• Reader's workshop
• 1:1 reading conferences and goal setting
• Guided math groups based on unit pre assessments
• Math center rotations
• Differentiated reflections
• Math daily 4
• Small group reteaching
• Small group preteaching
• Creating individualized student goals
• Use of manipulatives
• Conferring
• Snap and read in writing
• Google Docs
• Anchor Sets
• Teaching multiple strategies to solve a problem
• Use of partners and peer to peer instruction
• Guided reading
• Giving students feedback
• Tiered lessons

An important thing to keep in mind is that in order for differentiation to be effective, assessment for learning must be an ongoing part of teaching and learning. Monitoring of student progress should always happen before, during and after learning in order to guide instruction.

Here are several strategies for differentiation by content area:

As always, please let us know how we can help!

Kristin, Nicole and Shelly

Student Self-Evaluation and Reflection

As teachers are aware, student self-assessment and self-reflection are considered instructional best practices, are part of Criteria 6.1 (“Self-assessment of learning connected to the success criteria”), and, according to Hattie’s research, have the HIGHEST impact on student achievement of all factors or interventions.

Sometimes, however, it is challenging to develop thoughtful questions that force students to consider metacognitively what they have learned, how they have learned it, and how their accomplishment meets the learning target and success criteria.

Feel free to choose from the assortment of self-assessment and self-reflection questions below to use or modify as needed for use at the end of an assignment, a essay/paper, or a project. They are divided into four categories: backward-looking, inward-looking, outward-looking, and forward-looking (adapted from  https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-replicatingPBL-21stCAcad-reflection-questions.pdf).

Questions for Student Self-Evaluation and Reflection

Backward-Looking

Self-Evaluation

1.              What process did you go through to produce this piece (or complete this assignment)? Explain the steps of the process and steps that you may have completed in addition to meeting the success criteria.

2.              Reflect on your progress toward mastering the learning target. In what ways do you think you need to improve?  What parts of the success criteria were a struggle for you? How did you overcome those struggles?

3.              What resources did you use while working on this piece? Which ones were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again? Did the success criteria and instructions guide you to those resources, or did you have to find them on your own? 

Self-Reflection

1.              How much did you know about the subject before we started? What additional learning did you acquire?

2.              Have you done a similar kind of work in the past (earlier in the year or in a previous grade, in school or out of school)? What new learning about yourself, about the process, or about the content does this piece reveal? In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of work?

3.              Does this work tell a story? If so, what does it reflect about you or about life?

Inward-Looking

Self-Evaluation

1.              As you review the rubric and success criteria, consider where you could have invested more effort and where you may have been stretched beyond your previous skill level.

2.              What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished product? Did you fulfill all of the success criteria? Did you add additional personal success criteria to your work?

Self-Reflection

1.          How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

2.          What did/do you find frustrating about this piece of work?

3.          What does this piece reveal about you as a learner? What new insights do you have about yourself as a learner after having completed this piece? Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject?

4.          Find another piece of work that you did at the beginning of the year to compare and contrast with this. How have you grown in terms of your specific skills and your ability to plan the process? What changes can you see? How did those changes come about?

Outward-Looking

 Self-Evaluation

1.     If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about this piece? Use the rubric and/or success criteria to determine your comments. Based on the rubric or grading criteria, what grade would you give it? Why?

2.     In what ways did your work meet the criteria for this assignment? In what ways did it not meet those criteria?  Did you exceed the criteria?

Self-Reflection

1.     Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

2.     What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your work? What do your classmates particularly notice about your piece when they look at it?

3.      If someone else were looking at the piece, what might they learn about who you are?

Forward-Looking

 Self-Evaluation

1.              What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again? Using the rubric and success criteria, explain what you would change in the next revision of this piece.

2.              What's the one element that you have seen in your classmates' work or process that you would like to try in your next piece? Was this element part of the rubric/expectations? Why would you want to add this element to your work?

3.              As you look at this piece, what's one thing that you would like to try to improve upon? Would this improvement result in a better evaluation on the rubric, or would it bring you greater satisfaction?

Self-Reflection

1.      What's one goal you would like to set for yourself for next time?

2.      What would you like to spend more time learning in this class?

3.      What do you need more help with?

4.      What might you want next year's teacher to know about you and your learning style, potential, challenges, struggles, etc.? What work would you show your future teacher to help him/her understand those things?

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

Tracking Student Growth with Data

Have you ever considered using your valuable classroom wall space to create an interactive student growth data board?   Imagine the power of always having a goal in mind and knowing where you are in relation to that goal.  Making our data-gathering practice public and using the data with students is a powerful tool to engage our learners and to help them assess their own learning, determine goals and monitor these goals over time.

What impact might a data board like this have in your classroom?

You would be able to modify this example to reflect your Student Growth Goals and could update it as you have data.  Imaging incorporating a student reflection piece and having the students each set personal goals and the positive impact on growth this could have.

This idea comes to us from the blog: My Teacher Friend  Click the link for more information about the data grid.  Wondering how this teacher created this board...she use students!

Read on for more: "How we got the graph done without making me pull my hair out: Each kid was in charge of using their own report. Each report was structured from highest to lowest percentage on each standard. They looked at each standard and used the percentage of questions correct for that standard to decide what color post-it to use. They then placed the post-it on the correct color for that standard. They did this for all 19 standards."

This example is from the blog Third Grade Bookworm

Click the link for more information and examples.  The blogger, Abby, says "GROWTH is the focus for us as a team, and as individuals."

 “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.  If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road...”   ― C.S. Lewis

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.

TPEP Resources

Happy Wednesday!

Many of you are thinking about TPEP and mid-year TPEP conferences this time of the year, especially if you are on comprehensive. In this week’s coach tip, we want to be sure to acknowledge that. We have attached links and documents that you might find helpful as you reflect on what you and your students have accomplished so far, as well as areas that you are looking to provide more evidence for.

Did you know that we have a Tahoma TPEP Google Site? One thing you might find helpful is found under the tab titled “Evaluation Criteria & Example Evidence”. There you will see details and examples of each criteria. 

Click here to explore the TPEP Google Site 

Additionally, a very helpful document to have handy is the District TPEP timeline as well as a helper sheet reflecting all dates and components of TPEP for teachers both on the comprehensive and focused models.

Helper Sheet

District TPEP Timeline

Of course, we do what we do not because of TPEP, but because it is good instructional practice! Please let us know how we can support you along this journey!

Smiles, 

Nicole, Kristin and Shelly

Maximizing Effectiveness of Slides for Learning

Many of us use PowerPoint or Google Slides to help with instruction.  But, do we always utilize them in the most effective way?

Research shows that learners cannot read and listen at the same time because the cognitive load for learners is too high.

Cognitive load describes the capacity of our brain's working memory to hold and process new pieces of information.  We have a limited amount of working memory, so when a learner is faced with trying to read and listen at the same time, the cognitive load can become too much for the brain to manage.

When the cognitive load is just right, the brain maximizes its ability to retain new information.

Many of us have been guilty of overloading our student's brains and actually hindering their learning at some point.  What can we do to change?

• Use pictures or limited words to enhance the presentation of information, not replace it.
• Make slides that reinforce your words, not repeat them.
• No more than six words on a slide.  Less is more.  (An exception to this rule would be slides that provide directions that students can refer to during an activity.)
• Avoid cheesy, boring images.
• Keep slides simple.
• When you need to provide large chunks of text, give learners a handout.  Printing is free at the Print Shop!

There are exceptions, of course, such as directions for an activity or a direct quote.

Want to read more?  Check out "Why Your Students Forgot Everything on Your PowerPoint Slides" by Mary Jo Madda.

Want a resource for yourself and/or your students?  This handout condenses information from Garr Reynolds book Presentation Zen.  It was created for use with students, but it's also a concise summary of some of the key ideas from the book regarding presentations that you might find useful.