The articles on differentiated instruction were slightly overwhelming. Prior to reading, I viewed differentiation merely as making the time to lay more scaffolding for students who were behind and finding ways to challenge students who were ahead. After reading the article, I realized the differentiation goes far beyond merely thinking about what level students are performing at – it is a mindset that should guide every element of instruction. Students not only perform at different levels, but they learn in different ways. They have different interest and different backgrounds. Some have different language needs and some have different behavioral needs. All of these things need to be considered while planning with differentiation.
I generally feel like I have the knowledge to be able to differentiate effectively. I know my students fairly well, although I do have 80 of them. I’ve gone to a number of house visits and am familiar with many of their learning habits. One of the second grade literacy teachers has surveys from each student where they comment on the type of learner they are and whether they learn best by listening, watching or doing. I’ve reviewed all of those surveys and found that students are all over the spectrum; some prefer watching, other prefer doing and many like listening or reading. I also have plenty of assessment data – especially from end of unit exams. For the first two units of the year I also issued pre-assessments, although I did not for the last two – perhaps that is something I should be doing more consistently. That being said, I have plenty of informal data about students prior to beginning units, most of which stems from bell-work share alouds and mini-lessons on future learning items. Although I feel like I have a decent knowledge base, especially in terms of student needs, it doesn’t always translate to the execution of effective differentiation.
Although I do also feel like there are moments where I differentiate fairly well. For example, during the middle of the lesson I have make opportunities to check for understanding… my checks usually consist of some follow up questions, which, for students at lower levels, allows me a chance to lay scaffolding and, for students at higher levels, allows me a chance to provide a challenge. I’ve also recently begun small groups which are based around both formal and informal assessment data and have so far been effective in getting the students who are behind caught up and providing the students who are ahead the opportunity for enrichment. On Thursday I begin centers, and I will further use this as an opportunity for differentiation. Although many stations will cover the same material, I plan on differentiating the work for each group. There will be many folders at each station, each group will have a folder that has work at their level. If this doesn’t occur during my first go-around of centers, it is definitely in the works for the future.
On the whole, there numerous areas for growth in differentiation, too many to list here. But after reading, there are a few changes I think are fairly manageable and easy to implement. I noticed that many of my students, based on their surveys and my own observations, are visual learners. They can be greatly assisted by a simple graphic organization. A graphic organizer, I’ve found, can be made for almost anything in math. For those students, I need to start making one for each lesson, or at least a few per unit. I can also make little word list for students who have issues retaining important vocabulary and look at me like I am crazy when I ask them to find the “product.” These are just a few of the small things I can incorporate to improve my differentiation.
Overall, I would rank myself at the beginning/emerging levels on the rubic. I think that by the end of 108 I could certainly be at the applying level, but it will take time and effort, which, after reading these articles, is definitely worth it.
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2 comments:
Jason, it is nice to have exchanges about our particular subject which is math. I find that we sometimes live in a different world even though we share the same students. From your post, it sounds like you have taken big leaps toward understanding and beginning to implement differentiation which my beginning years of teaching back with another district did not coach me or support me in any of this. I feel like this is a first year that I have really even begun to tap into that scary and intimidating piece of education which is how do you reach every student? We have 80 to assess and figure out, and the volume of students has been one of the most frustrating and challenging things for me this year. I had children who came in from kinder who did not know their numbers and who have struggled the entire way. I have really advanced students who probably would make a better fit with you than staying in first grade. THe bulk of these first graders are scattered all around in the middle. It is true that differentiation takes into account so many different pieces of the whole child, and that process takes a while to pick up on or at least it did for me.
I have found that the bellwork, problems of the day, pre-assessments, etc have allowed me to better equip myself with understanding where they are in terms of their abilities, interests, learning styles etc. It has been a process which has dragged itself out over these months of teaching. I know who the visual learners are, and I know which ones need manipulatives all the time. My goal is to become stronger at differentiation because it is such a complex but critical piece of effective teaching. I am thinking right now that becoming better at it will take time, but the more I learn about it and become more aware of it, the more I will try to find ways to differentiate across the board on all those levels mentioned in the article. I work in small groups and try to seize on those opportunities to plan some differentiated instruction or activities, but I have a feeling that this goes very deep, and it is going to require me to dig deep as a teacher to pull out the most effective quality lessons and activies that I possiblly can to consider myself going beyond a beginner level. It sounds like you are so much ahead of where I was my first year of teaching, and you are lucky that you are being coached this well in the beginning stages of your teaching career.
purposeful, effective differentiation simply cannot exist without accurate assessment...and it sounds like you've really been working on the first half of that battle! how do you manage to track all the assessment data that you collect (learning preferences, interests, bellworks, informal observations, daily work, etc)?
having differentiated work at your math centers is certainly a "best practice" and can really help to target those specific skills that different levels of student groups need to work on. have you determined what you will do with the work that students generate at these centers? how will you (and they) know if this practice time is helping them progress toward mastery of the standards?
i'm interested to hear which of the strategies in the second round of readings you are interested in implementing or exploring further!
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