Middle Ground
August 2007
11
Providing Challenge and Choice
Whether in a clustered classroom or a ully heterogeneous one, allteachers can use strategies to help diferentiate instruction or gited,high achieving, and high potential learners. When applied consistently,these strategies help all students make progress throughout theschool year. The three components o curriculum that should be adjusted arecontent, process, and product. Content is the actual material beinglearned. The process is the way the students are engaging with thematerial, such as whole class instruction, small group work, onlineinstruction, and independent projects. The product is how thestudents demonstrate what they have learned. Each approach thatollows incorporates one or more o these and helps meet the twomost basic needs o these students: challenge and choice.
Pre-Assessment: Who Knows What?
The cornerstone o any attempt to meet the needs o diverselearners is to nd out what they are interested in, how they learn best,and what they already know. This is the purpose o pre-assessment.Administer an interest inventory or a learning styles inventory to allstudents at the beginning o the school year. Questions can include:What sports do you play? Do you preer to work alone or with a group?What musical instruments do you play? What do you enjoy learningabout? What do you do with your ree time? I you had to put togetheryour new desk, would you rather hear the instructions, read theinstructions, or watch someone do it and then ollow their model?Identiy or collect rom existing data inormation about eachstudent’s reading and writing levels in all content areas. I theresponsibility or gathering this inormation is divided among gradelevel team members, students don’t end up completing our writingsamples or lling out six interest inventories during the rst twodays o school. Teachers should be aware o any student who has been identiedas gited in a specic academic area, in a cognitive ability, or in thevisual or perorming arts. Criteria or this designation vary by stateand district; this is diferent rom the consistent ederal guidelines oridentiying special education students. This pre-assessment gives teachers a general overview o students’academic and personal starting points. The next step is to be moreteacher- and content-specic. At least two weeks beore instructionabout a specic unit begins, teachers should give students a pre-assessment covering the content o that unit.Oten teachers misuse the K-W-L technique (What do you Know?What do you Want to know? What have you Learned?) or this purposeby doing it as an oral whole-class activity on the rst day o a unit.While it is a great way to engage students’ interest in a topic, it is notan efective pre-assessment. The students who know the most stoptalking ater they ofer two or three answers, even i they know more(it’s socially “uncool” and teachers ask “can we hear rom anyone else?”)while students who don’t know anything about the topic say “he took my answer” or remain silent. Teachers get a alse “read” o the class’sknowledge base. In addition, doing this activity on the rst day o an already-planned unit gives them no time to adjust or individuallearners’ needs.Instead, pre-assessments should be1. Written.2. Individual.3. Focused on the key inormation, concepts, and skills o the unit,including the embedded state and local standards.4. Relatively short.5. Assessed only or instructional planning and grouping (not graded).6. Returned to students only at the end o the unit when they canassess their own growth.Other efective pre-assessments can be specially constructedpre-tests, post-tests, journals, incomplete graphic organizers, or open-ended questions. It is oten useul to add “What else can you tell meabout your experiences with this topic and what you know about it?”Once teachers have a good idea o the starting point or eachstudent, they can select the appropriate materials, pacing, andinstructional approaches. This is the oundation o middle schoolphilosophy and diferentiation o instruction: start with the student.
Tiered Assignments
Tiered assignments, both in class and or homework, are a greatway to diferentiate instruction when all students need to work on thesame content or material. This might include diferentiated journalprompts, comprehension questions at diferent levels o Bloom’sCognitive Taxonomy, or a range o sophistication in math problems.For example, when students are reading The Gettysburg Address,teachers can develop two sets o questions. One set is or strugglingreaders or more concrete thinkers with little background knowledge. These questions might emphasize the rst three levels o Bloom’staxonomy (remember, understand, apply) and some key vocabularywords. A second set is or advanced readers or more abstract thinkers. These questions might emphasize the higher levels o Bloom’staxonomy (analyze, evaluate, create) and include a question about theoratorical devices that made this speech memorable.Both groups get the same number o questions. The whole-classdiscussion that ollows can include all students so everyone benetsrom shared insights and knowledge, and encourage critical thinking.
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