Scaffolding – Page 5

March 17, 2016May 10, 2016

37: Simple Framework for Rigor

“What Rigor Looks Like in the Classroom: What Rigorous Instruction Requires Students to Do.” YouTube. YouTube. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

4 Elements to Rigor: Student are approaching material with rigor when they …

make meaning for themselves
- ask students to explain content in their own words
- ask students to explain how content can be used to solve problems in the project and in their own lives
impose structure on information
- have students organize knowledge using reflection prompts and graphic organizers
- have students compose formal and informal written pieces about content
combine individual skills into complex organized processes
- ask students how skills can be used
- ask students to use problem solving approaches to plan out steps to a solution
- ask students to explain the steps and rationales in their solutions
apply knowledge to novel situations
- create novel situations for students to apply knowledge
- create variety of problems for students to solve

High rigor tasks have been shown to improve learning for students at all readiness levels. For more details, see this article. These elements for rigor highlight key elements of understanding. For more elements related to understanding, see this article. This simple definition for rigor can be used to evaluate a sequence of scaffolding activities to see if they allow for a variety of rigorous learning activities.

PREPARATION STEPS

Use 4 elements to design project scaffolding activities and assessments that explore key learning targets
Evaluate project calendar activities using 4 elements and make adjustments if needed
Design prompts and problems that have students explore key content using 4 elements
Display 4 elements in classrooms

EARLY IMPLEMENTATION STEPS

Implement rigorous learning activities
Provide specific formative feedback to students so they can regularly improve their understandings and student work
Use reflections to check if students are able to apply 4 elements to what they are learning

ADVANCE IMPLEMENTATION STEPS

Teach students the 4 elements and their connection to deep learning
Let student use 4 elements to evaluate the quality of their learning experiences and provide feedback on projects

March 17, 2016May 9, 2016

36: Instructional Practices that Deepen Understanding (2 of 2)

Chapter 7 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

WHERETO Framework: Framework for developing good scaffolding

W: How will I let students know WHAT they are learning and WHY they are learning it? How will I communicate my expectations for the unit?
- display driving questions, project rubrics, and exemplars in a class bulletin board
H: How will I HOOK and engage students in their learning? How can I connect student interests to curricular goals?
- start projects with an interesting mystery or challenge
- other HOOKS: counterintuitive phenomena, provocative essential questions, emotional encounters, humor, controversial issues, authentic problems, problems based on student interests
E: How will I EQUIP students to meet learning goals? What learning EXPERIENCES will deepen their understanding of key ideas?
- use balance of constructivist learning experiences, structured activities and direct instruction. See this article for simple idea for deciding which experiences go with which types of knowledge.
R: How will I encourage students to RETHINK prior knowledge? And also REFINE and REVISE their work?
- use this R with difficult to understand, counterintuitive content
- techniques: play devil’s advocate, present new info, conduct debates, regular self assessment
- use prompts to encourage self-assessment:
  - what are you most proud of? most disappointed in?
  - how does your preferred learning style influence … ?
  - how will you make use of what you’ve learned?
  - for more ideas, see this article
E: How will we EVALUATE student learning and student work?
- 5 minute paper – what have we concluded? what remains unanswered or unresolved?
- attach self assessment to each product
- 1 minute paper at end of workshop – what was learned? what is confusing?
- train students how to use rubrics to self assess to plan next steps
- start class with burning questions from 1 minute papers and debrief at end of class to check if questions were answered
T: How can we TAILOR learning activities to match students’ interests, learning profiles and readiness levels?
- See all blog articles under the Differentiation tag
- Use diagnostic and pre-assessments to identify student needs
- Cluster student needs and design scaffolding for these
- Give students some CHOICE in their scaffolding and products
O: How will learning experiences be ORGANIZED or sequenced?
- Introduce the HOOK early and revisit often
- Teach enabling skills when they are needed to make sense of a problem
- Revisit the WHY often
- Cycle between learning-doing-reflecting
- Cycle between whole-part-whole
- Use 6 facets to design scaffolding that deepens understanding

W – Communicating end goals and essential questions can help students organize knowledge. Student can better organize their own learning when they are aware of the overarching ideas and goals of the project. Students are more likely to produce high quality work when expectations and models are communicated early in the project.

H – Engaging topics help students apply knowledge in novel contexts. Education should be an itch, not a scratch.

E – Building enabling skills in the context of complex tasks will build relevance for those skills and enable students co create better products.

R – Big ideas need to reconsidered and big understandings must be refined over time.

E – Building self assessment skills can improve products and develop student independence.

T – Tailoring to specific learner needs can make learning more accessible to more students. Tailoring to specific interests can make learning more engaging. Identifying and resolving learning gaps can make learners more able to solve complex problems.

O – Organizing in ways that use cycles gives students opportunities to grasp and re-grasp new material. Resisting the urge to frontload information and reserving instruction for just-in-time moments will create more willing learners.

Preparation Steps

Use WHERETO framework to design and evaluate scaffolding, assessments, driving questions, and project calendars
Use WHERETO framework to refine project prior to launching it

Early Implementation Steps

Implement project – identify, observe and document learning events that fit in the WHERETO framework (or missed the mark)
Used WHERETO evaluations to finetune scaffolding

Advanced Implementation Steps

Design and implement a WHERETO graphic organizer that students can use to evaluate projects
Design and implement a similar WHERETO graphic organizer that students can use to evaluate their own collaboration and project work

Core beliefs tying curriculum to student diversity
4 Assessment practices that honor student differences
Differentiated instruction articles
Scaffolding articles
Assessment articles
PBL articles

March 17, 2016May 10, 2016

35: Instructional Practices for Deepening Understanding (1 of 2)

Use Essential Questions in Teaching
- use essential (driving) questions to launch projects and revisit throughout the project
- make questions provocative and student friendly
- make questions point toward key understandings
- Examples:
  - Math: Can everything be quantified?
  - Science: To what extent are science and common sense related?
  - Bio: How are form and function connected in the natural world?
- Can use essential question as an open-ended pre-assessment at start of a project
- Can use essential question as a diagnostic question throughout the project
- Less is more – 1 to 5 essential questions per unit
- Help students personalize the questions
- Post essential questions in the classroom
Use 6 Facets of Understanding as Instructional Tools: Use 6 facets of understanding to generate activities to explore content
- 1 – Explain: demonstrate, derive, describe, design, exhibit, express, induce, instruct, justify, model, predict, prove, show, synthesize, teach
- 2 – Interpret: analogies, critique, document, evaluate, illustrate, judge, make meaning of, make sense of, metaphors, read between the lines, represent, tell a story of, translate
- 3 – Apply: adapt, build, create, debug, decide, design, exhibit, invent, perform, produce, propose, test, use
- 4 – Perspective: analyze, argue, compare, constrast, criticize, infer
- 5 – Empathy: assume role of, believe, be like, be open to, consider, imagine, relate, role-play
- 6 – Self-knowledge: be aware of, realize, recognize, reflect, self-assess

Exploring essential questions models how knowledge is made. This contradicts the common misconception that knowledge was not made; it always existed. Essential questions answer the WHY question for why knowledge and skills are important.

The six facets allow students to explore knowledge and deepen understanding in a variety of ways. Ladders are false metaphors for learning. The brain needs both higher order and lower order thinking skills to make sense and meaning of new material. Lower order skills don’t always need to be presented first (example: we learned how to speak before we learned grammar).

Preparation Steps

Design provocative essential question(s) that are student friendly and open enough to serve as a pre-assessment and diagnostic tool
Post essential (driving) question(s) in the classroom
Decide what facets of understanding will be used to explore each learning target
Use verbs above (and research) to design activities that use several facets to explore learning
Use 6 facets to design and evaluate product rubrics. See 6 facets question stems and 6 facets scaffolding ideas articles.

Early Implementation Steps

Use essential question as an early journal prompt to pre-assess student perceptions and knowledge related to the project
Guide students to generate many questions related to essential questions and research these
Use essential question at strategic points in project to assess how student knowledge is progressing
Implement learning activities that are aligned to standards and leverage several facets of understanding
Use frequent formative assessments to give students specific feedback that they use to improve learning and products and to fine tune instruction. See article on descriptive feedback.

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students 6 facets and use it as a framework for students to design learning tasks that demonstrate their mastery of learning targets (these activities can replace re-tests)
Teach students to use 6 facets of understanding to reflect on their own learning and to explain which facets are helping them make a stronger deeper connections to learning targets

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

33: Clustering Student Needs For More Efficient Planning

Chapter 6 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

What does clustering learner needs mean?

use patterns to identify and plan for common student needs

Common Clustered Needs & Remediations:

Need for reading supports:
- Optional reading partners on new texts
- Make highlighted and marked up texts available
- Teacher reads aloud complex parts of text
- Provide audio recordings of texts
Need for vocabulary building:
- Provide vocabulary lists with clear explanations
- Pinpoint and focus on key vocabulary
- Students hunt for vocabulary in textbooks, editorials, cartoons, TV, magazines, etc
- Word walls
- Vocabulary posters with words and related visuals
Difficulty Staying on Task:
- Think pair share groups
- Student choice on learning tasks and learning modes
- Multiple modes of teacher presentation
- Shift activities during a class period
- Graphic organizers designed to model the flow of ideas
Strengths in Specific Areas of Studies:
- Jigsaw groups
- Interest groups, interest centers
- Use learning contracts and learning centers to personalize learning
Need for targeted instruction and practices:
- Routinely meet with students in small groups
- Assign homework targeted to key skills students need
Varied Levels of Readiness
- Tiering
- Compacting
- Think-alouds
- Varied homework
- Text digests
- Writing frames
- Small group instruction
- Learning contracts
- Learning menus
- Materials with varied lexile levels
- Word walls
- Guided peer critiques
Varied Interests
- Interest centers and groups
- Expert groups
- Web quests and inquiries
- Group investigation
- Independent studies
- Personalized criteria for success
- Design-a-day (personalized daily agendas)
Varied Learning Profiles
- Visual organizers
- Varied work options
- Varied entry points
- Intelligence preference tasks – see Differentiated curriculum charts.
- Opportunities for movement
- Varying modes of teacher presentation
Multiple Categories
- RAFTs (Role of writer, Audience, Format, Topic) – See RAFT essay article.
- Graphic organizers – see Nonlinguisitic representations article
- Personal agendas
- Cubing (considering a topic from multiple perspective) – see Directed paraphrasing article

Clustering needs is more efficient than fulfilling IEP’s for every student. More students benefit from intended remediations than initially intended. It’s easier to plan units with built in remediations that address common needs than to identify these during the unit and make them a la carte.

Preparation Steps

Survey students interests and learning profiles
Pre-assess students to see who will need extra (less) support and what topics need extra resources
Determine what are the common clustered needs and variations – the top 3 that will serve most students
Gather and create resources (see above) that match common needs and common sources of variation
Assign students to groups that match activity types – it’s possible to use more than one grouping over the course of a project – learning groups could be different from product groups

Early Implementation Steps

Implement learning strategies that align to common clustered needs and sources of variation
Use formative assessments with all students to give feedback on their progress so they can improve and to improve activities
Use student reflections to improve activities

Advanced Implementation Steps

Design and implement systems that teach students how to set, track and reach academic goals
Continually survey students to check if the identified clusters of needs are the correct ones

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

32: Flexible Classroom Elements for Effective Responsive Teaching

How to Change Several Classroom Elements as Part of Good Responsive Teaching

Time:

Negotiate extra time on tasks for students who work diligently, yet slowly
Compact or exempt advanced students on work related to topics they’ve already demonstrated mastery
Use stations, homework contracts, and learning centers to help students work on deficits on precursor skills

Space

Create a quiet zone in room where noise and visual stimuli are minimal
Post and use several seating arrangement charts so that students can rearrange room quickly

Resources

Collect textbooks at different lexile levels
Bookmark websites at different lexile levels and languages
Use audio and video clips to teach

Student Grouping

Use prearranged groups and established work areas so students know where to sit during group work time
Plan to use multiple group styles: homogenous, heterogenous, interest, and learning profile groups

Teaching Strategies

Teach with both part-to-whole and whole-to-part emphasis
Intersperse lecture with small group discussions. See Writing breaks and Classroom Conversations articles.
Make connections between key ideas/skills and students’ cultures and interests.

Learning Strategies

Provide practical, analytical, and creative options for student work. See differentiated curriculum charts article.
Provide tiered assignments and assessments
Encourage students to work alone or with a peer
Use expert (jigsaw) groups to teach key ideas

Teaching Partnerships

Have students perform all classroom functions that are not imperative for a teacher to perform
Survey parents for insights into students’ interests, learning preferences and needs
Work with other teachers, especially those who are good with Differentiated Instruction

While “varying” instruction for responsive teaching, it’s good to know or be reminded of how many elements can be readily changed to meet students’ needs. Also it’s important to know and experiment with how changing classroom logistics (use of space and time) can impact student learning.

Preparation Steps

Recruit thought partners
Gather websites and textbooks at varied lexile levels and formats for upcoming projects
Decide what seating configurations work for different workshop types and activity types
Experiment early in the year with seating configurations before creating diagrams
Train students to switch classroom seating between seating configuration types
Label group work areas and other key work spaces
Set up and communicate a flexible due date policy
Pre-assess students to see who qualifies for compacting and exemptions
Set up student groups – heterogeneous for product groups and homogeneous for learning groups
Design menu of learning activities that will serve students in different learning groups
Develop good questioning sequences for facilitating workshops and for reflection prompts
Elect and train classroom officers who lead students in key classroom functions
Survey parents to learn about student interests, learning needs, and challenges

Early Implementation Steps

Use student team roles to make sure team members in heterogenous groups all have meaningful group tasks
Lead small group workshops to align to specific learning groups needs
Observe students to determine who qualifies for compacting, exemptions, and delayed dead lines
Use interest groups and learning groups to deliver workshops that match students’ needs & wants
Use stamping method (or similar tracking system) to give lots of formative feedback and to track that students are moving towards mastery in key topics

Advanced Implementation Steps

Consult students on strategies that can be implemented in the future to improve bridge between content and student needs and interests
Teach students how to effectively track their progress and select good next steps to meet academic and project goals

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

31: Core Beliefs Connecting Curricula to Student Diversity

All students should consistently experience curricula rooted in the important ideas of a discipline that requires them to make meaning of information and think at high levels

All students develop products that apply knowledge of core ideas
Differentiate for enabling skills that help students understand core ideas and skills

Students need opportunities to learn the basics and opportunities to apply them in meaningful ways

Communicate connections between basic and complicated applications
Do not deny any students the opportunity to use their skills to play the game inherent in the discipline

There is a need for balance between student construction of meaning and teacher guides.

Play 3 roles as needed:
1. Direct instructor – for teaching simple concepts
2. Facilitator – for teaching deeper understandings of core concepts
3. Coach – for teaching skills
Guide student reflections on how they are progressing towards enduring understandings

Students need to know the learning goals of a unit or lesson and criteria for successfully demonstrating proficiency with goals.

Share learning goals and rubrics early in lessons and early in projects
Students regularly reflect on how what they are doing relates to big goals

Research has shown that both high and low performing students benefit from classes that use meaning-driven, thought-based, application-focused curricula. Applications of ideas give meaningful contexts for knowledge and skills. Students must make meaning for themselves, it can not be imposed on them. Having students construct meaning will enhance their ability to learn new content. Students need a framework of goals and expectations to help them prioritize their ideas and goals.

Preparation Steps

Analyze standards – identify related key understandings, enabling skills, and misconceptions
Design and implement pre-assessments that assess student knowledge, skills, and misconceptions related to learning goals
Interpret pre-assesment data in order to develop remediation and advanced learning activities (if needed)
Design project contexts that create meaningful ways for students to apply core and foundational knowledge and skills
Develop project rubric prior to launch
Determine types of learning that will occur in workshops and the appropriate teacher roles that go with these learning targets. Design lessons that match the learning goals and the teacher roles that makes the most sense.

Preliminary Implementation Steps

Share the rubric early in the project and facilitate an activity that has students develop knows, need-to-knows and next steps that tie to the rubric
Implement workshops acting as direct instructor, facilitator, and coach depending on the types of learning targets
Use formative assessments frequently to provide specific feedback that students use to improve their products and learning and that teachers use to improve scaffolding
Design activities and tools that make connections between foundational and core skills explicit and clear to students

Advanced Implementation Steps

Develop and implement tools that students regularly reflect on how their completed tasks relate to their understanding of big learning goals
Engage with classroom dialogues that use student input to create and refine project rubrics

Differentiated instruction articles
Learning targets

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 2 of 2

Chapter 4 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

Develop Classroom Management Routines That Contribute to Success:

co-develop a system with routines that train students to self-manage themselves
General Strategies:
- Have clear vision of outcomes of classroom management
- Establish high expectations for smooth operation of classroom routines
- Study routines to make sure they work
- Have students reflect on routines and roles
- Enlist students in facilitating routines whenever possible
- Ensure that all students are involved in making the classroom culture work

Help Students Become Effective Partners in Their Own Success

Help students recognize their strengths, interests and challenges
Help students set and reach goals that take into account their interests, strengths and challenges
General Strategies:
- Help students understand and see the benefits in their differences.
- Nurture awareness of students’ strengths and the benefits of enhancing these.
- Help students understand their weakness and how to remediate them.
- Guide students in vocabulary related to metacognition and goal setting.
- Ask students to reflect on their own growth and brainstorm next steps related to growth. For more ideas, see this article on the power of mistakes and struggle.
- Support students in setting and achieving personal goals.

Develop Flexible Classroom Teaching Routines:

Play with classroom logistics in order to enhance learning
General Strategies:
- Allow for students’ different pacings
- Gather basic and supplementary materials that appeal to students varied interests, cultures, lexile levels, etc.
- Teach in a variety of ways
- Ensure that grades reflect Growth as well as relative standing in the class

Expand a Repertoire of Instructional Strategies

Use multiple modes to teach content
General Strategies:
- Use variety of strategies for teaching content and managing student work time
- Use strategy that connect to students’ learning modes, interests, and readiness levels
- Guide students to work with instructional approaches appropriately
- Help students reflect on what strategies work for them and why

Reflect on Individual Progress with an Eye toward Curricular Goals & Personal Growth

Measure and reflect on student progress towards learning targets
General Strategies:
- Use pre-assessments to help prepare common and individualized learning tasks
- Use ongoing formative assessment to ensure as close a match as possible between learning activities and student needs
- Track student growth relative to learning targets
- Engage students in setting academic goals and achieving these
- Reflect on individual and group growth in order to improve instruction
- Help parents understand students’ growth relative to curricular goals

For more essential skills and attitudes go to: 28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 1 of 2

Co-developing classroom logistics with students can make them more aware of the rationale and benefits of these logistics. This process will also empower students to feel like their opinions are valued. Helping students set and achieve goals helps them become lifelong learners. Better student self knowledge helps them to make choices that improve their learning and increase their independence. Flexible classroom routines help different learners learn differently. Improving logistics can make it possible to teach in multiple modes simultaneously. Expanding strategy repertoires make it more likely to engage and reach all learners. Reflecting on individual growth will help teachers and students develop individual growth plans needed for growth.

Preparation Steps

Research classroom routines and logistics that promote positive learning culture and allow for multiple modes of learning at one time.
Define clear culture outcomes that will frame all classroom management norms and routines.
Brainstorm norms and routines with students that can achieve clear culture goals. For examples of good norms, read this article.
Research multiple activities that can address learning targets.
Research and create goal setting lesson plans and goal setting tools for students.
Develop prompts that get students to reflect on their progress towards goals and the strategies that they are using to make that progress

Early Implementation Steps

Facilitate activities that let students co-develop classroom norms and routines that achieve clear culture outcomes
Have students regularly set goals, reflect on their progress towards these goals, and brainstorm next steps
Implement multiple modes of activities to teach learning targets
Have students reflect on what types of activities help them learn best

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students how to use the vocabulary of metacognition and goal setting to write reflections on their progress that can help them learn things that can improve their approaches to learning. To learn more about thes learning strategies, go here.
Develop systems for keeping parents informed of individual students’ progress towards learning targets
Allow students to choose form a menu of learning tasks to achieve learning targets and reflect on whether or not their choice helped them to meet the target. See differentiated curriculum charts.
Develop systems that teach students how to track their progress toward learning targets over time

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

27: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 1 of 2

Establish clarity about curricular essentials

identify skills and ideas that make up enduring understandings and enabling support skills
curriculum based on important concepts is more likely to be relevant and engaging to learners
work to ensure that all learners own powerful learning goals
General strategies:
- Start unit with pre-assessments of upcoming learning targets and precursor skills
- Use ongoing formative assessments to finetune assignments
- Provide enrichment activities to advanced students that align to learning targets
- Use common learning targets to communicate the power of the agenda and each students’ ability to contribute to it
- Design curriculum around powerful ideas that reveal how the discipline works
- Use flexible entry points to enduring understandings
- Offer options to enduring understandings for different students to explore and access learning

Accept responsibility for learner success

accept the reality that if a student didn’t learn something important, it wasn’t taught well enough
believe that all students have potential and worth
General strategies:
- Promote a classroom environment with shared teacher-student responsibility for learning
- Do not let gender, low SES, race, past achievement etc, become excuses for shoddy work or for achieving less than what students can accomplish
- Get to know each student to learn how to teach her more effectively
- Track progress of student against key learning targets
- Find alternative ways of teaching to ensure wider access to content
- Send consistent messages to students that if something didn’t work today, we’ll try something new tomorrow
- Provide support systems that model what quality work looks like and what it takes to produce quality work

Develop Communities of Respect

Create safe environments where all teachers and students are respected
General strategies:
- Promote behaviors that support, not undermine, positive learning environments. Read about principles of complex instruction (i.e. good grouping learning) in this article for more ideas.
- Do not let a small group of students dominate classroom conversations
- Call on ALL students during classroom conversations. See here for more creative ideas to accomplish this.
- Design tasks that enable all students to make meaningful contributions to the group. For ideas on how to do this in math, check out this article on Rich Mathematical Tasks.
- Ensure that varied perspectives and backgrounds emerge in important parts of work
- Help students reflect on the quality of their contributions to the community
- Seek out, respond to, and use students’ ideas on how to foster more respect in the classroom

Build Awareness of What Works for Each Student:

Act as hunter/gatherers of many learning strategies who value what each strategy may offer to students
General strategies:
- Create opportunities to meet individually with students
- Gather information on students’ interests, preferences, dreams, etc
- Work to understand students’ strengths and challenges
- Learn students’ learning profiles
- Observe students in different contexts (alone, small group, large group) to see which contexts better facilitate learning
- Create opportunities to learn from parents, community members and other teachers about students

For more essential skills and attitudes go to: 28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 2 of 2

Knowing the skills and attitudes that support responsive teaching can help teachers evaluate their own beliefs and skill sets in order to develop better attitudes and strategies. The idea that ALL students can succeed is not new, but is easier said than done. The more strategies one knows, the better one can prepare to meet the challenges of facilitating learning for students with varied interests, varied learning profiles, and varied levels of non-school support.

Preparation Steps

Analyze standards in upcoming project. Categorize them into enduring understandings and key enabling skills.
Conduct activities that help students identify and share their preferred learning modes and interests
Research and gather resources for multiple ways to teach learning targets.
Brainstorm flexible entry points towards key understandings and towards products. One strategy for this is differentiated curriculum charts.
Research and commit to a research model for evaluating lesson plan design & implementation
Implement and learn from a pre-assessment at the start of a project on upcoming learning targets and prerequisite skills

Early Implementation Steps

Allow students to choose from flexible entry points to key understandings and products
Implement lesson plans that appeal to multiple learning modes
Observe students in order to learn what activities and contexts enhance their learning
Record observations of students and of lesson plan details that can teach one how to fine tune lessons and improve later lesson plan designs
Create opportunities for students to learn in small groups within workshops that match their learning needs
Use regular formative assessments to give students’ feedback to improve their understanding and products and to fine tune lesson plans
Call on ALL students during classroom conversations
Track how student learning is approaching learning targets

Advanced Implementation Steps

Let students choose from a menu of activities and assignments to learn new content and display mastery. See differentiated curriculum charts.
Have students regularly journal on the strategies they are using to learn new concepts and what factors are enhancing and hindering their learning.
Provide enrichment activities to advanced students.
Call all parents to learn about students interests and quirks related to learning.
Design and implement group roles that assign meaningful tasks to all group members. See this article for tips on teaching collaborative learning skills.
Seek out and implement student advice on how to improve classroom culture.

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

26: Responsive Teaching

Chapter 2 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

Factors that create Student Variance:

Biological factors:
- can cause students to learn in different modes on different timelines,
- some learning parameters are malleable depends on context and level of support
Degree of privilege:
- students who come from low SES face more school challenges
- quality of students’ support and breadth of experience affects learning
Positioning for learning:
- parents who value education influence student learning and cultivate soft skills (trust, confidence, positive interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence) that positively impact student learning
Preferences:
- students’ interests vary across subjects and topics,
- preferences affect how students take in knowledge,
- students will relate to different teachers differently

Benefits of Responsive Teaching:

Positive student teacher relationships make it easier for students to take risks in the service of learning
Positive learning environments help students navigate through the successes and failures inherent in learning
Positive learning environments promote positive academic mindets such as confidence, sense of contribution, autonomy, and accomplishment
Attending to students’ needs builds bridges between learners and important content
Adjusting pacing to meet students’ varied readiness helps students learn
Attending to students’ interests connects content to students’ curiosity
Attending to varied learning modes helps students use their preferred modes to learn more efficiently

Basic Responsive Teaching Approaches:

Find ways to get to know students better – call on students by name, using journaling to learning more about students’ feelings and interests
Use regular small group instruction
Teach to the high end of rigor – all learners benefit from learning complex ideas and complex thinking patterns
Use regular formative assessments to monitor understanding, give feedback, and fine-tune instruction
Teach in multiple ways
Allow working alone and with peers
Use clear rubrics that describe high quality work
Offer more ways to explore and express learning
Cultivate a taste for diversity – save problems in multiple ways, explore multiple points of view, etc.
Use basic reading strategies throughout the curriculum

Helpful Guiding Questions

Whom am I preparing to teach?
How can my knowledge of my students affect my curriculum design?
How can I help particular students find themselves in the world of what I am about to teach?
How might I teach in ways that best reveal the power of design to individuals?
How can I learn more about my students?
How can I ensure that all students have full access to the power of this design in accordance with their needs?

PBL contexts offer many opportunities to differentiate instruction: they already involve complex thinking and have many places for short group instruction. Developing a deliberate and effective approach to responsive teaching can help ALL students be successful in projects.

Preparation Steps

Research and implement activities that will identify the variance in students’ interests, learning modes, communication styles, etc.
Research multiple ways to teach content
Develop clear rubrics that describe high quality work prior to starting projects
Try to develop project contexts that consider students’ interests
Research and implement activities and routines that develop and maintain a positive learning culture
Allow student voice and choice to influence their products

Early Implementation Steps

Use project self-pacing, to get students to naturally attend workshops in small groups that match their current need-to-knows
Teach content and solve problems in multiple ways
Use rubric check-ins and feedback during guided practice to give students regular, specific feedback that can help them improve their understanding and products

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students about their preferred learning modes, their strengths and challenges, and ways to leverage these modes to learn more efficiently
Allow student choice to create variety in the problem solving modes and points of view they apply to create project products
Make regular attempts to get to know students deeper. Use reflections on activities and projects to learn more about how these connect to students’ learning modes and interests, etc.

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

24: Checks for Understanding

Chapter 2 in Berger, Ron, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin. Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming School through Student-engaged Assessment. Print.

Checks for Understanding Techniques:

oral, written, and visual techniques, implemented in variety or groupings (individually, in teams), that teachers and students use to assess content

Benefits of Checks for Understanding:

Students monitor their own progress
Students support reasoning with evidence
Students become more independent learners
Students build growth mindset
Students break large goals into smaller ones
Students evaluate progress while learning
Students build metacognitive understanding of their learning process and academic mindsets
Teachers learn if their scaffolding is working

Checks for Understanding: Strategies

Requires culture of trust – see section below
Model and practice techniques with students
Discuss purpose of techniques with students
Discuss importance of honest self assessment
Embed in rich tasks aligned to meaningful learning targets
Structure such that. ALL students participate
Structure such that ALL students support ideas with evidence
Develop good questions that simulate and assess powerful thinking
Assign and quickly assess using “write to learn” tasks
Use varied discussion protocols
Select strategies that match depth of thinking
Use Quick Checks strategies
Strategically listen to students working in small groups and track evidence of progress towards content and character learning targets using checklists
Use checklists to track which students were supported, are struggling, etc
Use cold call strategies – like using popsicle sticks on randomly call on students to respond to a prompt
Use warm call strategies – use popsicle sticks to randomly call on students who will get time to review notes and then respond to a prompt
No opt out – all students given opportunity to either get prompt correct on first call or paraphrase a previously given response on second call
Give students appropriate thinking time to respond to questions
Cue, Clue, Probe, Rephrase
- Cue – use pics, words, etc to help with recall
- Clue – use overt reminders
- Probe – look for reasoning to clarify a correct response or unpack an incorrect response
- Rephrase – pose response in different words
Close lessons with Debriefs –
- Students synthesize and reflect on lesson
- Student gather evidence of their learning
Use exit tickets to modify next day’s lesson
Catch-release – gather students for instruction. release to practice
Release-catch – let students explore material and make initial meaning of material, then gather for instruction

Building a Culture of Trust & Collaboration:

Treat students as partners in learning process – let them co-create learning targets and norms
Be transparent about learning goals and their rationale
Get to know students
Differentiate instruction for individuals
Create norms that promote perseverance and backing up conclusions with evidence
Create climate of courtesy and respect, not compliance and control

See benefits listed above.

Frequently using checks for understanding can help students learn how they are progressing towards learning targets. Using a variety of checks for understanding strategies can keep feedback and reflections fresh and can encourage active participation of ALL students. A culture of trust can help students be honest about their progress and help them to actively seek out help as needed.

Preparation Steps

Research and gather assessment strategies that go well with different types of learning targets (knowledge, skill, reasoning, character)
Design activities that build a culture of trust in classroom
Develop checklists that help teachers observe students for key evidence of understanding
Build a culture of trust early in the year

Early implementation Steps

Model how to use checks for understanding and the importance of using strategy correctly
Students use strategies to communicate what they know and need-to-know
Modifies lesson pacing in response to checks for understanding
Structures lessons and assessments so that all students actively participate
Runs debrief and exit ticket activities with students to check what they learned that day and uses that info to plan for tomorrow

Advanced Implementation Steps

Uses checklists to track observations of students during work time; uses patterns to improve instruction
Designs and uses checklists to track progress towards character learning targets