3. Today was all about differentiation and student engagement!

3. Today was all about differentiation and student engagement.

This we believe (NMSA, 2010).

·      Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant. Challenging Curriculum

We often hear that differentiation is difficult. Last summer I participated in one of AMLE Leadership conferences where we were reminded that differentiation has as much to do with multiple ways of presenting information as individualization. I believe that differentiation can happen when students have choices about how they illustrate their knowledge. This past week brought a spotlight on various experiences our students are participating in.

I was down at the seventh grade yesterday. Children, in groups of four, were hovering over a Chromebook, a data sheet, and a meter stick is taped to the floor. The activity was an interactive, application to work they had been conducting in science. Prior to students moving into the halls, they were crowded into a room listening to directions and their tasks. Students took turns setting up a “Fan Car” that rolled next to a meter stick and watched to see if their estimation of how long it would take was accurate. They recorded events and brought their data back to class. This evening I was talking to one of the science teachers and shared how engaged the students appeared. She said, “Oh yes, they were actually arguing over data and strategies. They were also asking us questions we had not anticipated. It was excellent!” She and I agreed that moments like this are when teaching is so much fun…. when kids take the concepts and ideas “to the next level.”

I had students outside in the hallway, on six Cartesian planes. Each student chose an ordered pair, stood on that point and together they practiced transformation based on group directions. They had to follow directions and discuss how the moves influenced their ordered pair. We had first used a two-by-two floor tile to individually translate left, right, up, and down. In addition, we viewed a short clip about reflections and rotations. Out in the hallway students were able to explore how ordered pairs are affected by translations and reflections. They put their fists into the middle of the plane, over the origin, and rotated 90, 180, 270, and 360 degrees observing their location. Students then came back in and worked on a drawing of reflections and rotations. Their next task is to practice more transformations by putting together a four-measure, eight count, line dance as an individual or as a team.

In another hallway, eighth and seventh graders were putting final touches on a Holocaust Museum the students and teacher created based on readings and research about literature, stories, and images of this time period. Students have been reading literature, watching movies, conducting research, reading primary source documents, and telling the stories of survivors of the Holocaust. Students who will be acting as docents, were studying the different sections and practicing their lines. The local newspaper has come out, students have been invited to the local high school, and next week the daughter of a survivor is coming as a guest to the class. Today the students asked their teacher, “What are we going to do next?”

            In the sixth grade hallway, I visited an inclusion math class. The regular classroom teacher had just reviewed substitution of variables and reminding students how to use the calculators. Students were practicing substituting numbers for variables by playing a game that was loosely based on the card game “war.” The Exceptional Children teacher was directing the game while the regular education teacher was monitoring and assisting the children during the activity. Earlier in the week students had been combining like terms and substituting numbers into expressions. The teacher shared how much fun it is to work with the inclusion teacher. They share ideas and strategies for meeting the needs of the children. I asked the kids if they were having fun. They smiled and nodded.

            I was captivated by the energy, the desire to participate and compete, the joy with which our students, our children were engaging in critical and creative thinking. I am so impressed with the collaborative spirit of our colleagues and the work they are doing to embrace learning at a deep level of thinking and creativity. In each of these scenarios, background knowledge preceded engagement. The activities ranged from a fifteen minute introduction to transformation, a thirty minute game, a two-day interactive lesson with wind-up toys, and a two week development of a Holocaust culminating project. In each of these settings, multiple ways to represent concepts and knowledge was used to allow students to participate in learning at a deeper level. Today was all about differentiation and student engagement.

Advice

1)   Differentiation has many definitions. One way to think about it is to consider presenting information in multiple formats: giving students opportunities to process information, and ultimately allowing them to use the information to develop their own illustrations of knowledge.

2)   Whenever you can, consider how you can work with either a colleague within your own content area or a colleague across content. Collaboration is one of the highlights of teaching. When you and a colleague spend time planning, implementing, and assessing instruction and learning, outcomes can be extremely powerful.

3)   Students love to “do.” If all they do is take notes and drill and practice, they may not gain a passion for your subject.

4)   Our school administrator has been encouraging us to do more projects. This week was an excellent representation of where she is wanting us to go.