4A - Differentiating Content, Delivery and Assessment

I designed a lesson for the Common Core Standard 1.NBT.C.5: Given a two-digit number, mentally find 10 more or 10 less than the number, without having to count; explain the reasoning used.  This can be a challenging standard for little first graders to understand.  Therefore, it is important that children get as much concrete, hands-on experiences with this skill.

The first thing I do before teaching this standard is PRE-ASSESS!  I need to know what my learners know about this standard.  I flashed up a number on my Elmo and ask the students what is one more, one less, ten more, or ten less than this number?  I did this with a couple more numbers and then collected their formative assessments.  This data showed me who knows what and will enable me to group my students accordingly.  I will make 3 leveled groups based on skill level.

I got my students excited about this lesson by giving them an activity that is fun and engaging.  The students put together a 100’s chart puzzle with a partner!  I was able to differentiate the puzzles by cutting up the puzzle in pieces of 4 - 15.  This activity helped my lower skilled students understand the patterning of the 100’s chart by working with a higher skilled student.

After the warm up, the students played a game. The children had a number chart and a place value mat with a one’s side and a ten’s side.  We used a random number generator to give the class a random number between 10 - 100.  The students worked with a partner to find the number on their 100’s chart and then show the number on the place value board using base 10 blocks. Then they rolled a +1, -1, +10, -10 die and showed the number they rolled on the number chart and with the base 10 blocks.

The students will now be split up into their leveled groups: 

Group 1 - The lower skilled students continued to play the warm up game with me at the front table using base ten blocks/place value mat and marker boards to show their work. We focus on -1 and +1 first and then practice -10 and +10.

Group 2 - These students are progressing towards grade level standards but needed more practice in order to master it.  I noticed this group of students had mastered identifying what was -1 and +1 than a number, but they had some difficulty with -10 and +10. They played a game called 10 more and 10 less roll. You can play this game with number cards & dice labeled -10 and +10.

3A - Cooperative Learning

There are many ways I can use grouping patterns to teach writing standards to my first graders. Here is an example of a lesson I did that addresses the Common Core ELA-LITERACY.W.1.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.  The topic was, “Do you think our school is a safe place?”   

I would start this lesson by reading aloud Arthur’s Fire Drill by Marc Brown whole group.  We will discuss the purpose of fire drills in school. I will guide the students to think about what makes a school safe and what makes a school unsafe for children. I will ask the students to share their ideas with their elbow partner and then I will call on students to share it with the class as I write the ideas down on the whiteboard This is an example of heterogenous and partner groupings. 

After our brainstorm, I will ask the question “Do you think our school is safe for children?”  I will call on random students to share their opinion. I will then group students together by what their opinion is heterogeneously.  If they feel that our school is safe, then I will group them together in groups of 3-4. If they feel that our school is unsafe, then I will group those students together in groups of 3-4.  We will all go walk around the entire school campus so that the students can make observations on anything they view as safe or unsafe around our school.  They will work together in their groups to observe, discuss and make notes on their group paper.

When we come back into our class, I will homogeneously group students in partners by ability.  This is for me to be able to challenge my advanced writers to write more in depth with more detailed reasons that support their opinion and also for me to be able to assist my struggling writers. This would allow me to modify the objective for each partnership as I would allow my lower achieving students to write simple supporting sentences.  I will ask the peer partnerships to share with each other their findings from walking around the campus. They will then write a 5 sentence opinion piece using the “hamburger” graphic organizer beginning with a topic sentence which states their opinion, 3 reasons and a conclusion.  

Each grouping pattern will facilitate meeting the content area standard because each grouping pattern encourages thinking, creativity, listening to different perspectives, etc.  The various groups the children work in will help to scaffold the objective so that all learners can be successful in writing an opinion piece about the topic.

Cooperative learning is great for differentiation because children are more active in this type of activity which creates a high motivation for the learner. Many students do not enjoy or respond well to being passive learners. This allows them to interact with other students and enjoy the process of learning.  If students are engaged in the learning activity then the obvious result would be higher student performance.  Cooperative learning also allows the teacher to homogeneously group the students which allows her to work with the advanced groups together and the struggling groups together. This is helpful because the teacher can focus on the needed skills for each group.  

Pre-Assessment: Week 2

• The thing that surprised me the most this week was reading other's posts and realizing how all the differentiation I actually do in my class without being cognizant of it.  Differentiating instruction is not just the big planned out things you do for individual students but also the many little things a teacher does throughout the entire day that helps student gain access to content and feel successful.  Differentiation can begin with small things incorporated into the day.

• The most challenging thing for me this week were the assignment instructions.  They seem to be a little vague, keeping it very open. I'm sure it is for the purpose of creativity, but it leaves me feeling a little unsure about my finished product.  Also, as many other students, I did not realize that the Pre-Assessments were to be posted in our blog. Therefore, after reading posts on the Virtual Office and reading someone's post about this, I had a little panic attack and quickly went to post my Pre-Assessments.  I posted my blog link to my DB 2B but not sure if this is right as I do not see anyone else posting their blog link on their DB.  

Pre-Assessment: Week 1

• Looking back to my early childhood education, I don't think there was very much differentiation going on.  I grew up in a very homogeneous community where the majority of the students were white and came from an affluent family.  It was very long time ago and my memory is fuzzy, but I remember a lot of dittos! There was little to no collaborative grouping and instruction was always whole group.  Differentiation was better in high school as the classes were grouped by levels; advanced, regular, and remedial. 

• My experience with differentiating instruction as a teacher has been very positive. I have been fortunate enough to work in districts where this has been a focus and there have been plenty of trainings on various ways to implement strategies for differentiating instruction.  This class has opened my eyes to so many things that I actually do that is differentiating instruction.  After so many years, many of these strategies become second nature, not even realizing I am differentiating my teaching.

Introduction

All About Me

Hello! My name is Angela Stringer and I have been teaching for 17 years! In the 17 years I have been teaching, I took 3 years leave of absence. So...I began teaching a loooonnnng time ago when class size reduction was first implemented (20:1). I have seen and experienced a huge change in how teachers are expected to teach and the types of children we see in our classes today. The good thing is, I still LOVE teaching and I am embracing all the new changes that we are experiencing. I am currently teaching a first grade class. I am married and have a daughter (12) and a son (9). We live in Murrieta where there is very little traffic, very little crime, and a strong sense of community. With teaching full time, running my kids to baseball and softball practices/games, helping my kids' homework and going back to school to get my Masters in Teaching has been challenging to say the least. I know it will all be worth it in the end!

Differentiated Teaching and Learning Activities

Differentiating instruction is the most effective thing we can do to reach more students and help them become successful in school.

Homogeneous/Flexible Groups:

First of all, I feel the simplest and most effective strategy to differentiate instruction is using homogeneous groups.  A big chunk of our daily schedule is spent on our center rotations (1 hour, 45 minutes). My students are strategically grouped by their reading ability with 5 in each group. These groups are flexible and change monthly throughout the year depending on each individual student's progress. 

Learning Centers:

Learning centers are stations where a variety of activities are set up. I design centers with different levels of complexity. Each center can be differentiated by challenging advanced students with more rigorous work and struggling students with reteaching activities. With that said, I spend a lot of time on lesson planning as each center has 2 or 3 different levels of activities.  The good thing is, 2 out of my 5 centers are computer stations which do not need differentiating from me, as the programs we use automatically do that!

Using Various Modalities:

I try and implement a variety of modalities throughout the day as all children learn differently using different modalities: auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, and visual. For my visual learners, I use a lot of graphic organizers (circle map, bubble map, double bubble, tree map, flow map, and the hamburger) to help my students visually organize their ideas. My auditory learners enjoy the strategy, Think-Pair-Share, as this allows them to listen to other's ideas. These learners also learn well with direct instruction. For my kinesthetic learners, I incorporate a lot of different games and movement. For example, my students spell the week's words with their body. Of course, I almost always use math manipulatives when teaching math concepts. Lastly, for my tactile learners I allow my students to draw or paint to help them express their ideas. I also have salt boxes, where my students trace the letters of the words for the week.