A Teacher is like a Hamster on a Wheel

In Chapter 5 of Fulfilling the Promise it talks about how teaching can feel like a Hamster running on a Hamster Wheel.  Each year there is more information to teach and to cover than the year before.  The teacher is the hamster who is running as fast as she can but she cannot teach everything no matter what she does. To add to the breadth of curriculum and standards is the depth of understanding that the students are required to have.  And of course you need to differentiate your curriculum in order to have your students succeed.  Not to mention most teachers like myself want to spend a little time teaching life lessons in addition to reading and math. Thank goodness for morning meetings!  Well, this post isn't about morning meetings, but it is about how to use Hallmark #2 to help you be a better hamster, or teacher - which ever you prefer.

 It's true with the hamster on the wheel, the faster the wheels spins  the tireder the little guy gets.  The same is true with teachers.  The bigger the expectations the teacher is asked to accomplish  the more tired and less effective she becomes.  Organization is key in being a successful differentiating teacher.  If a teacher wants to be able to teach the required material with the depth and breadth expected then she needs to be organized.  Differentiation cannot happen without organization.  Hallmark #2 says Absolute clarity about what the teacher wants the student to know understand, and be able to do - about what is truly important in the unit. She needs to know what she expects of her students and she most importantly needs to know what the essential parts of the curriculum are.  If a teacher can become organized in her curriculum and if she can learn to teach to essential concepts she be a more successful hamster.  Many she could even get off of the wheel and run forward if she was organized and focus on the ultimate goal enough.

Comparing Math Reteach Differentiation to WTW

Words Their Way proactively differentiates for the students' readiness levels.  Three times a year students are tested based on a Qualitative Spelling Inventory.  The students are put into spelling groups based on their scores they received on the QSI.   And thus, spelling levels are born.

Each week each of the different groups has different words they are tested on based on their spelling skill level.  This allows the students to be successful at their prospective spelling levels.  If all the class was given the same list the bad spellers would always fail and the advanced students would never get any better.  The spelling time each day was tiered based on the students readiness level.  All students need to learn to spell and they all need to learn the same words by the end of the year.  With tiered spelling groups the students just learn the words at different rates. Using WTW proactively differentiates so the students can all excel at their own level.

In field experience my 4th grade team did an after the fact differentiated math lesson.  All the students would be taught the same lesson and they would be tested with the exact same test.  After the test the 4th grade team of teachers broke all three classes of students into 3 groups. They would then spend a half hour a day for a week teaching to 3 different tiers.  The lowest group would need to be retaught the same concepts from the test with many scaffolds as well as they would need to review the material from the previous section.  The middle group just needed a few scaffolds to help them solidify the test concepts better in their brain.  The highest group didn't review they test at all.  They just extended their math skills and spent time being challenged with the higher level thinking. At the end of the week a mini quiz is given to each group testing what they re-learned in their groups. If they get 90% on the quiz then points are added to their original test. The three tiers allowed the students to successfully master the required content.  It gives the students a second chance to be the best they can be.

Both of these differentiated tiered lessons tie in perfectly with hallmark #1 which says that assessment needs to be strongly linked with instruction.  These two forms of differentiation wouldn't be successful if they didn't has an assessment prior to the tiering process.  And the assessment would be pointless without teaching to the specific student's needs. I learned through this post that you can't successfully differentiate without successful assessment.  Hallmark #1 is so essential be a fantastic differentiating teacher.

If I was a teacher I would . . .

If I was a teacher this year instead of a student teacher I would do things a little differently if I could.  My cooperating teacher is fantastic at differentiating spelling by using Words their Way.  She also does a good job of "reteaching" differentiating in math.  If I were a real teacher this year and had my own classroom I would want to proactively differentiate my math lessons.  The following is my example.

 A 4th grade division lesson. Objective is to learn to divide a  multi-digit dividend  by a 1 digit divisor.

Pre-Assessment:  I would have the students do 3 division problems on their white boards.  The first would be a review division problem, the second a division problem that they would be learning to solve in today's lesson and third a more challenging division problem.   According to how the students answered the questions and based on who got what answers correct, I would then group the students into three groups and each group would be given a different math worksheet.

Step 1: I would then give a direct explanation to the students showing them how to solve the division problem from today's lesson ( 1 digit by 3 digits).  This would be done as a whole class.

Step 2: Independent practice would be tiered to the students' different readiness levels.  The 3 groups would be based on the number of incorrect answers in the pre-assessment.

Tier 1 - Beginning Level

Their worksheet would first review a few standard division facts (24 / 4 = 6)
Second it would have a series of scaffolded problems like 240 / 4 = ? These problems would be fill in the blank steps to solving the problem.  For example,

240 / 4 = ?
cover up the zero
24 / 4 = ?
Draw four circles and divide out 24 dots into the circles evenly.
How many dots are in each circle?
24 / 4 = ?
add the zero back onto your answer
60

The third part of the worksheet would be questions like 250 / 5 = ?  With lots of room to work the steps and many similar repeating questions.

The very last questions on the W.S. would be a division story problem.

I would have this group of students come back and show me their paper after 3 problems were done in the scaffolded section of the W.S.  I would do this so that I could assess their knowledge of the concept.

Tier 2 - Standard Level

The first part of the worksheet would provide one scaffolded  division problem.  Like the second step in the Tier 1 W.S.

The second part would have many regular division questions with no scaffolds. ie: 480 / 6 = ?

The third part would have 4 story problems with regular division problems in them.

Tier 3 - Advanced

The first step would be a series of regular division problems. Only like 6 of these problems will be necessary.
The second step will be a series of story problems with 1 digit by 4 digit division problems.  ie:  3500 / 7 = ?

The third step will be 2 challenge questions.  They will be asked to solve a story problem with a 1 digit by 4 digit division problem that doesn't come out evenly.   ** This group will be allowed to collaborate at the back table with other tier 3 students to figure out the last 2 challenge questions.

Summative Assessment: The next day in class there will be a 5 question quiz with 3 regular division problems 180 / 3 = ?  and 2 story problems following the same division problem format.