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.