Week 3 - Differentiated Learning Experience

I. The Introduction

For this weeks differentiated learning experience presentation I will focus on how I can apply these techniques in my 12th grade government class.

The content standard for my lesson is this:

12.9.1. Explain how the different philosophies and structures of feudalism, mercantilism, socialism, fascism, communism, monarchies, parliamentary systems, and constitutional liberal democracies influence economic policies, social welfare policies, and human rights practices.

It will take a few lessons to cover everything listed above, so my class will focus on the philosophies of socialism and communism as compared to capitalism, and how they affect social welfare policies.

I plan to start with 3 word clouds, one for capitalism, communism, and socialism. Then I will have the class tell me what they know about each. After that we will read one page in the textbook which explains the differences between capitalism, communism, and socialism. Next they will get into groups of 3 or 4, fill out a graphic organizer answering questions about each form of economics. I will have the groups trade papers with other groups and they will grade the answers as I review them with the class. At the end, we will have a class discussion regarding how the different forms of economics may affect the government that chooses them.

Differentiated instruction is extremely valuable in today’s diverse classrooms. The textbook says that “three dimensions of student variance guide planning for differentiation: readiness, interest, and learning profile” (Tomlinson, 2017). In today’s classrooms there are students performing at a wide range of readiness. I have students in my government class who critically read and write at a 5th grader’s level sitting next to students performing at college level. Also, with so many students from different backgrounds they all have varying interests as well. “Learning profile refers to ways in which we learn best as individuals” (Tomlinson, 2017). Given the wide variety of readiness levels and interest levels there’s also a wide variety of learning profiles. It’s pretty normal to have students who are more tactile learnings, audio learners, or visual learners all in the same class. This makes differentiation extremely valuable.

In the textbook How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms the author describes several strategies to help with differentiation. In the section below I will describe seven of these strategies and how they might look in my 12th grade government class.

a) Compacting

According to the textbook compacting is when the teacher assess what the student already knows and lets the student skip assignments for learning the material they already know to allow for more time covering new material (Tomlinson, 2017). This makes sense since the goal is for the students to learn the stuff they don’t already know. In my 12th grade government class I usually do an assessment at the beginning of my lesson to assess if my students already know the material. Usually they don’t, but sometimes they remember it from World History, US History, or their middle school government class. Each class is different, but when my class can show that they already know the lesson content during the assessment then I use the assessment as a quick review since they already know the content and I move on to my next lesson. So far I have done this once or twice each semester when the whole class knows the lesson material. I’m not sure yet how to do it on an individual student level because I don’t know how to teach multiple lessons at the same time. If I get the opportunity to watch a veteran teacher do it, then I’ll know how to try to do it myself.

b) Differentiated Homework with Homework Checkers

This is when either the teacher assigns homework based on the students current point of development with the content, or the student self selects assignments. There are a few options that are available for the entire class. When students come back with homework completed they get into groups working with other students who completed the same assignment. Each group discusses their answers together. The teacher will collect and grade one assignment from each group and grade the whole group upon their understanding of the assignment (Tomlinson, 2017). I am excited to try this in my classroom. I’ve done activities in class where they chose which activity to complete during class, but not has homework. Next week I will be teaching about diplomacy and international relations. I will try homework checkers by providing 4 different articles about international relations: one about good trade relations, one about meddling in each others politics, one about providing aid and another about the Paris agreement. This way they can choose the article they find the most interesting and write a summary and review on the article. The next class I will put them in groups to discuss their summaries and reviews together.

c) Flexible Grouping

This is when the teacher plans ahead to have students work in many grouping arrangements throughout a unit as well as working alone (Tomlinson, 2017). I am not doing this currently, but last semester I tried it this way. I had a stack of cards. Each card either had Rey, Fin, Kylo Ren or Poe from Star Wars on it. The stack was shuffled so they were in random order. After each student received 1 card they had to make a group of 4, each group with a Rey, Fin, Kylo Ren and Poe in it. I did that for small group work, which we did along with individual work. To do it again I’ll have to make new cards since I had borrowed the cards from the teacher I shared the classroom with.

d) Interest Centers or Interest Groups

This is when the teacher provides print materials, activities and questions that students can choose from to create a group project that caters to their interests (Tomlinson, 2017). One way that this could be incorporated in my government class is during the unit on the judicial branch I can offer different materials to study different court cases. The students can create interest groups based off the court case they find the most interesting. They could also choose whether to read about it or watch a short documentary about it before creating a class presentation on the court case.

e) Learning Centers/Learning Stations

Learning Centers or Stations are when the teacher sets up a section of the classroom for students to work independently or in groups on information, understanding, or skills (Tomlinson, 2017). I think this may be a fun way to have students do review. I could set up 3 stations in 3 of the corners of the classroom. One corner could be dedicated to making a poster. One corner could be dedicated to making a google slides presentation. One corner could be dedicated to making flashcards. The students could choose to review the material the way they want to. I could walk around towards the end of the study time and have them present to me what they did to review. That way students can choose the style that helps them remember the content the best.

f) Tiering

Tiering is planning a tiered versions of the same task to focus on the students critical knowledge, understanding, and skills (Tomlinson, 2017). One form of tiering I use in my class are the formats for writing essays during units 1 through 3. I want all my students writing in MLA format, but most of my students come into my class with skills so far below that level that I came up with a tiering system to start my students where they are and then up the ante accordingly. In units 1 and 2 they can choose MLA format, MLA minus the format for citing sources, or just writing a regular 5 paragraph essay. By unit 3 they only have 2 choices, and by unit 4 it’s full MLA. Usually I have a few students who do MLA from day one and the rest go for the 5 paragraph essay. When I grade the 5 paragraph essay it’s for content, and also to just get them to indent their paragraphs, capitalize the first letter in a sentence and end the sentence with a period. By unit 4 I’ve removed the tiering and it’s all MLA format since the students have all gotten more comfortable with the format and can do it properly.

g) Varying Questions

Here the teacher varies the nature of questions based on the readiness, interests and approaches to learning so that the students can show what they know (Tomlinson, 2017). I think this would work well when the questions are first presented at 12th grade Common Core Content Standards, and then through the discussion I can rephrase the question at the comprehension level of each student. This may mean defining the terms, rephrasing the question at a lower academic level, or phrasing the same question a few different ways. It could also be done as an activity where higher achieving students help lead a conversation to translate the questions from academic jargon to conversational English to help the students who don’t understand the more academic language.

II. Conclusion

I’ve already used the strategies of varying questions, tiering, and flexible grouping in my 12th grade government class. I vary the questions in almost every large group discussion to make sure that everyone understands what is being asked of them. I like to tier the essay prompts in my first few units as described above to help get everyone up to a proper MLA format while not expecting students to make too big of a leap in their academic skills. I really liked using the Star Wars characters to organize my flexible grouping. I need to make new cards so that I can do that again.

The learning center teaching technique was new for me. Well, I guess more accurately I have seen it in kindergarten through 5th grade classroom but I hadn’t considered how to apply it in my 12th grade government class. I am excited to try it next week. I plan to set up the 3 stations I outlined above, with one for making a poster, one for a google slides presentation, and one for making flashcards. The students will choose to review the material the way they want to. I’ll walk around towards the end of the study time and have them present to me what they did to review. That way students can choose the style that helps them remember the content the best since they’ll naturally gravitate to the format that feels more natural to them, which in turn will be the more natural way of committing the content to memory.

III. References.

Tomlinson, C. A., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2017). How to differentiate instruction in

academically diverse classrooms.