What REALLY Works in the Middle?

1. What REALLY Works in the Middle? Kathy Paul Extended Learning Coordinator Middle Grades Teacher Johnston Middle School Johnston, Iowa kpaul@johnston.k12.ia.us PowerPoint site- http://www.johnston.k12.ia.us/schools/elp/resources.html

2. Johnston Community School District: • Formerly 6-8 building • Currently 8-9 • 500 students per grade at middle level • Suburb of Des Moines, Iowa

3. Extended Learning ProgrammingLevels of Service • General Enrichment • Classroom teachers observe students for talents and meet their needs. Occasionally, these students are also involved in scheduled classes or flexible groups to provide enrichment or extensions. • Strength Area • ELP teachers provide support for classroom teacher, often through extensions, teaching strategies or materials. Students may also participate in a specific class or group for delivery of services. • Extended Studies (Personalized Ed. Plan) • Some students need differentiated curriculum to progress academically. • Services are documented and include specific academic classes or opportunities.

4. Delivery of Service • Scheduled ELP classes • Flexible periods: Using class time from Character Development Classes/Seminar • Extra curricular activities • Cluster grouping in language arts • Accelerated classes in math and science • Classroom differentiation—became building focus

5. Study Began in 2005-06: • Surveyed students and teachers of G/T students • Looked at options chosen • Which options utilized • Which options needed to be utilized • Staff meetings/Administrative meetings held • Plans for increasing differentiation

6. Teacher response

7. Teacher Comments • “Student choice is most effective, especially when they propose their own.” -9th grade teacher • “Because I have students with wide ranging abilities, I use flexible groups for most activities.” -8th grade teacher • “Student choice is the most effective for me. Students take more ownership and put more effort into something that they can control.” –8th grade teacher • “It is most effective when I provide assignments that allow student to make choices without singling them out as ahead or behind the others.” -7th grade teacher • “All options can be effective. It depends upon the group you have.” – 8th grade teacher

8. Student Survey Response

9. Student Comments: What I wish my teacher knew about me I wish they knew what stage I was at or what I could already do. –7th grader • I am very interpersonal and I love choices. –7th grader • I am responsible and can handle more than most average students. –7th grader • I get things quickly. And I can’t just sit and read a textbook all the time. – 7th grader • I like to read and write, and be faced with incredibly challenging problems –7th grader • I don’t want to be so different from all of the other kids. I don’t want ELP to be too public. –7th grader • I wish my teachers knew that I like to figure out problems without help. It would be fine to give me tips, but not to tell me what to do the whole time. –7th grader • I love pretests, but I’ve not been offered them very often. –8th grader 

10. I don’t like to work alone. –8th grade • I don’t have patience with people who can’t understand things. –8th grader • I don’t want to be any more advanced than I already am. –8th grader who has been accelerated two years in math  • Testing out of sections works well, along with providing many options. –8th grader • Pre-tests and study guides work best for me, although only occasionally offered. –8th grader  • Normally I choose to not do all I can in writing because I don’t want my teachers I just met to read my writing, because it’s so personal. I also don’t like to share in front of the whole class, unless it’s a speech that is prepared. –8th grader • I like staying in my classroom and not being pulled out. –8th grader • I usually get it after a few problems. I get frustrated with long assignments where the problems don’t change. –8th grader

11. To learn best, I need: • To hear it and read it. It helps if it’s not boring. –7th graderFlexibility and lots of choices. I love tests! I don’t want anyone to underestimate me or hold me back. –7th graderTo do projects and work with my hands. –7th graderSomething challenging that makes me think deeply. –7th graderTo have choices and work with a group. –7th graderTo be faced with a problem and given time to solve it. –7th graderVariety. Not just grammar packets or worksheets, actual activities so I can remember it. –8th graderTo be challenged, to have curriculum that is interesting to me, and to have time to work on my own. –8th graderFaster pace. Direct instruction. –8th graderA good learning environment, but not without the ability to talk to othersand help/be helped by peers. –8th grader

12. Options Used 2006-2010: • Informal teacher in-service outside of school • In-service as part of professional development, usually 1-2 hours a year • Graduate credit offered through classes • Monthly differentiation bulletins with ideas • One-on–One with teachers to assist in planning and in classroom differentiation

13. Spring 2010 • Principal request to assist with differentiation • Worked with AEA staff to design training • Gathered resources & created a Google doc • Prepared staff: read two articles and discussed Announced training would begin in fall • Response: Make it practical and personal

14. Session 1: 3 hours First afternoon back in August • Set up plans with time, topic, materials list, notes • Variety of activities/modeled the strategies we taught • Differentiated our differentiation training! • First session: • Connect this years’ work to previous work on assessment and lesson planning, as well as articles last spring. Creative exercise using synectics as intro. Key principles of differentiation from Tomlinson/Strickland • Video clips with examples of teachers modeling strategies for differentiation • Readings by dividing up material/report out • Stations (differentiation by choice) • Lay foundation for future sessions

15. The fact that students differ may be inconvenient, but it is inescapable. Adapting to that diversity is the inevitable price of productivity, high standards, and fairness to kids.—Theodore Sizer

16. Welcoming and Safe Classroom Environment

17. HighQuality Curriculum

18. On-going Assessment

19. Respectful Work

20. Flexible Grouping

21. Key Elements

22. Content (what you teach) Curriculum Product (assessment of content) Student Process (how you teach— strategies, grouping) Pre-Assessment Summative Evaluation

23. Differentiation Example While viewing the video clip, focus on the element that matches your number and list strategies used • Welcoming and safe environment • Ongoing assessment • Respectful work • Flexible grouping • How students respond • Classroom management

24. Differentiation Example • Get in groups with representatives from each element 1-6. • Discuss the strategies and ideas you saw • Discuss how these strategies translate into your own situations. What can you use? What changes might need to be made?

25. Explaining Differentiation • Within your PLC, divide the three articles by Heacox, Nunley, and Tomlinson so that each one is read • After reading, discuss with your PLC how you would define differentiation to parents. • How would you explain it to students?

26. Stations: Choose 1

27. Exit Card • Name, subject, grade • Areas in which I want to learn more (pick 3) • Identifying Knows, Understands, and Dos • Assessing interests • Assessing learning profile • Small group instruction • Tiered instruction • Independent Learning and Contracts • Learning stations • Adapting for students with IEPs, ELL students, or ELP students (specify which) • Flexible grouping

28. Next steps: • Provided multiple copies of books to support differentiation available in library for teacher check-out (Listed in resource section) • Analyzed teacher choices on exit card and prepared to differentiate our September presentation, 3 hours • Asked teachers to bring a laptop and a unit to work on with their curricular team

29. Session 2 overview • 5-Intro : follow up on requests (pre-assessments and grading listed by most) and humorous pre-test examples • 30-Pre-assessment ppt. At table, discuss 1-2 ways to incorporate pre-assessment. • 45- Curriculum adaptations to support differentiation. Examples from all areas. Template. Try it out with a unit and then share at PLC. • 10- Grading - Introduce Wormeli’s book. Will be reading sections as part of Professional Learning Communities. • 55 - Flexible grouping: What it is and then place teachers for work on choices from exit card • 5- Wrap up. Differentiation bingo card challenge

30. Pre-Assessment

31. Why Plan for Pre-Assessment? • Establishes the starting point for learning • Students can’t learn what they already know • Match instructional strategies to individual needs • Saves learning time • Ensure students have constant challenge • Proves rationale for your teaching • Differentiation is not defensible without it

32. Preassessment Tools • End of unit test • Open-ended question • Journal • Index card • Mind map • Inventories • Letter • Checklist • Charts • Product or performance • Interview or observation

33. Key Questions in Planning a Differentiated Unit • What are my unit objectives? • Do I need to differentiate this unit? • If so, when and where would work best (both for me and my students)? • How can I ensure that my differentiation is respectful? • Over time, are my differentiated practices balanced? Do I use a variety of differentiation techniques, including flexible grouping?

34. Geometry unit example

35. Template from Designing Services & Programs for High Abilty Learners, NAGC publication

36. Flexible Grouping Activity

37. Directions • Self-assessment: Do I do a lot with flexible groups or am I just starting out? • Choose the activity that seems right for you. • Read and follow the activity directions to plan some differentiated grouping strategies for an upcoming unit. • (This activity allowed teachers to look at flexible grouping based on interest, learning profile, and readiness.)

38. Upcoming: Grading in the Differentiated Classroom In the book, Fair is Not Always Equal, there are ten practices to avoid when differentiating instruction and assessment. Read about practice #5 on pages 121-124. • In your PLC next week, discuss and respond to these two questions. • Which idea(s) in this reading connect with your work last year on formative and summative assessments? • How could you apply an idea from this reading?

39. Bingo Cards • Varied options for “playing” with differentiation • For some of your PLC conversations, choose an option to work on and then discuss during your team time • Different people within a PLC may choose different options • The PLC can choose one to work on together

40. Bingo Card

41. October • Differentiation Wiki is established so that teachers may turn in notes/questions from PLC’s. • Staff developers may add articles and use comments to inform next in-service • Plans for in-service: • Intro on “The Greatest Teacher” with Julie Andrews- youtube video singing “DO-RE-MI” • Grading in the our middle school • Tiering • Stations on adapting for special populations- Special Ed English Language Learners Gifted

42. “The Greatest Teacher”

43. Walk Around Survey

44. Walk-Around Survey for Use of Group Grades

45. Tiered Assignments

46. Tiered assignments are the most prescriptive, learner-responsive, and sophisticated strategy for differentiation.  -Heacox

47. Use a tiered assignment when students differ on... • Developmental stages • Readiness for learning • Learning preferences • Amount of structure or support • Amount of time, instruction or practice • Reading skill or prior knowledge • Whether instruction or a task is necessary or appropriate

48. Use a tiered assignment when you know... • something will be too easy or hard for some students • some students need more basic work or others need more complex work

49. What makes a well-designed tiered assignment?

50. Tiering by Level of Independence Task One: Ecosystems • Review the words in the word bank. • Identify the four ecosystems. • Determine which words are characteristics that describe each ecosystem. • Create your own chart, diagram, or graphic organizer to present each of the four different ecosystems and their characteristics.