Assignment 4A - Differentiating Content, Delivery and Assessment

I understand this particular assignment deals with differentiating content, delivery, and assessment, and those items are up for contention in just about every class that I take at National University.  So for this assignment, at the risk of receiving a poor grade, I am going to explain my own personal experience to help define what it all means to me as a teacher who strongly believes in differentiation.

I was steadfast in producing a pre-test that was connected to a post-test for a lesson that I wanted to conduct regarding the environmental hazards of plastic versus the human benefits.  I used a simple KWL chart to determine background knowledge, interest in what students wanted to know, and factored in what they should learn.  I had a worksheet crated to help support a 1/3-model classroom, which included remedial learners (including ELL), on-task learners, and gifted students.  I felt the level of understanding would translate itself through our general textbook.  The concept was a little more important than the content, but I was determined to make it real.  I could easily relate the teaching strategies to the standards because for science they are imbedded in the scientific method that we continually use for our experimentation and research.

            So I started posing questions ahead of the pre-test.  An amazing thing began to transform in the class.  Students began to ask me questions that I did not have reliable answers for in return.  So I began to write down on the board the multitude of questions that were coming up from their own personal interest into the subject.  For example:  Why aren’t plastic bags illegal?  Why can’t we tax people who use plastic bags?  Shouldn’t we have a biodegradable type of plastic that we can use?  Why does fruit rot in plastic bags and make plastic melt?  Are you saying we may even be drinking plastic particles?  Do animals die because we use too much plastic?  These were just a few of the questions that engaged my class.  So I let the conversation continue and progress.  Language was not even a barrier.  I simply let those students whom needed more time to explain their position or pose their questions have it.  We clarified as needed.   I even had vocabulary worksheets accompany the discussion for more affluent dialect.

            Then one of my students suggested we get into groups and make it a research project to determine problems and solutions that might help our environment.  I let them have at it.  We broke up into both heterogeneous and homogeneous groups based solely on interest and ability.  At this point in the project, I honestly could not tell my gifted students from my remedial learners.  The interest was so peeked and everyone seemed highly motivated to seek out their own facts and to verify their own opinions for solutions, I just ran with just about any idea that related to science.  Again, the project was still easily relatable to the standards of middle school science.

            The next session, we ironed out some of the ideas and challenges that kids were facing through design of technology and from other fact-finding sources.  Questions were being raised about chemical reactions, water table measurements, clarity of drinking water, global pollution, water pollution, landfill mining, the lists for finding the truth was astounding.  I didn’t have to ask students to do extra work, as they were already doing it.  I opened the sources to writing letters to manufacturers, to viewing reliable and biased websites to find out how they influenced consumer belief, to performing their own experiments to determine results, and even to counter some beliefs I let students argue and bring in examples during class time to help direct their position.  It seemed like answers generated more questions.  I noticed that my students began thinking, arguing, taking sides, and learning bias and discretion.  I was just a moderator to this learning.

            The outcomes were far more interesting and explicit and focused and met the content standards far more than I ever could have imagined if I remained on task with my original written lesson plan.  At that moment, I realized that real learning is a natural, uninhibited, and genuine connection in the classroom.  It was truly driven by pure curiosity and interest.  There were no answers in the back of the book to support meaningless equations.  But indeed there were equations that needed to be answered.  The beauty of this delivery was it was self-propelled and assessment was on going as more questions were raised.  It was real and tangible as opposed to being mainly theoretical.  Some students used visual aids that did not necessarily need them.  Some who did need them chose to speak with their own words instead.  Certainly it lead to a few dead ends, but the intellectual journey was individual and persistent as they tried. The skills it developed may not have been standardized or predictable, but that is what made it so interesting to those doing it.  It was a marvel of displaying the paradigm shift needed in modern education.   The shift of creating a learning environment that relates to real social and emotional problems that concern humanity today.  The shift to differentiating content, delivery and assessment all built in through asking a few simple questions.  

MAT674 Assignment 3A - Cooperative Learning

One of the most developing concepts regarding differentiated science lessons involves cross-content learning.  What I mean by this is being able use more than one subject standard along with diverse ways of looking at things that still produce an effective learning outcome.  In Science the use of Language Arts tools can add valuable effects to any science learning standard.  The best use of this crossover can be produced using lab reports.  Lab reports use a variety of information, data, and input to disclose procedures and outcomes.  Communicating the details is very important regarding this subject.  When students work together in teams the added extra persons within this content standard adds to the idea that two heads are better than one. 

            When I set up groups to perform an experiment I use pre-assessment data previously collected to set up for writing teams.  I value this information to enforce those writers that show competence and heterogeneously set them up with students who may need additional writing support, especially my ELL’s.  Since every student will often be responsible for his or her own report, I value this type of grouping, even if copying is involved in the process.  Generally, students who may not get the information in the beginning, when they start to write they must connect what they are writing to some general understanding.  That is why heterogeneous grouping is best for writing lab reports.

            When examining the experimentation of the lesson I use a homogeneous pair grouping so that each ability level matches the other.  This ensures that one student with an above ability level does not actively perform all the work while the other sits and watches.  When students of equal ability are paired, the experimentation process generally is performed at equal levels.  Once the experimentation is complete, I break up the groups into heterogeneous groups to perform the writing assignment of recording the lab reports.  This is where the above ability students are used as an asset to help those struggling.  I like to pace the room during this process and often hear student’s questions, “why did you guys do it this way”, or “how did you come up with that result.”  When this occurs, I know the grouping process is working to my advantage.  The writing becomes more homogenous as a result.  The overall improvement can be seen in the reports that are produced.  Even though the process may vary according to the level of experiences, I use examples of writing products for what I am looking for.  This way all the groups can use writing examples as a tool to produce the standards outcome level I am looking for. 

            As a future assessment tool, I often have the students group their note taking to expose their level of expressive writing.  When students take notes, I consider this a “thinking on paper” approach to understanding how they are processing the information being presented in the experiment (Mckenna & Robinson, 2014, p. 30).  The notes being taken prior to the completed lab report expose the level of discourse used during the discovery process.  From these notes I can support the process of transactional writing to help differentiate both individual context as well as what the group as a whole might be deducing from the lesson.  This formative information gathering is useful when establishing future groups and also helps differentiating how the groups perceive the information presented.  Lastly, when I develop my tests or quizzes this information in invaluable to establish the goals for individual differentiation according to multiple intelligence design and the use of content standards.

            When I select cooperative grouping I like to consider the constructs of multiple intelligences and determine how my students can represent their knowledge by interacting with the world around them.  Even if writing is not the most important goal of the lesson, often communication is.  I do not feel that passive learning is the best way to teach information.  To engage the students in the learning process requires what I call active encounters.  Actively involving them by encountering the concepts, ideas, designs, and viewpoints of others helps express the idea of opening up multiple intelligences.  When students group with partners they become aware of other viewpoints that may differ from their own experience or from the view the teacher may have one-dimensionally presented.  Students encounter learning in new ways that develop thinking outside what they are confortable with.  Diversity is opened up into a more thematical way and new approaches to viewing subjects is expanded.   From this expression of the lesson, I openly discuss the group findings to further expand diversity and other points of view.  This type of discussion dictates the direction I will take when producing summative assessments for both individuals and group.

            Grouping is the teacher’s best tool in understanding how students communicate in the real world of science.  Crossover learning involving writing and reading is to me considered the gateway to understanding diversity.  This type of interactive learning creates an active role for both the students and the teacher to develop how they can view the content standards connectively and independently.  When the students group both heterogeneously and homogeneously within the lessons, comprehension improves by opening up different views of how our world around them works in their favor.  This helps students understand how to take more risks and also how to develop empathy for others.  This to me is the overall value of solving real-world problems through group orientation in the classroom.       

           

Reference:

McKenna, M. and Robinson, R.  (2014).  Teaching through text: 2^nd Edition. 

            Pearson, Inc., Upper Saddle River, N.J.

             

I wanted to post the idea of how effective differentiated instruction effects my teaching, but i found that it is truly the essence of how and what I already teach.  I know there is always more to learn and experience in teaching, but the most interesting aspect of teaching comes about when I engage my students.  When I learn and question them about what excites them, the world of education becomes a blank slate which allows my to build upon my curriculum and choose a way to teach that supports their interest.  I value the open discussions with my students that formatively create an assessment that I use throughout the year to build exciting lesson plans with their interests in mind.  The most unique connections make for the best learning outcomes.  I love to create assignments that mirror what students may encounter in the outside world.  For example, when we cover the rock cycle part of the lesson requires students to become part of an energy company where they are assigned jobs that make them think about consequences to the world around them.  I assigned specific tasks like geologist, chemist, public relations, consumer advocates, etc. and students have to provide research and determine outcomes for finding solutions to problems such as fracking or hydraulic fracturing.  These are actual problems that are a part of the subject matter connecting them to real authentic subjects.  The interest and outcomes are so amazing.  This type of differentiated teaching is what motivates both me and my students to new heights.  It's not just about standardized testing anymore...for that I am grateful to be a teacher in this time in history!

Introduction into Differentiation

Hello to my class at National University - MAT674 Differentiated Instruction,

I have never used a blog before and hope it all works to provide some input into my goals ant National University.  I am a retired PGA golf professional of 23 years.  I have three beautiful children who all attend Catholic School in Orange County.  About 6 years ago when I retired my 2 boys who attend Servite High School questioned me.  They said, "hey dad, you want us to go to college but you never did."  So I took the challenge and decided to return to college.  I graduated in 2014 with a B.A. in Liberal Studies.  I loved it so much I decided to continue on and obtain my Masters in Education after receiving my single-subject credential in Science.  I now teach 7-8th grade science at Sycamore Middle School in Anaheim.

I practice the art and science of differentiation on a daily basis.  The premise I follow is taking an interest in every student.  Preparing and pre-planning lessons that involve real-world applications which hopefully interest my students is key to motivating learning.  I hope to gain further valuable insight into this fantastic idea of teaching.