Ideas for Effective Classroom Management and Differentiating Instruction
“It’s not what the teacher does that’s important; it’s what the teacher gets the child to do that’s important.”
(Schlechty, 1993)
Classroom Description of Elementary Classrooms in Plano ISD
In elementary classrooms in Plano ISD furniture is arranged to facilitate flexible grouping so that teachers can work with large groups, small groups and/or individual students throughout the day. Because students are actively engaged in teacher-led groups, student groups, and/or independent learning, a multitasking model provides the environment for meeting the needs of students. Flexible grouping throughout the year in all content areas offers students the optimal environment to maximize their learning experiences.
In a classroom where students multi-task, teachers share the responsibility for learning with students. A variety of technologies provide opportunities for the practical application of all content areas such as language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and health. Students use a variety of technologies to support and enhance the district curriculum. For example, students research and synthesize information as they create multimedia presentations and complete simulations. They access and use district-approved Web sites, video clips, computer software specific to curriculum content, and software that promotes the development and practice of skills.
Learners benefit in different ways from a variety of experiences; so to meet the divergent needs of learners in their classroom, teachers plan a balance of activities. Often students begin class in a large-group setting and then proceed to small group station activities that directly support the TEKS. These activities are an application of skills learned in all content areas. Hands-on activities keep students focused and engaged. The teacher becomes a facilitator in the elementary classroom, rather then the sole source of knowledge.
Multitasking
“It’s not what the teacher does that’s important; it’s what the teacher gets the child to do that’s important.” (Schlechty, 1993)
As teachers we are always searching for the most efficient use of time for effective instruction. One way to accomplish this goal is to organize instruction in a multitasking format. Multitasking in a classroom setting refers to the ability for groups of students or individuals to work on different projects/activities in different areas of the classroom. Using a multitasking format brings advantages for students and teachers.
Advantages for Students:
§ allows students to become self-directed learners
§ enables students to complete tasks according to their learning styles and time frame
§ helps students acquire the ability to take responsibility through experience, exploration, discovery, inquiry, and application of concepts to real world situations
§ actively engages students in the learning process such as solving real problems, producing authentic writing, completing research
§ increases opportunities for students to dialogue with others and to problem solve
§ provides feedback from reality (peers) rather than just from authority (teachers)
Advantages for Teachers
§ helps teachers meet the needs of all students while giving students time to apply and practice the skills and strategies they have been taught
§ provides the opportunity for teachers to maximize the effectiveness of instructional time
§ enables teachers to structure the learning environment by guiding and collaborating with students
§ provides time to monitor the students’ learning (clones the teacher)
§ gives time to work with individual students and/or small group of students
§ allows time for teachers to become observers who listen and ask questions to stimulate thinking
§ allows teachers the opportunity to provide constructive and positive feedback
What does it look like and sound like in a classroom when students are multitasking?
Looks Like / Sounds Likeone student talking at a time / only one voice at a time in a group
all students contributing ideas / using 6 inch voices
materials being shared / students engaged
students nodding and leaning in / encouraging words such as “great idea”
Managing Flexible Groups
The most flexible plan for multitasking is not timed, and the teacher is not in a station. This allows the teacher to change groups or times without disrupting the other students.
Things to consider when planning group work:
· See curriculum guides for specific strategies.
· Always have high expectations!
· Be sure the activity reinforces content/skills.
· Group work is designed for students to practice and apply skills.
· Provide activities that can be done independently.
· Allow 20-30 minutes for a station activity.
· Remember…not all stations need a written product.
· Not all station work must be graded.
· Create a “When You Are finished” station for students to attend when they have finished their assigned station.
Procedures and Routines:
· Create heterogeneous groups to work in stations.
· Provide job charts.
· Provide station directions on station cards.
· Pull flexible “needs” groups to the teacher table as needed.
Management:
· Introduce instructions for each station.
· MODEL appropriate behavior.
· MODEL expectations.
· MODEL rotation system.
· PRACTICE expected behaviors.
· Discuss clean-up procedures.
· Provide a place for completed work to be collected.
Classroom Management
The Foundation for Differentiated Instruction
Students arrive in our classrooms with a variety of interests and knowledge. At any time in any classroom,
· possibly one third of students already know the topic to be studied.
· possibly one third of students are ready to learn the topic to be studied.
· possibly one third of students are not yet ready to learn the topic to be studied.
“Differentiation is an organized yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet kids where they are and help them to achieve maximum growth as learners.” Carol Tomlinson
In order to meet these goals, teachers must have these essential components:
· flexible instructional grouping
· classroom rules
· plans for what to do if students don’t know what to do next
· plan for students getting teacher’s attention
Flexible grouping is critical because not all students need to stay in the same group all the time. Consider:
· Teacher-created groups
o random
o specific
· Student-created groups
o free-choice
o specific criteria
· Flexible groups can include and provide for:
o learning in pairs, triads, quads, whole class
o enabling all learners to work in a variety of configurations with all peers, while targeting specific learning needs
Examples of Classroom Rules that Work:
o You are responsible for your own learning.
o Use 6” voices when working in groups.
o Do not interrupt while your teacher is teaching.
o Do not draw attention to yourself or disturb others.
These rules must be:
o discussed and discussed as needed.
o modeled during the first six weeks of school.
o prepared so students always know exactly what to do.
Ideas for Getting the Teacher’s Attention:
· Red/green cards
o Read side up means “I need help.”
o Green side means “I’m OK.”
· Name on a list
o Students sign up on a list when they need help.
· Ask three before me
o Ask your questions of three other students before you ask the teacher. (See 3 B 4 Me)
· Index cards or sticky notes
o Students put name on card or sticky note and place them in a container or on the board.
Components and Benefits of Differentiated Instruction:
o Provide content, activities, and products which are developed in response to varying learner needs.
o Based on diagnosis of student readiness, interest, and learning profile.
o Focuses on key concepts, understandings, and skills.
o Provides for all students to be engaged in challenging work.
o Expects continual progress for every learner.
o Allows for flexible use of time and space.
o Provides for high expectations and quality work.
Designing Tiered Lessons
Tiered instruction provides different levels of learning tasks within the same topic or unit. This allows for aligning the curriculum to the students’ different readiness levels and learning differences. Students can focus on essential skills and concepts yet still be challenged at the different levels on which they are individually capable of working.
Teachers vary the complexities of activities to ensure that all students explore ideas at a level that builds upon what they already know and facilitates their continued learning. In mixed-ability classrooms, tiered assignments keep the essential understandings and skills required by state and district curriculums for all learners. Simultaneously, tiered instruction provides pathways at appropriate challenge levels for student to access learning at increased degrees of abstract thinking, complexity and depth.
Research results clearly substantiate that tiered instruction is needed in mixed-ability classrooms to differentiate instruction. Students are more successful in school and find it more satisfying if they are taught in ways that are responsive to their readiness levels (Vygotsky, 1986), interests (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) and learning profiles (Sternbeg et al., 1998). Yet, most teachers incorporate almost no variation in their learning experiences despite the fact that their students exhibit very different readiness levels (Ross, 1993). Content, processes, and products geared to the entire class seldom help struggling learners or challenge advanced student to increase their thinking expand their knowledge (Westberg et al, 1993). Obviously, instruction must be varied in response to learner differences.
How Can Lessons Be Tiered?
· Content – the complexity of what students learn
· Process – how students are learning
· Product – how students show mastery of their learning
Content is the complexity of what students are to know; it is directly influenced by the level of materials they access to learn. Process is how students use key skills and relate ideas as they make sense of the content; it includes thinking skills, communication skills, research skills, and the ways students process information. Product is the result of content and process; it is what students create to demonstrate and extend what they learned. (A product may be a concrete thing, an action, or a verbal conclusion or summary of understanding.)
Students require differentiation by content and process to escalate learning in response to their readiness. Solely differentiating by product is less like to results in students continued learning.
Possible Questions about Tiered Instruction
1. What is the appropriate number of levels for instruction?
§ There is no absolute number of levels required for an appropriate application of tiered instruction. Sometimes two tiers are sufficient; at other time, three to five or more work better to match a wide range of learners.
§ The quantity of needed tiers varies in different curricula areas.
§ Changing the number of tiers is one way to vitalize flexible groupings and ensure that students are not always in the same group.
2. Where do I begin?
§ In classes with below grade-level learners, the lowest tier should respond to those students.
§ In classes in which all students are at or above grade level, the lowest tier should respond to grade-level or above grade-level readiness.
3. Isn’t this just low-middle-high grouping?
§ The low-middle-high groups of the past were often stagnant groups that labeled who could learn and who was not learning.
§ Tiered assignments denote all children as able to learn the same essential skills in different ways.
§ The tiers and the groups working within the tier are flexible.
§ The make-up of student working at each tier varies with the content, assignment, and quantity of tiers.
4. How do I ensure that students are involved in high level thinking in each tiered assignment?
§ Avoid always allocating simple thinking tasks for students with the fewest skills, mid-level thinking tasks for student in the middle range of readiness, and high-level challenger for learners at advanced readiness levels.
§ There are many occasions when knowledge, comprehension, and application level tasks (at students’ readiness level) are needed by all students.
§ All students need opportunities to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.
§ Plan instruction that stretches students slightly beyond their comfort zones. As Tomlinson cautions, “Only when students work at appropriate challenge levels do they develop the essential habits of persistence, curiosity, and willingness to take intellectual risks” (2001, 5).
5. What is my role during these tiered activities?
§ Every tier requires teacher modeling and support for the students working at that tier.
§ All learners benefit from a teacher’s instruction, interaction, guidance, and feedback-even gifted students whom some educators perceive as always making it own their own.
6. How can I use tiered instruction when my students don’t think it’s fair unless everyone does the same thing?
§ What’s fair? Is it fair that everyone does the same work regardless of their needs?
§ Assigning the same work to all students increases the likelihood that some students will be overwhelmed while others have to expend so little effort to achieve that they infer school is easy.
§ Redirect students thinking by stating a position, such as the following:
§ When students ask, “Why can’t I do what ______is doing?” you could respond, “Document to me how that is your best way to learn, and I will reconsider.”
Designing Lessons:
· Read district curriculum and administer a simple pretest.
· Review TEKS that are being targeted.
· Identify key concepts or BIG idea used to organize content.
· Identify the generalizations you want students to know upon completion of activities.
· Determine if you will differentiate the content, process, or product.
· Think about how many groups you will have.
· Model, model, model everything.
· Be patient and allow students the opportunity to try group work even if you have to stop it and start over the next day, next week.
· Remember when you set high expectations and give students the opportunity, they want to do well.
Adapted from Kingore B (2004) Differentiation, Realistic, and Effective. Austin: Professional Associates Publishing.
Multitasking and Flexible Grouping 2