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Differentiation Checklists and Recurring Cornerstone Task Examples

(McTigue and Wiggins)

Differentiation Checklists

Differentiate Content and Instruction

Varied materials (e.g., texts for different reading levels, audio-visuals)

Varied teaching methods/strategies (e.g., manipulatives, group activities)

Target instruction to achievable challenge readiness levels (e.g., directed skill teaching, enrichments

Scaffolded support (e.g., graphic organizers, step-by-step process guide)

Flexible groupings (e.g., skill groups, interest groups)

Learning stations (e.g., self-paced centers, computer-based tutorials)

Rubrics with sample work

Self-directed practice, learning contracts, independent projects

Circulate about the room, inconspicuously providing assistance to students.

Provide frequent, specific feedback while encouraging self-sufficiency

Acknowledge specific progress

Your metacognition: Accumulate the evidence of assessment, worksheets, checklists, summaries are most successful interventions for the top student & topic problems.

Seating (e.g., in the front of room, with room to move, near someone helpful)

Check to see if students understand directions by asking them to repeat or rephrase the directions

Write the directions on the board or on paper so that students can refer to them when needed

Focus the student’s attention on important details (hat, colored markers)

Pre-underlined books and scaffolded notes (partial outlilnes)

Differentiating Reading

Promote personalized interest (“Charlie and Bobby”)

Simplified reading material on the same topic

Graphic organizers to provide visual overviews and show meaningful connections

Preview: students who preview are more confident participating in class and not frustrated by confusion

Prepare tape-recorded text segments students can use for previews, overviews, and summaries

Encourage students to check for understanding during and after reading: periodic summarizing, paraphrasing, checking predictions

Active Reading: Talk back to your book

Highlighting of complex text

Encourage visual imagery to increase memory storage

Teach students cues (e.g., headings, captions, differentiated print, introductory and summary paragraphs) for recognizing features of expository text structure.

Differentiating Writing Instruction and Assessment

Keep directions short, simple, in brief steps

Give students the opportunity to talk about their ideas before writing

Brainstorm vocabulary that could be incorporated in written work

Reduce the amount of written work i.e. Have students dictate some responses orally or dictate into a tape recorder.

Permit students to include pictures, drawings, and diagrams as part of their written products within set guidelines

Allow students to write on every other line of the paper As they work on skills, allow students to use a computer, typewriter, or tape recorder to reduce paper/pencil tasks

Provide a proofreading checklist

Allow students additional structured time to complete written assignments

As they build skills, allow students to list components, concepts, supporting information rather than write complete paragraphs, in some written work

Model and encourage the use of reference materials such as word banks, word walls, graphic organizers, or dictionaries Use peer support for generating and brainstorming ideas during the prewriting and revision stages of writing

Structure opportunities for students to verbalize (pre-writing) on a one-to-one basis and in small groups

Provide a picture, title, topic sentence, or other prewriting activity to help students begin creative writing

(take attendence)

Give students a guide for structuring writing by providing an organizational format (e.g., graphic organizer, RUBRICS)

Differentiating Mathematics/Science Instruction and Assessment

Use concrete objects and manipulatives to teach abstract concepts (e.g., weight, width, energy, shape, dimension, force)

Provide students with a list of steps necessary to complete an activity or the entire task.

Teach and model problem solving strategies (e.g., using pictorial representation, tallying, charting, simplifying the problem)

Check students’ understandings of key vocabulary and skills

Have students restate the problem/task in their own words

Assist students in breaking complex problems/tasks into specific steps or sub-parts

Use color coding to help students distinguish math/science symbols and operations/processes

Allow students to use calculators to perform calculations to drill problems as a means of demonstrating that they know the appropriate operation

Have students verbalize steps as they work in order to help them monitor their progress and identify errors

Post a basic problem-solving sequence chart

For example:

1. Read the problem

2. Identify the key words

3. Identify the operation

4. Write the number sentence

5. Estimate

5. Solve the problem

6. Check your work and compare results to estimate

Challenging High Achievers

Greater challenge for students who have demonstrated mastery of the basic curriculum material

Extension activities

Provide more sophisticated resources (e.g., texts, primary sources, websites) on the same topic

More open-ended tasks or problems

Recurring Cornerstone Task Examples

TASK FRAME:

Interpret the data on ______ for the past ______ (time period).

Prepare a report (oral, written, graphic) for ______ (audience) to help them understand:

• what the data shows

• what patterns or trends are evident

• what might happen in the future

Second grade students in three separate classes work in teams of four and take turns measuring the height of each member using tape measures affixed to the classroom walls.

The height measurements are taken at the beginning of the school year and every seven weeks thereafter.

When they begin, the 2nd grade teachers and classroom aides model the process and assist the youngsters with their measures and their recordings. As the year progresses, the students require less help with the task, and by years’ end, many groups are working completely independently.

By mid-May, each second grade class has obtained six height measures over the course of the year.

The teachers demonstrate how to create a simple graph with height in inches plotted against the months of the school year, and the students plot their own data. Using rulers, they connect the dots to see “rise over run” (i.e., a visual representation of their growth over time).

The chart papers are posted throughout the room and the students circulate in a gallery walk to view the changes in heights of the various groups.

When they begin, the 2nd grade teachers and classroom aides model the process and assist the youngsters with their measures and their recordings. As the year progresses, the students reqThe chart papers are posted throughout the room and the students circulate in a gallery walk to view the changes in heights of the various groups.

The teachers then ask the students to analyze the data by posing guiding questions –

In what months did we grow the most this year?

Is there a difference between how boys and girls have grown in 2nd grade?

How does our class growth compare to that in the other 2nd grades?

[The teachers create an average class growth chart that they show to all the 2nd graders.] What can we predict for next years’ 2nd graders about how they will grow based on our data?

The teachers create an average class growth chart that they show to all the 2nd graders, and, the students are then asked to work in their groups to develop a “presentation” for the current 1st graders.

Secondary Version

High school students use several Internet search engines to locate data from the World Health Organization, The National Institute of Health and at least two other sources on documented HiNi Virus (aka Swine flu) cases beginning in March of 2009. Working in teams, the students engage in the following tasks activities:

• Collect and record data from at least four sources on the spread of HiNi Virus in various countries.

• Compare and evaluate the four sources (e.g., Which sources were the most thorough?, …understandable? …credible?).

• Analyze the data (e.g., What patterns did you notice on age and gender infection patterns? …geographic spread? …associated deaths? ... impact of governmental policies, such as travel restrictions or quarantine, on the spread of infections? …predictions of future spread?).

• Prepare a summary report to effectively communicate the data and your analysis to a target audience (e.g., congressional committee, general public, teenagers) using an appropriate communications medium (e.g., a newspaper article, a blog, website, a Podcast, a T.V. new special).

Include recommendations (e.g., for government policy or individual precautions) in the event of a future outbreak of a different flu strain.

Let’s deconstruct these two tasks to examine their common elements

Notice that each task establishes a relevant context for actively involving students in gathering, analyzing, and displaying data. Both tasks call for some forecasting or prediction based on observed patterns. Both call for communication of findings to a target audience. Note that the secondary version of the task also reflects P21 themes of Global Awareness and Health/Wellness, Critical Thinking, Information Technology and Communication skills. All of the skills and processes in both tasks are transferable; they apply in mathematics, science, history, and a variety of “real world” contexts.

Now imagine a recurring set of such tasks across the grades, emanating from the same task frame, but involving more sophisticated data from increasingly authentic situations. And imagine similar task frames established within and across all academic areas to guide other sets of recurring tasks. This is the type of system we advocate.

With such a system in place, students will become increasingly proficient and autonomous in their ability to apply core academic and P21 skills, just as youth soccer or basketball players hone their skills over the years. Cornerstone assessments have an added virtue – they become the source of documented accomplishments saved in a student’s digital portfolio.

The portfolio becomes a significant component of the curriculum/assessment system, since it creates a shift from an emphasis on Carnegie units and “seat time” to one favoring demonstrated achievement on worthy tasks. With this approach, students graduate from high school with a resume of authentic accomplishments instead of merely a transcript of courses taken and a grade point average (GPA).

The concept of cause and effect is applicable to every grade and subject, is consistent with patterns babies build from birth, and develops into several of the executive functions that benefit all aspects of life from accountability to metacognition.

Consider all the opportunities to evaluate subject matter cause and effect are cycles in science such as the water cycle, adaptations in nature and in civilizations, conflicts in the classroom or world wars, natural disasters and economics, and of course, evidence (foundation also foundational knowledge) and proof from geometric theorum to science to theories of history and science hypotheses.

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