Differentiating
in your classroom can seem like an
overwhelming impossibility. How
are you supposed to differentiate each center, each week, for each student?
It can be done, by grouping
your students by ability.
I
group my students according to their levels on the end of year tests from the
previous school year, my beginning of year tests, weekly vocabulary quizzes, reading quizzes and tests, and math chapter quizzes & tests. Your
students should not stay in the same group for the entire school year. If one of my
student’s scores really
low in algebraic
thinking, but
really high in measurement, he
or she would
be put in different groups
depending on what is being taught.
Also,
I have found that sometimes
a student will work better with a certain
group of students versus another group-even if one is higher than the
other. It’s okay to put a student in that higher
group, but
you need to make sure you give them support/enrichment.
Once
you have figured out your grouping, you can start to think about your centers. Centers
are a powerful way to get students engaged in hands-on activities on their
level.
I taught first grade for 5 years
and third grade for 8 years. In both
grades, students had actual center time.
A rotation was posted on the board and routines were followed. Now that I teach 5th grade, I still have my students in
centers, but it works a little different.
I give my students’ “Educational Learning Choices” after they have
finished their “Must Do’s” each day.
In
my class students must use the online I.Ready Reading and Math program (40 minutes per
subject) each week. To manage this, it
is listed under their “Must Do’s” for the day.
With “Must Do’s” and “May Do’s” students learn time management and work
for center time.
Samples for Daily Must Do’s:
1)20 minutes of I.Ready (MW is Reading, TTh is Math, and then I look at the data and
let students know what they are doing on Friday. Friday is also a time they can make up time
if they were absent.)
2)Read Works: An Article a Day. I highly recommend you look into this. It is free, and you can assign your students
different articles depending on their ability level (online program)
I
then have Must Do’s that aren’t required to be worked on each day, but are due
each Friday. So students might opt to
work on it a little each day, or a huge chunk of it one day and not the rest,
but it is up to them as long as it is completed by Friday. What if students don’t complete these
assignments? The way I handle it
is this, 3 strikes and you’re out. If
students miss 3 deadlines, then that student and I sit down and work out a
daily schedule for the daily amount of time they need to work on each task.
Some of the Must Do’s that are due on Friday
are
★ Accelerated Reader (AR) tests (due every 2 weeks)
★ Reading Comprehension
Centers
★ Math Reteach/Enrichment pages depending on the week.
May
Do’s (aka Educational Learning Choices): These are student choices. Every single one is academic! By
allowing students to choose their learning activities (ie
centers), they feel empowered and
are ready and open-minded to learn more.
Some examples of May Do’s:
★ Prodigy: Online math game
★ Versatiles
★ Reading Silently or Buddy Read
★ Hot
Dots (I have these for Reading, Math, and Science.)
★ Task Cards (I have over 40 sets of engaging and differentiated task cards for reading, math, and science in my store. If you are interested, you can see them here.)
★ Flash
cards
Of
course, students meet with me in their reading and math groups as well. I generally teach each group for 20 minutes and the rest of the time is theirs
to work on their assignments - while I meet with the other groups.
A
few things to remember:
1) Routines and procedures are
crucial.
2)
Centers should run themselves.
3)
You can differentiate for your students in centers.
4) During center time, you
can pull back
students who needed more one-on-one attention. This is also a great time to join in with
a group of students during center time to observe, assess, and/or have
fun. I try to join in with one group
each week, and rotate the groups that I visit.
5)
Every student can feel successful during center time.
The
best piece of advice I can give to you, is make it work for you. Change things as you go and change it up until
it fits your style and your vision.
I hope this is helpful for you! If
you have any questions or suggestions for others please leave them in the comments below.
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