Tiered Instruction for Washington County Schools

1. Tiered Instruction for Washington County Schools Access Materials at: http://tieredassignments.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/

2. Session Goals • Understand what Tiered Assignments are • Identify how Tiered Assignments can scaffold all students’ access to higher order thinking and problem-solving • Identify how Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy can help teachers make decisions about processes and products for differentiated instruction • Create Tiered Assignments • Review an action plan template for Tiered Assignment Implementation

3. What are Tiered Assignments? Tiered assignments are ways of supporting concept development and meeting the different learning needs in a group. Teachers may vary: • task • process • product

4. Who Benefits from Tiered Assignments? • Below level learners • On level learners • High level learners • EVERYONE

5. Why Tiered Activities for WCS? For Best Practices, tiered activities are fundamental because: • each student is appropriately challenged. • the focus is on the concept as opposed to focusing on learning differences. • it maximizes learning.

6. Text-Based DiscussionAdvanced Organizer Step 1: Read article, “Productive Group Work” and annotate as you read. Step 2: Consider the following questions: • What do you agree or disagree with in this article? • How could productive group work be implemented in your school? What would be the greatest challenges in doing so? • As an Instructional Leader, what would your first steps be to ensure Tiered Activities are an integral part of your instructional program? Step 3: Discuss these questions with a partner. Step 4: Share your thoughts with the larger group.

7. What Are the Steps for Creating Tiered Assignments? For WCS, there are 6 major points to development of tiered activities: • Choose a concept from Standards that students should know or understand • Pre-teach the Standard as a whole group lesson. • Assess students’ understanding of the Standard • Create an activity or project that is clearly focused on the Standard. • Use Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to adjust the activity to provide different levels of difficulty. • Match students to an appropriate tiered assignment.

8. Instructional Rigor Aligned with Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy • Guide provides sample questions, processes and products aligned with each level of the taxonomy. • Guide should serve as a daily tool to: • Differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students • Encourage higher order thinking and problem-solving

9. Tiered Chocolate Activities Advanced Organizer • ALLOW 15 Minutes • At your table, there is an envelope with 6 different activities, centered around the key concept “Attributes of Chocolate”. • Take a moment to make sure you all know what is in the envelope and then divide the cards so everyone at your table has a different activity. • Complete your assigned activity independently. • Talk with different peers to compare your work. Before we conclude, you will share individual responses.

10. Tiered Chocolate Activity Debrief • Did any of you work on an activity with which you weren’t comfortable? Explain • How were the activities tiered? • How did the activities relate to Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy? • Is it ok for teachers to assign a tiered activity to a student? Why or why not?

11. Designing Standards-Based Tiered Assignments Protocol for Students: 1) Start with grade-level standardsfrom the WCS Pacing Guide. 2) On Day 1, “pre-teach” the standard as a whole-group lesson. • Use a pre-made assessment from ClassScape or SchoolNet to assess what students have learned. • Use the data to divide your students into four groups: • Group A: Significantly below level • Group B: Slightly below level • Group C: On level • Group D: Above level 5) Modify the content into four progressive levels of depth and complexity using Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy 6) Differentiate by processes and products

12. How to Assess after using the Tiered Instruction Technique Use a pre-made assessment from ClassScapes or SchoolNet (may be the same as the pre-test) that directly aligns with the identified Standard. Assess the students as a whole group to see what has been gained since the pre-assessment. Determine next steps (including regrouping or use of processes and products from Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy that require even higher levels of thinking and problem-solving).

13. Simulation- Advanced Organizer • Work with a partner • Use the assigned Standard (ELA-7th grade-Reading Literature- Standard 9) • Read the unpacking information for the Standard. • Use the Instructional Rigor form and the WCS Tiered Activity template to plan corresponding activities for four different ability groups.

14. Simulation Debrief • What was easy about the task? • What was difficult? • How can you help teachers gain a thorough understanding of Tiered Instruction activities?

15. Implementation Action Plan • Review the action plan template. • Involve your ILT team in determining steps for successfully implementing Tiered Activities in all classrooms. • Return the plan to Ms. Williams by the 20th day of school.

16. Additional Resources for Tiered Assignments • Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom by Diane Heacox • How to Differentiate Instruction in the Mixed-Ability Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson • Tiering Assignments & Compacting Curriculum: It’s for Everyone! By Lynda Rice