Tiered Instruction

1. Tiered Instruction • Provides teachers with a means of assigning different tasks within the same lesson or unit. The tasks will vary according to the students’ • Readiness • Interest • Learning Profile

2. What can be Tiered? Content Process Product • Assignments • Activities • Homework • Centers • Experiments • Materials • Assessments • Writing Prompts

3. Planning Tiered Activities A Four Step Method Step 1. Identify key concepts or skills What should students know, understand, or be able to do? Step 2. Think about students an/or use assessments to determine: Readiness Level Interests Learning Profiles

4. Step 3. Create an activity for “on-level” learners that is: 1. Interesting 2. Challenging 3. Causes students to use key skill(s) to understand the major idea or concept. Step 4. Adjust the activity accordingly. Remember, you may not need to adjust the activity if you are differentiating by interest or by learning profile. However, if you are differentiating by readiness, you will need to adjust for “struggling learners” and “highly-able” learners. Struggling Learners High-Able Learners On-Level Learners

5. Anchor Activities Anchor activities are ongoing assignments that students can work on independently throughout a unit, a grading period, or longer.

6. The Purpose of an Anchor Activity • Provide meaningful work for students when they finish an assignment or project, when they first enter the class, or when they are “stumped.” • Provide ongoing tasks that tie to the content and instruction • Free up the classroom teacher to work with other groups of students or individuals

7. Some Anchor Activities • “Brain Busters” • Learning Packets • Activity Box • Learning/Interest Centers • Vocabulary Work • Magazine Articles with Generic Questions or Activities • Listening Stations • Research Questions or Projects • Journals or Learning Logs • Silent Reading

8. Cubing • Satisfies hunger to do something different • Eliminates boredom and lethargy resulting from unnecessary drill/practice • Often used to reinforce, extend or demonstrate learning • Designed to help Ss think about a topic from different angles • Game-like: motivational • Recognizes large reservoir of knowledge and skills of some learners

9. Cubing – Generic Cubes What Who Compose When Where Why How Create

10. Questions

11. My Family in the Past and Present Cube Create a timeline with pictures and/or words showing changes in your family over time. Create a collage with digital pictures showing changes in your family over time. Create a play that demonstrates changes in your family over time. Make a video or tape recording of a family member, describing how your family has changed over time. Make a video or tape recording, interviewing members of your families telling about their responsibilities. Present an argument that convinces others how your family is different today than it was in the past. Create a song or rap that tells about how your family has changed over time.

12. Ways to Differentiate Product • Choices based on readiness, interest, and learning profile • Clear expectations • Timelines • Agreements • Product Guides • Rubrics • Evaluation

15. Tomlinson/UVa/2000

16. Begin Slowly – Just Begin!

17. If you want to feel safe and secure, continue to do what you have always done. If you want to grow, go to the cutting edge of our profession. Just know that when you do, there will be a temporary loss of sanity. So know when you don’t quite know what you are doing, you are probably growing. Madeline Hunter

18. Multiple Evaluations • EXIT CARDS (“Tickets Out the door”) • Used to gather information on student readiness levels, interests, and/or learning profiles. They can be used as quick assessments to see if the students are “getting it.” • The teacher hand out index cards to Ss at the end of an instructional sequence or class period. The teacher asks the students to respond to a pre-determined prompt on their index cards and then turn them in as they leave the classroom or transition to another subject. • The teacher reviews the Ss responses and separates the cards into instructional groups based on preset criteria.

19. Multiple Evaluations Explain the difference Between a noun and a verb. Write one sentence. Circle the noun and underline the verb. Exit Card Example The boy runs home. In the sentence above, the underline word is a… NOUN VERB circle the correct answer Notice how these exit cards have been differentiated by readiness. Each student is still expected to know about nouns and verbs, but their individual questions are based on their skill level and their degree of knowledge.

20. Multiple Evaluations Exit Card: 3-2-1 Summarizer After reading over my 1st draft for writing…….. 3 revisions I can make to improve my draft. 2 resources I can use to help improve my draft. 1 thing I really like about my first draft

21. Some Sample Exit Card Questions: Write one thing you learned today. What area gave you the most difficultytoday? Something that really helped me in my learning today was…. What connection did you make today that mad you say, “HAH! I get it!” Something I still don’t understand is…. Write a question you'd like to ask or something you’d like to know more about. Draw a picture of ____ and label it in English. 3-2-1: 3 new things; 2 things you still want to know, 1 question you still have

22. Multiple Evaluations EXIT CARD GROUPINGS Group 1 * Ss who are struggling with the concept or skill Group 2 * Ss with some understanding of concept or skill Group 3 * Ss who understand the concept or skill Readiness Groups