“Tiered Instruction”

2. “Tiered Instruction” What words, phrases or images come to mind when you hear the words “tiered instruction”?

4. What Can Be Tiered? • Assignments • Activities • Centers and Stations • Learning Contracts • Assessments • Materials • Experiments • Writing Prompts • Homework

7. The Teacher’s Challenge • Developing “Respectful Activities” • Interesting • Engaging • Challenging

9. What can we adjust when tiering? • Level of complexity • Amount of structure • Number of steps (Structure) • Pacing • Materials • Concrete to abstract • Options based on student interest • Options based on learning styles • Form of expression • Level of dependence

10. Tiered Assignments • In a differentiated classroom, a teacher uses varied levels of tasks toensure that students explore ideas and use skills at a level that builds onwhat they already know and encourages growth.While students work at varied degrees of difficulty on their tasks,they all explore the same essential ideas and work at different levels ofthought. Groups eventually come together to share and learn from eachother. • Tiered assignments should be: -Different work, not simply more or less work -Equally active -Equally interesting and engaging -Fair in terms of work expectations and time needed -Requiring the use of key concepts, skills, or ideas

11. Basic Tiered Activity • Example: Completing a Character Map

12. Tiered Activities Tiering can be based on challenge level, complexity, resources,outcome, process, or product. (Heacox, 2002) Note: Tiering can also be based on other components in the teaching process. This is the list presented by Diane Heacox.

13. 1. Tiering by Challenge Level: • Use Bloom’s taxonomy as a guide to develop tasks at variouschallenge levels. • Example: Elementary activities for book talk presentations. • Lower levels of Blooms: -List story elements (knowledge) -Book summary (comprehension) -Support a conclusion about a character with evidence from the book (application) • Higher levels of Blooms: -Discuss the theme or author’s purpose for writing the book(analysis) -Create a new ending for the story (synthesis) -Critique the author’s writing and support your opinion(evaluation)

14. Bloom’s Model • 1. Begin where most students are: Comprehension and analysis activities (Tier 2) • 2. Tier down for students struggling with basic skills (Tier 1) • 3. Tier up for students capable of higher level thinking: i.e. synthesis and evaluation (Tier 3)

15. 2. Tiering by Complexity: • When you tier by complexity, you provide varied tasks that address astudent’s level of readiness, from introductory levels to more abstract, lessconcrete, advanced work. Be careful to provide advanced work to thehigher level student, rather than just more work. • Example: After whole group class reading of a current events issue in the Timefor Kids magazine such as global warming, students complete a relatedactivity differentiated by complexity.

16. 3. Tiering by Resources: • Use materials at various reading levels and complexity to tier byresources. Students using tiered resources may be engaged in the sameactivity, (such as find five examples of contributions made by NativeAmericans ), or they may be working on a different, but related activity.(such as one group researching plants of the desert, while another researches animals of the desert).

17. 4. Tiering by Outcome: Students all use the same materials, but what they do with thematerials is different. • Example: Pattern block Math • Tier one: Identify all the ways you can group your pattern blocks. • Tier two: Identify all the different patterns you can make with yourpattern blocks. • Tier three: Create a bar graph to show all the different kinds of pattern blocks in your bag.

18. 5. Tiering by Process: Students work on the same outcomes, but use a different process toget there. • Example: What are the characteristics of a hero? • Tier one: Make a chart of specific heroes and what they did tomake them become a hero. • Tier two: Choose two or three heroes and compare them in a Venndiagram. • Tier three: List personal characteristics exhibited by heroes and rank them from most to least important.

19. The To-With-By Model • Tier I- Teach a skill or concept to students through direct instruction or modeling • Tier II-Provide an opportunity to practice the skill or concept with your support • Tier III- Extend learning through individual application where students work by themselves or in teams

20. 6. Tiering by Product: • Tier one: Create a flip book, diagram, or model showing the rotationof the earth around the sun (visual-spatial) • Tier two: Position and move three people to demonstrate theconcept of revolution and rotation of the earth with respect tothe moon and sun. (bodily-kinesthetic) • Tier three: Make a timeline of a year detailing the position of theNew Hampshire with respect to the sun.(logical-mathematical) 

21. References: • Heacox, D. (2002). Differentiating Instruction in the RegularClassroom. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing Inc. • Tomlinson, C. (1999). The Differentiated Classroom, Responding tothe Needs of All Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for • Supervision and Curriculum Development, (ASCD). •  http://2differentiate.pbworks.com/w/page/860120/Tiered%20Instructions

22. Create a tiered - - - - - ? • Answer the following prompt on Edmodo: “What difficulties do you face in tiering a lesson from your content area?” • AND • Compose a reply to one or two responses. Try to be sure everyone has at least one reply. • Next professional development: Use the planning sheet provided with this PowerPoint and plan for tiering in one of your lessons. Make this something you can actually use!