Transcript Tiered Lessons - Ball State University

Tiered Lessons
Project Aspire
2004 – 2005 Broadcasts
Sara Delano Moore
What are tiered lessons?
• Tiered lessons are an organizational
structure for meeting a variety of learning
needs in a single classroom.
• Tiered lessons are built on the premise of
“variations on a theme” where teachers
create thoughtful variations of lessons they
already teach in order to meet the needs
of a wider range of learners.
On what basis are lessons tiered?
Content
Process
Interest
X
Learning
Style
Readiness
Product
X
X
Agenda for these broadcasts
• November – focus on tiering product by
interest
• December – focus on tiering process by
learning style
• January – March – focus on tiering content
by readiness – grant focus
Tiering Product by Interest
• Easy way to start – doesn’t change daily
instruction
• Teachers develop alternative products
they think will be of interest to students for
the end of the unit.
• These can be in addition to or instead of a
unit test on the content.
Making this work
• It is most helpful to develop a standard set
of products you will allow in your
classroom, with rubrics for each.
• Product Guides (Jim Curry and John
Samara) are a good resource here.
• Rubrics are essential to the success of this
strategy – students have to know what
quality work looks like!
Sample Product Set
•
•
•
•
•
Physical model (3D) or demonstration
Visual representation (2D)
Oral presentation (live or taped)
Written report
These products respond to a variety of
student interests and learning styles
• These products accommodate a wide
range of content.
What about the rubrics?
• Rubrics here have two parts – content and
product
• The content rubric is the same no matter
which product is selected – students are
still demonstrating the same knowledge.
• The product rubric stays the same from
unit to unit – a good written report, for
example, is always nicely structured and
mechanically accurate.
Implementation
• Work with your vertical team to develop a
set of common products and rubrics.
• Identify a unit where 2 – 4 of these
common products might be appropriate.
• Develop a content rubric for the unit topic.
• After reviewing all the product options &
rubrics, allow students to choose which
one they will use to share their learning.
Things to Remember
• This can be in addition to a unit test
everyone takes or instead of a test.
• Spending time with the product rubrics is
key to not being overwhelmed with
questions about the various products.
• Emphasize that with a common content
rubric, everyone is demonstrating the
same learning, just using various
strategies.
Tiering Process by Learning Style
• In this context, learning styles means being
responsive to the fact that students learn content
in various ways and bring different cognitive and
intellectual strengths to our classrooms.
• Potential learning style models you might know:
– Multiple intelligences
– Visual/auditory/kinesthetic
– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Making this Work
• This is a more teacher-directed approach
to tiered lessons than allowing students to
choose products based on interest.
• There are two basic approaches
– Students rotate through a set of tasks so
everyone has done all tasks at the end
– Students do a subset of the available tasks
based on teacher assignment and/or student
choice
Sample set of tasks
• Students read from the text and answer
questions (visual, verbal-linguistic,
intrapersonal)
• Students conduct a simulation (kinesthetic,
visual-spatial, interpersonal)
• Students interview a community member
or expert about a topic (auditory,
interpersonal)
How to Manage These
• Option 1
– Everyone does the simulation in class during the
week and has two homework assignments, the
interview and the text reading/questions
• Option 2
– Students spend a day in class reviewing the options
and hearing the big ideas from the teacher
– Students then choose how to spend their time the rest
of the week based on the fact that they have to
complete two of the three assignments, one selected
by the teacher and one selected by the student.
Tiering Content by Readiness
• In this scenario, we are adjusting the
content students study (what they are
learning) based on their level of
prerequisite knowledge/skill.
• It is assumed that working at grade level
means they are meeting the state
standards for the course
• Typically think of three groups – below
level, at level, and above level.
Pretesting
• We discussed pretesting in the May
broadcast
• Pretesting is one way to determine a
student’s readiness level
• Teachers can be as general or as specific
as they like in determining readiness level.
• Three groups is generally a manageable
number.
Adjusting for Skills
• Teachers form three groups based on
student skill level.
• Activities are often hierarchical and
students simply enter the sequence at
different points and progress to different
levels.
• Example – solving systems of equations
Adjusting for Conceptual
Knowledge
• More difficult to pretest for this
• Focus here is on big ideas and depth of
understanding more than discrete skills
• Groups might be formed like this
– Has no knowledge of the concept
– Has some surface knowledge of the concept
– Has solid understanding of the concept
• Again, teachers create a sequence of
activities, scaffolding from one to the next
Questions for facilitators
• How much work do we need on rubrics?
• How much work do we need on
scaffolding?
• What are good examples of content where
teachers are likely to see varying
preparation levels?
• Examples from your own practice?