1

Top Teaching Tools

Observation

TESA- Teacher Equity and Student Achievement

  • Latency, wait time
  • Equity
  • Individual Help
  • Paraphrasing/prompting
  • High Level of questions (Bloom's)

Bloom's Taxonomy NEW

Remembering: can the student recall or remember the information? / define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce state
Understanding: can the student explain ideas or concepts? / classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate, paraphrase
Applying: can the student use the information in a new way? / choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.
Analyzing: can the student distinguish between the different parts? / appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.
Evaluating: can the student justify a stand or decision? / appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, evaluate
Creating: can the student create new product or point of view?

GESA-Gender Equity and Student Achievement

  • Equal level of involvement of all students
  • Seating patterns
  • Praise and Criticism
  • Student to student; teacher to student; student to teacher interaction
  • Perception and reality

Brain Compatible Learning

Multiple Intelligences (Gardner)

  • Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
  • Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
  • Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
  • Musical intelligence ("music smart")
  • Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
  • Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
  • Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

Literacy Guidelines University of Oregon

PreK-3
Phonemic Awareness
Alphabetic Principles
Accuracy & fluency with text
Vocabulary
Comprehension
4-12
1. Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
2. Effective instructional around reading principles
embedded in content
3. Motivation and self-directed reading
4. Text-based collaborative reading

5. Strategic tutoring(Peer reading)
6. Diverse texts
7. Intensive writing
8. A technology component
9. Ongoing formative assessment of students
10. Extended time for literacy
11. Ongoing summative assessment of
students and programs
12. A comprehensive and coordinated
literacy program

Lesson Design

  1. Anticipatory Set (focus): This refers to a short activity that draws the students' attention before the lesson begins. This can be a handout, an example problem, or a simple question.
  2. Purpose (objective): The purpose outlines the objective of that day's lesson. Here the teacher emphasizes how students will benefit from the session and how they will go about learning from it.
  3. Input: Input refers to the vocabulary, skills and other concepts the teacher intends to incorporate in the session. It basically summarizes what students need to know in order to successfully master the lesson.
  4. Modeling (show): It's no secret that most students are only able to master a new lesson if the teacher has taken the time to show how it's done. Simply walk through a problem without student participation, allowing them to learn how its done.
  5. Guided Practice: Here, the teacher leads the students through the steps necessary to perform the skill emphasized using what is called the tripodal approach, or see/hear/do. Show the students how to successfully work through problems as they attempt to do it themselves.
  6. Check Understanding: Be sure your students understand the lesson. Ask students if they understand and answer their questions, then adjust the lesson pace accordingly.
  7. Independent Practice: Allow the students to practice completing lessons on their own, offering assistance when necessary. Be sure all students understand the lessons of the day, including any homework assignments.
  8. Closure: Wrap up the lesson. Ask the students to recap what you have taught them, telling or showing you what they have learned

Assessment-:

TRADITIONAL- focus on knowledge, curriculum, skills

Assessments include: Tests, quizzes, assignments

PORTFOLIO- focus on student process, product and growth

Assessments include: Self-reflection, goal setting

PERFORMANCE- focus on standards, application, transfer

Summative Assessments occur when we evaluate a final product, typically at the end of a chapter, unit of study or time frame (semester)

Formative Assessments provide specific standards-based feedback that ead to improved student learning, as learning takes place

Common Assessments are formative OR summative and are designed by grade-level teams, departments or vertical teams by a district. They decide what each student is to learn, how we’ll know they have learned, response to student having difficulty provide specific standards-based feedback that lead to improved student learning, as learning takes place

Cooperative Learning

  1. Positive Interdependence: You'll know when you've succeeded in structuring positive interdependence when students perceive that they "sink or swim together." This can be achieved through mutual goals, division of labor, dividing materials, roles, and by making part of each student's grade dependent on the performance of the rest of the group. Group members must believe that each person's efforts benefit not only him- or herself, but all group members as well.
  2. Individual Accountability: The essence of individual accountability in cooperative learning is "students learn together, but perform alone." This ensures that no one can "hitch-hike" on the work of others. A lesson's goals must be clear enough that students are able to measure whether (a) the group is successful in achieving them, and (b) individual members are successful in achieving them as well.
  3. Face-to-Face (Promotive) Interaction: Important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics only occur when students promote each other's learning. This includes oral explanations of how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, and connecting present learning with past knowledge. It is through face-to-face, promotive interaction that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.
  4. Interpersonal and Small Group Social Skills: In cooperative learning groups, students learn academic subject matter (taskwork) and also interpersonal and small group skills (teamwork). Thus, a group must know how to provide effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict management. Given the complexity of these skills, teachers can encourage much higher performance by teaching cooperative skill components within cooperative lessons. As students develop these skills, later group projects will probably run more smoothly and efficiently than early ones.
  5. Group Processing: After completing their task, students must be given time and procedures for analyzing how well their learning groups are functioning and how well social skills are being employed. Group processing involves both taskwork and teamwork, with an eye to improving it on the next project.

Problem Based Learning

The five-step model in the chart below identifies these steps:

  1. Problem is presented and read by group member, while another acts as scribe to mark down FACTS as identified by group.
  2. Students discuss what is known (the facts).
  3. Students discuss what they think and identify the broad problem
    (brainstorm their ideas and formulate their hypotheses).
  4. Students identify their learning needs (what they need to learn in order to prove or disprove their ideas).
  5. Students share research findings with their peers, then recycle steps 2-4

Thematic /Integrated Instruction

  1. Choose authentic themes that matter. Choosing themes that are authentic content connectors strengthens students' ability to build fluency between school subjects and apply them in real-world contexts. Select concepts or ideas that will blend disciplines and create bridges to new knowledge.
  2. Employ cooperative grouping. Using small, cooperative learning groups to support problem-solving and cooperation.
  3. Design inquiry-based learning experiences. Designing hands-on, "minds-on" activities help students make real-world sense of concepts by applying what they are learning.
  4. Provide for student choice. A curriculum that provides students choices for demonstrating their learning will allow construction of new knowledge, engage individual students, and promote self-direction, autonomy, and collaboration (Bank Street College, 2004).
  5. Create a resource-rich classroom. Provide a rich environment for exploring the theme in multiple avenues. Computers connected to the Internet, magazines, materials to experiment with, and tools for creating records of learning all enable elaboration of new knowledge.
  6. Connect to the local surroundings. Extend the classroom into the neighborhood, town, and environment by integrating them into the curriculum in meaningful ways.
  7. Team with other teachers. Collaborate with colleageus to bring good ideas into the planning process and create strong links to other disciplines by sharing content expertise.
  8. Provide timely feedback. The real world provides authentic feedback, allowing us to internalize what success or failure looks and feels like. Feedback in the classroom should replicate authentic learning situations by being timely and instructive.
  9. Link assessment to real-world performances. Use authentic performance assessments that ask students to apply what they understand in new ways.
  10. Use technology effectively. Employ appropriate technology tools for students to explore ideas, engage in simulations, and make new connections.

Higher Order Thinking Skills see Bloom's Taxonomy above

Core Curriculum/school curriculum/

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Differentiation-Teachers new to differentiating instruction may initially choose to use individual strategies and begin by differentiating either content, process or product .

The Strategies:

Readiness and Ability

Teachers can use a variety of assessments to determine a student's readiness. also, to learn new concepts students may be generally working below or above grade level or they may simply be missing necessary prerequisite skills.

However, readiness is constantly changing and as readiness changes it is important that students be permitted to move between different groups (see flexible grouping). Activities for each group are often differentiated by complexity. Students whose understanding is below grade level will work at tasks inherently less complex than those attempted by more advanced students. Those students whose reading level is below grade level will benefit by reading with a buddy or listening to stories/instructions using a tape recorder so that they receive information verbally.

Varying the level of questioning (and consequent thinking skills) and compacting the curriculum and are useful strategies for accommodating differences in ability or readiness.

Adjusting Questions

During large group discussion activities, teachers direct the higher level questions to the students who can handle them and adjust questions accordingly for student with greater needs. All students are answering important questions that require them to think but the questions are targeted towards the student’s ability or readiness level.

An easy tool for accomplishing this is to put posters on the classroom walls with key words that identify the varying levels of thinking. For example I used to put 6 posters on my walls (based on Bloom's taxonomy) one for Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. These were useful cues for me when conducting class discussions and useful for my students when they were required to develop their own research questions. Different students may be referred to different posters at certain times depending on ability, readiness or assignment requirements.

With written quizzes the teacher may assign specific questions for each group of students. They all answer the same number of questions but the complexity required varies from group to group. However, the option to go beyond minimal requirements can be available for students who require an additional challenge for their level.

Compacting Curriculum

Compacting the curriculum means assessing a students knowledge, skills and attitudes and providing alternative activities for the student who has already mastered curriculum content. This can be achieved by pre-testing basic concepts or using performance assessment methods. Students who demonstrate that they do not require instruction move on to tiered problem solving activities while others receive instruction.

Tiered Assignments

Tiered activities are a series of related tasks of varying complexity. All of these activities relate to essential understanding and key skills that students need to acquire. Teachers assign the activities as alternative ways of reaching the same goals taking into account individual student needs.

Acceleration/Deceleration

Accelerating or decelerating the pace that students move through curriculum is another method of differentiating instruction. Students demonstrating a high level of competence can work through the curriculum at a faster pace. Students experiencing difficulties may need adjusted activities that allow for a slower pace in order to experience success.

Flexible Grouping

As student performance will vary it is important to permit movement between groups. Student’s readiness varies depending on personal talents and interests, so we must remain open to the concept that a student may be below grade level in one subject at the same time as being above grade level in another subject.

Flexible grouping allows students to be appropriately challenged and avoids labeling a student's readiness as static. Neither should students be kept in a static group for particular subjects as their learning may accelerate from time to time.

Even highly talented students can benefit from flexible grouping. Often they benefit from work with intellectual peers, while occasionally in another group they can experience being a leader. In either case peer-teaching is a valuable strategy for group-work.

Peer Teaching

Occasionally a student may have personal needs that require one-on-one instruction that go beyond the needs of his or her peers. After receiving this extra instruction the student could be designated as the "resident expert" for that concept or skill and can get valuable practice by being given the opportunity to re-teach the concept to peers. In these circumstances both students benefit.

Learning Profiles/Styles

Another filter for assigning students to tasks is by learning style, such as adjusting preferred environment (quiet, lower lighting, formal/casual seating etc.) or learning modality: auditory (learns best by hearing information) visual (learns best through seeing information in charts or pictures) or kinesthetic preferences (learns best by using concrete examples, or may need to move around while learning) or through personal interests. Since student motivation is also a unique element in learning, understanding individual learning styles and interests will permit teachers to apply appropriate strategies for developing intrinsic motivational techniques.

Student Interest

Interest surveys are often used for determining student interest. Brainstorming for subtopics within a curriculum concept and using semantic webbing to explore interesting facets of the concept is another effective tool. This is also an effective way of teaching students how to focus on a manageable subtopic. Brainstorming using the blackboard or better still, using Graphic Organizers such as Mindmanager and Inspiration can be a highly effective way for teaching students how to explore a concept and focus on manageable and personally interesting subtopics.

Reading Buddies

This strategy is more useful for younger students. Children get additional practice and experience reading away from the teacher as they develop fluency and comprehension. It is important that students read with a specific purpose in mind and then have an opportunity to discuss what was read. It is not necessary for students to always be at the same reading level. Students with varying word recognition, word analysis and comprehension skills can help each other be more successful. Adjusted follow up tasks are also assigned based on readiness level.

Independent Study Projects

Independent Study is a research project where students learn how to develop the skills for independent learning. The degree of help and structure will vary between students and depend on their ability to manage ideas, time and productivity. A modification of the independent study is the buddy-study.

Buddy-Studies

A buddy-study permits two or three students to work together on a project. The expectation is that all may share the research and analysis/organization of information but each student must complete an individual product to demonstrate learning that has taken place and be accountable for their own planning, time management and individual accomplishment

Learning Contracts

A learning contract is a written agreement between teacher and student that will result in students working independently. The contract helps students to set daily and weekly work goals and develop management skills. It also helps the teacher to keep track of each student’s progress. The actual assignments will vary according to specific student needs.

Learning Centres

Learning Centres have been used by teachers for a long time and may contain both differentiated and compulsory activities. However a learning centre is not necessarily differentiated unless the activities are varied by complexity taking in to account different student ability and readiness. It is important that students understand what is expected of them at the learning centre and are encouraged to manage their use of time. The degree of structure that is provided will vary according to student independent work habits. At the end of each week students should be able to account for their use of time.

Carol Anne Tomlinson’s book The Differentiated Classroom and ASCD’s video tape kit Differentiating Instruction (VT 7600) list the following additional strategy for differentiating learning in a mixed ability classroom.