Have you ever had a class where all of the students are at the exact same spot on their path to proficiency? I didn't think so. We all have classes of such diverse learners that makes our jobs more interesting and yet more challenging.
This March I attended Leslie Grahn's presentation at MaFLA's Core Practices Institute and learned a lot about the idea of Tiered Tasks and Tiered Texts. She presented it perfectly to catch my attention. She asked us to envision a learner in our class who is exceeding all expectations and looking for a challenge. Then she asked us to envision a learner who is struggling in our class and needs added supports. How can we help both of these learners advance while still teaching the same content. Her solution- differentiate texts and tasks. Check out her website for all sorts of great tips and ideas. I know the term differentiate brings us all back to those teacher prep classes but this kind of differentiating is one that I saw really work in my class. The idea is pretty straight forward. Tiering The Task: Everyone reads the same infographic or article but with different tasks based on their level. You start by developing an on level task and then add supports for struggling learners and add more freedom for the challenge level. Example: The class is reading an article on the pros and cons of school uniforms. The on-level task is to read and fill in a T chart of advantages and disadvantages. The more support level will have the same T chart but with a word bank or sentence starters. The challenge level will give them the prompt and give them the freedom to make a chart, write a paragraph or create their own representation of what they read. Then, everyone comes together to discuss and eventually debate the issue. Tiering The Text: You find a bunch of resources on the same topic at varying difficulty levels (infographics work best for this). You can either assign the texts to students or have them choose what's appropriate for their own level. Meanwhile everyone is doing the same task. Example: The class is reading about the benefits of yoga and have different infographics to help them learn about the topic. Everyone chose a text that was challenging yet not extremely difficult. The students have a graphic organizer in front of them to fill in that categorizes the different benefits of yoga (these are themes mentioned in all of the infographics). After students finish reading and categorizing, they work in groups to write a persuasive argument in favor of allowing yoga classes in the school (each group will likely have learners that read different infographics but now everyone can participate in the activity). My Example: In class we were looking at the advantages and disadvantages of having cell phones in the classroom. •Activity #1: Everyone answered pre-reading questions about how they use their phones in school •Activity #2: Because this was our first tiered task, I assigned students a series of infographics that discussed advantages and disadvantages of having cell phones in schools. Students read the infographic and completed a chart (part 1, part 2) asking them to list the advantages and disadvantages, summarize the main idea of their infographics and keep track of new words they learned. •Activity #3: In groups, students came up with the top 3 advantages and disadvantages of having cell phones in schools using what they read. •Activity #4: Students each received a different role card and personality and debated whether or not WHS should allow cell phones in the classroom. My Takeaways: I loved this kind of activity because it let me put to use those collected resources that have been sitting in my Pinterest for years. It also gave each student a chance to add to the conversation because they felt confident and comfortable using the information they just read and doing something with it. Now, did the students know that they received different infographics, yes. Did they say anything? No. As long as it's not stated that one set is more challenging than another set then I can see this technique working for future lessons.
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