Differentiated Instruction

							Assessment of/for Learning
  Through Differentiation

       First District RESA
            July 2007
    Our Legacy: Assessment for
        Student Motivation
• To get students to learn, you demand it
• Play on student anxiety
• Use assessments as intimidation
• Manipulate assessments as rewards and
  punishments
• Provide a rank order of students
• Promote competition
•   Results          •   Success
•   Confidence       •   Grows
•   Learn            •   How to succeed
•   Responsibility   •   Internal
•   Character        •   Compliant
•   Lifelong         •   Learner
                 Losers
•   Result           •   Failure
•   Confidence       •   Wanes
•   Learn            •   No hope
•   Responsibility   •   External
•   Character        •   Rebellious
•   Lifelong         •   Search for
                         success
New Mission: Build Competency
• Honor reality that students learn at
  different rates
• Establish clear targets, worth achieving,
  and within reach
• Driving force of collaboration and success
• Number of students who can succeed is
  unlimited
                 Winners
•   Results           •   Credible success
•   Confidence        •   Confidence grows
•   Learn             •   I can succeed
•   Responsibility    •   Within me
•   Character         •   I am responsible
•   Lifelong          •   Confident learner
  Assessment for Motivation
• Clear, student friendly targets

• Accurate assessments

• Effective communication
 Three Types of Needed Assessments


• Pre-assessments – Design this after
  summative assessment

• Formative – Identify these last

• Summative – Design this first
What is Mastery?
             Mastery is…
• more than knowing information, but
  manipulating and applying that information
  successfully in other situations.
• defined by the Center for Media Literacy in
  New Mexico, “If we are literate in our
  subject, we can access (understand and
  find meaning in), analyze, evaluate, and
  create the subject or medium.”
                              Grade 4 ELA:
ELA4R1: For literary texts, the student identifies the characteristics of various
   genres and produces evidence of reading that :a. Relates theme in works of
   fiction to personal experience; b. Identifies and analyzes the elements of
   plot, character, and setting in stories read; f. Makes judgments and
   inferences about setting, characters, and events and supports them with
   elaborating and convincing evidence from the text.
ELA4R3: The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it
   correctly in reading and writing: b. Determines the meaning of unknown
   words using their context; h. Recognizes and uses words with multiple
   meanings (e.g. sentence, school) and determines which meaning is
   intended from the context of the sentence.
ELA4W2: The student produces a response to literature that: a. Engages the
   reader by establishing a context, creating a speaker’s voice, and otherwise
   developing reader interest; b. Advances a judgment that is interpretive,
   evaluative, or reflective; c. Supports judgments through references to text,
   other works, authors, or non-print media, or references to personal
   knowledge; d. Demonstrates an understanding of the literary work; e.
   Excludes extraneous details and inappropriate information; f. Provides a
   sense of closure to the writing.
ELAW4: The student consistently uses a writing process to
  develop, revise, and evaluate the writing: a. Plans and drafts
  independently and resourcefully; b. Revises selected drafts to
  improve coherence and progression by adding, deleting,
  consolidating, and rearranging text; c. Edits to correct errors
  in spelling, punctuation, etc.
ELA4C1: The student demonstrates control of the rules of the
  English language, realizing that usage involves the
  appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both
  written and spoken formats: b. Uses correct mechanics (end
  marks, commas for series, capitalization), correct usage
  (subject-verb agreement in a simple sentence), and correct
  sentence structure (elimination of sentence fragments); e.
  Writes legibly in cursive, leaving space between letters in a
  word and between words in a sentence; g. Spells most
  commonly used homophones correctly (there, they’re, their;
  two, too, to); h. Varies the sentence structure by kind
  (declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory
  sentences and functional fragments), order, and complexity
  (simple, compound).
Three Types of Needed Assessments

 • Pre-assessments – Design this after
   summative assessment

 • Formative – Identify these last

 •Summative – Design this first
     Culminating Project: I’m Your Biggest Fan!
  We all have our favorite authors, and now you have the opportunity to share
  your enthusiasm with the world! Your task is to create a mini-book that will
  detail the life and works of the author you have selected. It will be displayed in
  the media center, available for use as a resource for the fifth grade author
  research papers. Each section that you create should be titled as your
  chapters to the book. The book must have the following chapters:
Chapter 1 – Write a short biography of your chosen author to include a short
  summary of important dates and events in the author’s life.
Chapter 2 – Write at least three plot summaries (each one about a different work
  by your author). Be sure to identify each of the works that you are using by
  including the title in each of the plot summaries.
Chapter 3 – Discuss/analyze one text by your author. Your analysis must include
  character development and theme, supported by quotes and examples from
  the text, personal connections to the text, an evaluation of the effectiveness of
  the setting, and your opinion of the text with justification.
Chapter 4 – Explain what you would change about a work by this author and why
  (must be one of the three works used for plot summaries in Chapter 2)
Chapter 5 – Write a “found” poem—a poem created by selecting 8 words or
  phrases from any of the three chosen works that you find appealing and
  organizing the phrases into a “found” poem. You may share the poem with the
  class.
You may give each of the five chapters a title that somehow relates to what you
  are putting in that chapter.
Chapter 6 – In this chapter, you will explain the significance of each of your
  chapter titles, and how they relate to the author and his works.
       Analyzing the Summative
             Assessment
• Does your assessment match the mastery
  expectations?
• Is the key vocabulary represented within the
  assessment or are other terms being utilized in
  place of the vocabulary of the standards?
• Are there different ways that the student can
  show knowledge and understandings or is there
  a dominant form of questioning (true/false,
  matching, etc.)
How do we know that an assessment
   assesses what we want it to?
• Do the task yourself
• Circle the portions of your responses that elicit
  the essential and enduring knowledge and skills
  listed at the top of the unit.
• Read each component of the essential and
  enduring knowledge and skills, and check off on
  the assessment where demonstration of that
  knowledge and skill is required.
• Ask someone else to compare the lesson’s
  essential and enduring knowledge and skills to
  the assessment to make sure they’re in sync.
 Three Types of Needed Assessments

• Pre-assessments – Design this after
  summative assessment

• Formative – Identify these last

• Summative – Design this first
Examples of Pre-assessments
       for Readiness
    Pre-assessment for 4th Grade ELA
• Choose a familiar story and pretend that I have
  never heard of it. Explain the plot of the story
  (including the problem/resolution, setting, main
  events, characters, and theme).
• What was your personal opinion of this story and
  why do you feel that way?
• Give one example of written dialogue, as it may
  appear in a story.
• What is the best way to figure out the meaning
  of a new word that you come across in a story
  that you are reading?
            Your Turn…
• Examine your summative assessment
• Create a pre-assessment based on it
 Analyzing the Pre-assessment
• Create a checklist of what students are to know
• Add to the checklist what students are expected
  to do
• Compare to your description of mastery for this
  set of standards
• Are there mastery expectations that are not
  covered in the pre-assessment?
• Review pre-assessment for extraneous items
  that do not reflect the standards set forth for
  demonstration of mastery.
              Pre-Assessment Checklist

Look For’s   Met          Not Yet Met    Notes
Lyla       2/4   Punctuated dialogue,     Retelling of the story
                 highly opinionated about without identifying any plot
                 story                    elements, vocab. In context

Stewart    1/4   Plot                      Summarized story instead
                                           of responding to it,
                                           dialogue basics, Vocab. in
                                           context

Melinda    0/4   Knows setting             Plot, response to literature
                                           lacks connection to text,
                                           dialogue, vocab. in context

Demetrius 3/4    Plot, response to lit,    Vocab. In context
                 punctuated dialogue

Sharonte   4/4   Plot, response to lit.,   Knows def. of context,
                 dialogue, context         needs practice, could
                                           extend response to
                                           literature
Questions to guide in Pre-assessment Analysis

• How well did the pre-assessment and any
  accompanying rubric or other scoring guide
  work? How would you revise them?

• What are the most common errors and
  misunderstandings shown on the student
  performance grid? Of these, which ones are the
  most important to focus on and why?

• Which students have not reached the proficiency
  level and why? What assistance will you (and
  the school) provide for these students?
         What Differentiated
          Instruction Is.....
• Responsive, proactive teaching

• Qualitative rather than quantitative

• Rooted in assessment

• Fair
What is Fair?
      Differentiating Process
Making sense of the content so it
 becomes theirs.........
• in a range of modes at varied degrees of
  complexity in varying time spans
• with varied amounts of support
• using essential skills and essential
  information in order to understand
  essential principles or answer essential
  questions
   “Only when students work at
 appropriate challenge levels do they
   develop the essential habits of
persistence, curiosity, and willingness
       to take intellectual risks.”
“Come to the edge,”
he said.
“We are afraid,” they
said.
“Come to the edge,”
he said.
THEY DID.
And he pushed them,
And they flew.

 -- Apollinaire
             TEACHING WITH STUDENT
                VARIANCE IN MIND
 FRUSTRATION
DIFFICULTY
   TASK




                                   BOREDOM

                 READINESS LEVEL
THE CYCLE OF INSTRUCTION


               Establish
              curriculum
               priorities

  Plan and
 implement
instruction                  Determine
     and                    acceptable
  learning                   evidence
experiences
Create on-level task first then adjust up and down.
5 Steps to
  Tiering
Ensure that group membership is
           flexible.
       Why use flexible groups?

• Change as needed
• Increases participation and engagement
• Improves achievement
• Ensures all students learn to work
  independently, cooperatively and
  collaboratively in a variety of settings and with
  a variety of peers
• Provides for individual differences
• Increases the probability of student success
  by matching achievement levels and needs
  more of the time
Ensure that group membership is flexible.
Lyla       2/4   Punctuated dialogue,     Retelling of the story
                 highly opinionated about without identifying any plot
                 story                    elements, vocab. In context
Stewart    1/4   Plot                      Summarized story instead
                                           of responding to it,
                                           dialogue basics, Vocab. in
                                           context
Melinda    0/4   Knows setting             Plot, response to literature
                                           lacks connection to text,
                                           dialogue, vocab. in context

Demetrius 3/4    Plot, response to lit,    Vocab. In context
                 punctuated dialogue
Sharonte   4/4   Plot, response to lit.,   Knows def. of context,
                 dialogue, context         needs practice, could
                                           extend response to
                                           literature
Plan the number of levels most
  appropriate for instruction.




                  Standard
 Plan the number of levels most appropriate for instruction.

Lyla        2/4   Punctuated dialogue,     Retelling of the story
                  highly opinionated about without identifying any plot
                  story                    elements, vocab. in context
Stewart     1/4   Plot                      Summarized story instead
                                            of responding to it,
                                            dialogue basics, Vocab. in
                                            context
Melinda     0/4   Knows setting             Plot, response to literature
                                            lacks connection to text,
                                            dialogue, vocab. in context

Demetrius   3/4   Plot, response to lit,    Vocab. In context, could
                  punctuated dialogue       extend response
Sharonte    4/4   Plot, response to lit.,   Knows def. of context,
                  dialogue, context         needs practice, could
                                            extend response to
                                            literature
Recognize that complexity is relative.
ELA4W2: The student produces a response to literature that: b. Advances a
judgment that is interpretive, evaluative, or reflective; c. Supports judgments
through references to text, other works, authors, or non-print media, or
references to personal knowledge; d. Demonstrates an understanding of the
literary work; e. Excludes extraneous details and inappropriate information;

  Stewart        Summarized                 • Supports judgment
                 story instead of             through references to
                 responding to it             text
                                            • Advances judgment
  Melinda        response to lit.             (must choose a side)
                 lacks connection           • Interprets text,
                 to text                      evaluates text, or
                                              reflects on text
  Demetrius Could extend
            response to lit.                • Excludes extraneous
                                              details
Promote high level thinking in each tier.
    Promote high level thinking in each tier.
• Using a picture book, the teacher will walk through the
  book identifying how the author and illustrator used the
  pictures of the main character to develop the person. The
  teacher will model with a graphic organizer labeled “What
  the character looked like, said, did, etc.” After modeling,
  ask the students to define the term character and identify
  the main character of the story they are reading using the
  same graphic organizer.
• Identify the main character of the story. Use the graphic
  organizer to gather information about your character that
  will be helpful in the discussion. In the T-chart, the
  students are inferring whether or not the character will
  decide to tell the truth based on character actions and
  words within the story. In a discussion led by your
  teacher, explain your choice with quotes, and a sequence
  of the character’s actions leading up to his next move. If
  you were in the same situation, what would you have
  done?
• The characters’ time at the camp is left in your hands. You must
  determine their guilt or innocence, and argue your case for
  each character before a judge, your teacher, and the jury, a
  group of your peers, to determine how long each sentence
  should remain. Your group will be divided into two parts:
  witnesses for the defendant, or the acting jury who will decide
  the outcome based on your argument.
  Teacher will model the use of a T-Chart as a way to organize
  an effective argument. Students will use the T-Chart to organize
  their argument for the story before the judge and call to the
  stand witnesses to share your evidence that includes specific
  actions, reactions, and quotes supported by the text that you
  have prepared. You should give your witnesses the names of
  other characters in the story, and the evidence that they
  present should be quotes that were made in scenes where they
  would have heard them, or actions they would have seen. Be
  prepared to answer questions from the judge.
     Provide
teacher support
  at every tier.
  Provide teacher support at every tier.
• Using a picture book, the teacher will walk through the
  book identifying how the author and illustrator used the
  pictures of the main character to develop the person. The
  teacher will model with a graphic organizer labeled “What
  the character looked like, said, did, etc.” After modeling,
  ask the students to define the term character and identify
  the main character of the story they are reading using the
  same graphic organizer.
• Identify the main character of the story. Use the graphic
  organizer to gather information about your character that
  will be helpful in the discussion. In the T-chart, the
  students are inferring whether or not the character will
  decide to tell the truth based on character actions and
  words within the story. In a discussion led by your
  teacher, explain your choice with quotes, and a sequence
  of the character’s actions leading up to his next move. If
  you were in the same situation, what would you have
  done?
• The characters’ time at the camp is left in your hands. You must
  determine their guilt or innocence, and argue your case for
  each character before a judge, your teacher, and the jury, a
  group of your peers, to determine how long each sentence
  should remain. Your group will be divided into two parts:
  witnesses for the defendant, or the acting jury who will decide
  the outcome based on your argument.
  Teacher will model the use of a T-Chart as a way to organize
  an effective argument. Students will use the T-Chart to organize
  their argument for the story before the judge and call to the
  stand witnesses to share your evidence that includes specific
  actions, reactions, and quotes supported by the text that you
  have prepared. You should give your witnesses the names of
  other characters in the story, and the evidence that they
  present should be quotes that were made in scenes where they
  would have heard them, or actions they would have seen. Be
  prepared to answer questions from the judge.
       Differentiating by Readiness –
              Video Questions
• What was the first thing the teacher considered
  in designing the lessons?
• How were groups established?
• How was the lesson differentiated according to
  readiness – what three-step process was used?
• What on-going assessment strategies were
  used?
• How did the teacher reactively adjust the
  lesson?
Time for a Quiz
       Quiz: What Are You Thinking?
A. Students work in trios to create a Venn
   Diagram comparing the traits of the main
   characters in the two novels they read. With
   the teacher, the trios then compare their
   diagrams and identify how those traits caused
   similar effects in the sequence of both stories.
B. With the teacher, students determine the five
   key events in the sequence in the story that
   affected the main character. They then discuss
   and record the cause of each on a chart.
C. The teacher discusses and lists five key
   events in the story that affected the main
   character. With the teacher, students
   determine the sequence of those events
   and then record the cause of each on a
   chart.
D. With teacher facilitation, students use a
   Venn Diagram to compare traits of the
   main character at the beginning and end
   of the book. Then they brainstorm, list
   together, and sequence the events that
   caused the character to change.
   Maps: A Tiered Assignment
• Pre-assessment was a Level II task
• Look at the map on page 377 and label all
  of the geographical features that you know
• Make an educated guess and mark the
  places on the map accordingly: major
  trading center ($), great vacation spots
  (), place that probably gets invaded by
  its neighbors, the most populous city
  (dots), etc.
       Maps: A Tiered Assignment
• The Lay of the Land: These are students
  whose pre-assessment shows that they
  really don’t know where key geographical
  features and national borders are in the
  field. The cognitive skills for this level are
  familiarity and recognition. Students need
  to learn by labeling, color coding, and
  reconstructing. Teacher is close by for
  reinforcement and correction, checking
  students off at each task and answering
  questions.
• Geography is Destiny: These students know
  their basic geography of the field. They are
  ready to do some inferential thinking about how
  particular geographical features determined key
  historical events. They need to consider why
  cities developed where they did, the economic
  value of certain geographical features and why
  that changed, military implications of
  geographical features, trade routes, etc. These
  students need to learn by tracing, categorizing,
  linking cause and effect, and comparing maps
  from various eras. The teacher offers support by
  leading discussion, modeling the use of certain
  graphic organizers, and pushes students’
  thinking by asking probing questions as she
  circulates and observes individuals/groups at
  work.
• Telling the Story: These students are ready to
  narrate historical events based on map
  information, going from picture to word and from
  word to picture. They are also ready to process
  many kinds of map information simultaneously,
  and integrate that information into their story.
  These students need to learn by sequencing,
  linking cause to effect, generalizing, and finding
  supporting evidence for generalizations. The
  teacher acts as a resource, assisting students
  locate sources, asking probing questions to
  push students to consider the validity of sources,
  other possibilities, etc. The teacher also models
  the use of more advanced graphic organizers.
     Steps for Differentiating by
             Readiness

1. Select UKDs
2. Use pre-assessments
3. Select grouping strategy
4. Create an activity
5. Vary, extend, and/or accommodate to match
   students’ readiness
6. Adjust management structures-whole group
   introduction to the 3 levels
         Criteria for Tiered Assignments
____ 1. A pre-assessment was used to determine
        grouping.
____ 2. The groups are based on readiness for this task
____ 3. Each of the tasks is respectful, engaging, and
        challenging
____ 4. The tasks can be identified for a learner with
        above-level skills, on-level skills, and below
        level skills
____ 5. Each of the tasks has the same concept or skill
____ 6. Support structures are evident in the tasks
____ 7. Understandings, Knows, and Dos are evident in
        the tasks
____ 8. Clear directions are provided for each of the tasks
____ 9. The tiered tasks lend themselves to additional and varied
        grouping strategies such as whole group, small group, and
        individual time to extend the learning or to provide the
        next step in instruction
____ 10. Varied materials/texts were considered for the tasks
ANCHOR ACTIVITIES
      RAPID ROBIN




The “Dreaded Early Finisher”
“I’m not finished” Freddie




“It takes him an hour-and–a half to
watch ’60 Minutes’”
       In a differentiated
         classroom......
“ In this class we are never finished---
 Learning is a process that never ends.”
What is an Anchor Activity?
Anchor activities
are ongoing
assignments that
students can work
on independently
throughout a unit, a
grading period or
longer.
An Anchor Activity is.......MFI
Meaningful and engaging to the
 student

Focused on the curriculum
Independent - students can do
 with minimum teacher support
     Science Example: Temperature
• Standard S4SC1:Students will be
  aware of the importance of curiosity,
  honesty, openness, and skepticism in
  science and will exhibit these traits in
  their own efforts to understand how
  the world works. a. Keep records of
  investigations and observations and
  do not alter the records later; b.
  Carefully distinguish observations from
  ideas and speculations about those
  observations, c. offer reasons for
  findings and consider reasons
  suggested by others.
    Science Example: Temperature

• S4CS2: Students will have the
  computation and estimation skills
  necessary for analyzing data and
  following scientific explanations.
• S4CS8: Students will understand
  important features of the process of
  scientific inquiry
    Science Example: Temperature
• S4E4: Students will analyze weather
  charts/maps and collect weather data
  to predict weather events and infer
  patterns and seasonal changes. a.
  Identify weather instruments and
  explain how each is used in gathering
  weather data and making forecasts
  (including thermometers); c. Use
  observations and records of weather
  conditions to predict weather patterns
  throughout the year.
              Subset of skills:


– How to create a data collection table
– Knowledge of thermometers and how to read
  them
– Averaging
– Drawing conclusion
– Uses of data collections
– Expository paragraph writing
– How to formulate a hypothesis
– How to test a hypothesis
        Temperature: Level I
• What is the Level I task?
• What skills are used in this activity?
• What adjustments are made to help
  compensate for difficulties students may
  have that would impede the learning
  process?
       Temperature: Level II
• What is the Level II task?
• What skills are demonstrated in this task?
• Are any adjustments made to help
  compensate for difficulties students may
  have that would impede the learning
  process?
       Temperature: Level III
• What is the Level III task?
• What skills are demonstrated in this task?
• Are any adjustments made to help
  compensate for difficulties students may
  have that would impede the learning
  process?
     Science Class Anchors
• Centered around unit of study
• Meet M.F.I. principles
• Planned in advance
• Materials available
• Management of anchor activities (learning
  centers, designated space, etc.)
• Grading/credit considered
Anchors Away!
How will we know when our
 students are “getting it”?
 Three Types of Needed Assessments

• Pre-assessments – Design this after
  summative assessment

• Formative – Identify these last

• Summative – Design this first
  “Too often, educational tests,
   grades, and report cards are
      treated by teachers as
  autopsies when they should be
       viewed as physicals.”
Doug Reeves – Center for Performance Assessment
 Transition Points: When do I make use of
          formative assessment?
Transition points in learning are the points at
  which the skill load significantly increases
     and the critical thinking deepens or
    expands (Kuzmich, 1998). Standards-
  based curricula are hierarchical. Concepts
    appear again and again in deeper and
   more complex forms as students journey
                through school.
What is the difference in formative
 and summative assessment?
Formative assessment is:
• Assessment FOR Learning

Summative assessment is:
• Assessment OF Learning
  Assessment For Learning
         Defined
• Typically is formative (before or during the
  learning)
• Includes descriptive feedback, peer
  assessment, self-assessment, etc.
• Is used for the purpose of helping the
  learner learn
• Makes learning more possible.
          » SOURCE: Leadership for Learning, 2005.
       Assessment Of Learning
                        Defined
• Typically is summative (after the learning)
• Looks at learning to decide how much has
  been learned and report out on it.
          » SOURCE: Leadership for Learning, 2005.
         Comparing Assessment FOR
         and Assessment OF Learning
       Based upon the work of Anne Davies, Making Classroom Assessment Work, 2000.
    Assessment OF Learning (Summative)               Assessment FOR Learning (Formative)

•    Checks what has been learned to date        •   Checks learning to decide what to do next

•    Is designed for those not directly involved •   Is designed to assist teachers and students
     in daily learning and teaching

•    Is presented in a formal report             •   Is used in conversation about learning

•    Usually gathers information into easily     •   Is specific and uses descriptive feedback in
     digestible numbers, scores, and grades          words (instead of numbers, scores, and
                                                     grades)
•    Frequently used to compare one student’s •      Is usually focused on improvement,
     learning with other students or with the        compared with the student’s “previous best,”
     “standard” for a grade level                    and progress toward a standard

•    Does not need to involve the student        •   Needs to involve the student—the person
                                                     most able to improve the learning
    Examples of Formative Assessment



•   3-2-1
•   Entrance cards/exit cards
•   Academic Prompts
•   Quiz
•   Reader response journals
•   Observation logs/Learning Logs
•   Stem-starters…
•   Essays
•   Reflection Cards/Muddiest Point Cards
              Student’s Role
              Based on the work of Stiggins and Davies


Assessment FOR                       Assessment OF
  Learning                             Learning
• Self-assess and                    • Study to meet
  monitor progress                     standards
• Act on classroom                   • Take the test
  assessment results to              • Strive for the highest
  be able to do better                 possible score
  the next time                      • Avoid failure
                 Winners
•   Results           •   Credible success
•   Confidence        •   Confidence grows
•   Learn             •   I can succeed
•   Responsibility    •   Within me
•   Character         •   I am responsible
•   Lifelong          •   Confident learner
• What’s one thing you changed in the last
  two weeks in your instruction because of
  something you observed while assessing
  students?

OR

• What did you learn about a student today
  and what did you do with that knowledge?
    Questions to guide in Assessment Analysis
•   How well did the assessment and any
    accompanying rubric or other scoring guide
    work? How would you revise them?
•   What are the most common errors and
    misunderstandings shown on the student
    performance grid? Of these, which ones are the
    most important to focus on and why?
•   Which students have not reached the proficiency
    level and why? What assistance will you (and
    the school) provide for these students?
•   How did each individual student do on this task
    in comparison to the earlier assessment?
•   How well did the whole class do on this task in
    comparison to the earlier assessment?
             District Policy:
    “Structure for Mastery Learning”
Multiple assessment opportunities (Max. of
 3) coupled with re-teaching shall be made
 available to all students; the student’s first
 grade will be averaged with the highest
 reassessment.
Ticket out the Door