No More Tears, Using Tiered Assignments

1. No More Tears, Using Tiered Assignments Tiered Assignments Marian “Suzy” Johnson Antoinette Bienemy Susan Menard Louisiana Department of Education

2. Group Norms Do not use any electronic device unless it is part of the presentation. Please turn off your cell phonesor place them on vibrate. Be respectful of your colleagues and your presenter.

3. Session Agenda • Overview of Differentiated Instruction • House of Cards Activity • Tiered Assignments A. Campaign Finance B. Loosening IV. The Big “Wrap Up”

4. Session Objectives • Explain that content, product, and process can be varied to meet the readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles of the students. This is Differentiated Instruction. • Understand that all differentiated lessons are based on some type of assessment. • Define and create examples of tiered assignments.

5. … Is giving students what they need. Carol Ann Tomlinson

6. Definition & Goal: Differentiated instruction makes it possible to maximize learning for ALL students. It is a professional and responsive mindset where the teacher is proactively planning for the needs of diverse learners.

7. Let’s take a closer look… STUDENTS DIFFER IN: • How they learn best • What interests them • Readiness for the content

8. PAY ATTENTION TO THESE STUDENT DIFFERENCES Learning Profile Interest Readiness GAINS GAINS GAINS ATTRACT ATTENTION MORE EFFICIENTLEARNING GROWTH AND ACHIEVEMENT

9. BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY & Depth of Knowledge Original TERMS NEW TERMS Creating 4 • Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things • Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing. EVALUATION • Justifying a decision or course of action • Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging Evaluating 3 or 4 SYNTHESIS • Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships • Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding Analyzing 3 or 4 ANALYSIS • Using information in another familiar situation • Implementing, carrying out, using, executing Applying 2 or 3 APPLICATION COMPREHENSION Understanding 2 • Explaining ideas or concepts • Interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining • Recalling information • Recognizing, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding Remembering 1 KNOWLEDGE

10. What Can I Differentiate ? Content Product Process

11. Building a House of Cards ?

12. 1concept Tiered Assignments multiple levels of complexity

13. Tiered Assignment Essentials For Varying Content • Not used • every day • Number of tiers • may vary • Ensures content standards are met by all • Driven by • assessment • Same concept • at varying • levels of • complexity • Students do • NOT choose • the level.

14. Tiered Lessons You must either “tighten” or “loosen” the core activity.

15. Factors That Influence Tiering • Background knowledge • Required degree of thinking • Level of abstraction or depth (process and product) • Degree of structure (process and product) • Learning resources (quantity and complexity) • Degree of teacher assistance and support

16. Tiered Activity: Campaign Finance Tight Just Right Loose ALL STUDENTS WILL: • Be given a packet of material on campaign finance. • Be required to take notes on the material. • Be required to use the Internet to research campaign finance. • Be required to demonstrate what campaign finance is and why it is important. With your shoulder partner, compare the two tiers. How are they alike and how are they different? Use your highlighters to mark the differences. Just Right: Using your notes and Internet resources, prepare an informational brochure that will inform students in the class about different points of view about campaign finance. Students will take a position on the issue and present a convincing argument in the brochure. Loosened (Less Complex): Using your notes and Internet resources, create an informational brochure that will inform students in the class about campaign finance issues.

17. Tiered Activity:Campaign Finance What was varied in the tiered assignments? • Reference Material • Resources • Task Structure • Demonstration of Understanding What was constant in the tiered assignments? • The concept of campaign finance • Use of text and Internet resources • Taking notes and applying knowledge • Sharing what they learned with one another • The product: informational brochure Tight Just Right Loose

18. Tiered Activity: Your Turn You have been given tiered assignments for the Just Right and Tightened levels. With the other members of your table team, select one of the activity choices and rewrite the activity reflecting that it has been Loosened. Remember what can be the different: • Resources • Level of complexity (structure, teacher support) • Level of thinking Remember what must be the same: • Same skill or concept • Same basic product • Same “action”

19. Key Points in Planning a Tiered Lesson • Standards and learning targets • Ways to assess students to determine readiness • Ways to design various activities at different levels of complexity • Ways to manage flexible groups.

20. The Big Wrap up …… • One concept • Same product • Multiple levels of complexity • Content standards / GLE’s are addressed • Higher levels of student engagement • Better performance scores Students

21. Something Special Cook up Using Tiered Assignments !