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Integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design, Chapters 8-10

Chapter 8: Grade and Reporting Achievement

The chapter provides several principles of effective grading and reporting:

Grades and reports should be based on clearly specified learning goals and performance standards

Evidence used for grading should be valid

Grading should be based on established criteria, not on arbitrary norms

Not everything should be included in grades

Avoid grading based on (mean) averages

Focus on achievement, and report other factors separately

Key principles of understanding by design and key principles of differentiation support the key principles of grading outlined in this chapter. Figure 8.1 summarizes how backward design, differentiation, and grading are interrelated. An example of doing this in my classroom would be to clearly establish goals and performance standards for a specific lesson. I would differentiate by targeting essential knowledge and understanding for all students based off of essential content in the lesson. I would use backward design by framing the big ideas around essential questions.  

Chapter 9: Bringing It All Together: Curriculum and Instruction Through the Lens of UbD and DI

UbD and DI work together and support each other. Together they create effective teaching because both challenge teachers to think about curriculum, assessment, and instruction from the viewpoint of both theories. Figure 9.1 on page 145 gives application steps for teachers integrating and applying the big ideas of UbD and DI. A few especially stood out to me: pre-assess early in the year for learner proficiency, student interests, and learning preferences; determine desired results of a unit (goals, essential questions, etc.); and differentiate and implement initial earning plans in response to pre-assessment evidence to address readiness, interest, and learning preference needs. This last point stood out to me the most because this includes a wide variety of considerations for the teacher including grouping, materials, time, number of students receiving instruction at one time, and others.

I also liked the bullet point outline of observable indicators by the students. Looking at what the students are able and are not able to do is the best indicator of how effective the teaching was. One indicator stated, “students can explain what they are doing and why.” This made me think of myself as a learner in content-area math courses. I needed my teachers to clearly paint a picture of how what I was learning and doing is relevant. An article on the NYT titled Making It Relevant: Helping Students Connect Their Studies to the World Today. The article is geared toward an audience of higher level English/Literacy content-area teachers, but the idea of making learning authentic is relevant to every teacher, regardless of content area or grade level.

Chapter 10: Moving Forward to Integrate UbD and DI

The book discusses stages for integrating the ideas of UbD and DI, noting “there is no single ‘best’ way of integrating the ideas.”

Stage 1: Consider the desired results by connecting UbD and DI, list desired outcomes for learners, and include advances teachers want realized in their classroom, school, or district

Stage 2:Shift to “thinking like an assessor,” think about what evidence will measure progress toward goals, and consider benchmarks to examine along the way.

Stage 3:On the teacher level: These are a few action steps that stood out to me for teachers: review the observable indicators, select one or a few, make a specific plan for implementation; find other colleagues to plan and work with on these goals

At the school or district level: These are a few actions steps that stood out to me for administrators to implement: establish a study group to explore UbD and DI more in-depth; send teachers to conference, workshiops, or video sessions on the frameworks; provide time and incentives to teachers

One significant take-away I had from reading chapter ten is that integrating the two frameworks and making changes will bring challenges. It’s important to keep in mind that I shouldn’t expect myself to make all of these implementations at one time. Rather, I should focus on the most significant and impactful changes and focus in on those.

Source: NYT article link https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/learning/lesson-plans/making-it-relevant-helping-students-connect-their-studies-to-the-world-today.html

Source: Integrating UbD and DI book, chapters 8-10

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Integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design, Chapters 6-7

Chapter 6: Responsive Teaching With UbD in Academically Diverse Classrooms

This chapter discusses how teachers “lack visual models of how classrooms function.” Therefore, many teachers have created classrooms that are “less flexible than they need to be to support a full range of learners in succeeding with meaning-making, authentic, high-level curriculum.” One teacher mentioned in the book stated that teachers can change and create a better classroom if they have the desire to do so. 

“The changes are awkward at first.” A few core beliefs about curriculum and diverse student populations were shared in the reading:

All students should experience teaching that requires them to make meaning of information and think at higher levels

Students need opportunities to learn the “basics”

There is a need for balance between student construction of meaning and teacher guidance

Students need to know the learning goals of a unit or lesson and criteria for successfully demonstrating proficiency with the goals

Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms

This chapter focuses on “uncovering the content” and deepening understanding for students as well as “instructional approaches to help students make meaning for themselves.” Six facets as instructional tools were shared through the WHERETO framework, which is a “set of principles” teachers should “consider when developing a plan for learning.”

W = How will I help learners know what they will be learning? Why this is worth learning? What evidence will show their learning? How their performance will be evaluated?

H = How will I hook and engage learners? In what ways will I help them connect desired learning to their experiences and interests? 

E = How will I equip students to master identified standards and succeed with the targeted performances? What learning experiences will help develop and deepen understanding of important ideas?

R = How will I encourage the learner to rethink previous learning? How will I encourage ongoing revision and refinement?

E = How will I promote students’ self-evaluation and reflection?

T =  How will I tailor the learning activities and my teaching to address the different readiness levels, learning profiles, and interests of my students?

O = How will the learning experiences be organized to maximize engaging and effective learning? What sequence will work best for my students and this context?

An article titled What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom listed some great bullet point strategies of how teachers can differentiate instruction within their classroom. The article also lists some “cons.” These challenges and obstacles are great to challenge teachers to think about while planning. 

Source (book): Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding By Design by C. Tomlinson and J. McTighe

Source (article): What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom

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Dialogue Response #2

Common Core & RTI: Common core state standards were developed to set grade-level standards that reflect what students should be able to know and do in order to be college and career ready. According to A Parent’s Guide to Response to Intervention, RTI is how each individual state and school go about providing that additional support students need to close existing learning gaps and prevent failure. For Common Core and RTI to work well together, teachers need to know the CCSS well, their students’ strengths and struggles, and academic gaps their students have. Within each school district, collaboration needs to be present among school personnel to achieve the best possible outcome for each student. According to video clip two, RTI is not about putting kids in certain tiers; it’s about looking at core instruction, making sure that good pedagogy and methodology of instruction is being delivered to all students. It is rooted in data-based decision making to decide which students need the “extra push” to keep them on the level of accelerating on core instruction.

Tier two intervention example: All students in a first-grade class were assessed on their reading abilities. The universal screening score for a small group of students in particular showed the students were considered at-risk for struggling with reading. These students were monitored for a few weeks to see how they responded to the core reading curriculum instruction. Progress monitoring and assessments showed this small group of students were struggling with phoneme segmentation. The school held a face-to-face meeting with the parents and explained RTI, the student’s data, and a detailed intervention plan. For the next 8 weeks, this small group of students received interventions with the classroom teacher for four days for 30-45 minutes per day. The teachers used differentiated methods to teach phoneme segmentation. Students were progress monitored weekly with parents receiving detailed reports. During intervention sessions, students received immediate corrective feedback based on the goals they had previously set. Students also graphed their own progress to promote self-efficacy and increase motivation. After the intensive interventions for a few weeks, these students showed positive progress and were considered to be responsive to the tier two interventions in reading and returned to receiving tier one general education. These students were still progress monitored weekly and could return to tier two at any point if necessary.

Why a tier two intervention: Tier two interventions are more specialized interventions provided in addition to the core instruction students receive, according to A Parent’s Guide to RTI.  Also stated in the text about RTI is that these interventions are provided in small groups with either the classroom teacher or specialist. Components of tier two interventions include progress monitoring, assessments, collaboration among different school individuals and parents, and ensuring interventions are provided with fidelity. Because the intervention detailed above included small group instruction (beyond core instruction) for four times a week with feedback, progress monitoring, looking at the data, setting goals, and mastering content before moving on, this intervention would be classified as tier two.

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Dialogue Response #1

A Struggling Reader: Children cannot excel in learning if their needs as struggling readers are not intervened upon. In order for teachers to meet the needs of a struggling reader, they must be able to quickly identify the student struggling and in what areas the struggles are present. As stated in Hairston’s article, Identifying and Helping Struggling Readers, a struggling reader is one who experiences a weakness in any one of the following processes: orthographic, phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic systems. Each of these areas are kind of like their own umbrella, and the struggles a reader could experience can appear in different ways under each umbrella.

The Warning Signs: The warning signs observed by the teacher that lead to the determination a student is struggling with reading mostly depends on the student’s age/grade level. For example, a first-grade student shouldn’t be expected to read multisyllabic words fluently, but if a fifth-grade student was struggling with this skill, they would be considered a struggling reader. In Hairston’s article, Identifying and Helping Struggling Readers, preschool and kindergarten aged students should be able to recognize some letters of the alphabet and have a basic level of phonemic awareness. Warning signs of kindergarten students would include difficulty with learning the alphabet, the sound that maps to each letter, and difficulty with rhyming games (Hairston 2011). If a child does not understand print concepts, phonics, and phonemic awareness by the end of second grade, this would be a major warning sign (Hairston 2011). A few examples of what these difficulties might look like in the classroom includes difficulty with the return sweep (print concepts), not being able to recognize digraphs (phonics), or not being able to identify the middle sound in a CVC word during an auditory drill (phonemic awareness). The warning signs of struggling readers could appear in a number of ways and are different for each grade but all tie back to the five overarching areas children should learn in early elementary. Warning signs for students in grades 3-5 would include difficulty with fluency, comprehension, spelling, writing, and vocabulary development (Hairston 2011). An example of noticing a warning sign in the classroom could be a student struggling with reading multisyllabic words. The student might be able to identify the word after a pause where they are breaking the word apart into the chunks they know. This student would struggle with fluency and might simply need more practice with reading multisyllabic words to gain confidence and automaticity.

Resource for Struggling Readers: Starfall Learn to Read with Phonics is a great web resource for struggling readers. Students can access stories on their level that can be read by a narrator or by the child. What makes this resource unique to me is the multisensory component it includes along with learning to read. I clicked on one story and noticed the nouns in the sentences have a corresponding picture or object above the word. For example, in the sentence “The boy and girl smile,” an image of a boy is over the word boy and an image of a girl is over word girl. The word smile had a smiley face over it. In the second video link on Canvas for this assignment content, the speaker mentioned the importance of reading being exciting and engaging. This interactive and multisensory component achieves this goal. Here’s the link: http://www.starfall.com/