Great Tools for Differentiating Instruction

flickr photo by Sean MacEntee http://flickr.com/photos/smemon/5209796269 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Edutopia has a great piece by John McCarthy with dozens of tools for differentiating instruction. It’s a strong list with something for everyone. Even the strong tech user will likely find something in his list that they haven’t tried yet.

“Learning Profiles

When students address concepts from diverse perspectives, especially in collaborative groups, it can lead to in-depth understanding. Learning profiles are about providing each student with experiences that incorporate a variety of learning style elements, not just one. Such activities help students find deeper connections, especially if they share points of view via peer reflection and dialog.

Try these tools:

• Thinglink uses pictures to place links in different places where viewers can click to learn more. Here’s an example.
• Piktochart lets you create infographics to offer a visual explanation of a concept or idea.
• Tackk lets you create small interactive pages or build a portfolio of work using different media tools.

Here are an additional 50+ tools for exploration. Consider which will best fit the “current” needs of your diverse learners. More will be added on a regular basis. What tools do you use?”

Read the entire piece here.

Why formative assessment should be an enduring priority for every teacher

Questions to Spark Reflective Thinking

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Angela Stockman recently wrote a great post about reflection. She ends it with ten reflective questions to ask at the end of class:

“1. Reflect on your thinking, learning, and work today. What were you most proud of?

2. Where did you encounter struggle today, and what did you do to deal with it?

3. What about your thinking, learning, or work today brought you the most satisfaction? Why?

4. What is frustrating you? How do you plan to deal with that frustration?

5. What lessons were learned from failure today?” Read the post and entire list here.

Hexagonal Thinking ~ Design Thinking Strategy

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One strategy for helping students to make sense of complex ideas is hexagonal thinking.

From Ewan McIntosh‘s notosh site:

“If your students have been deep immersing themselves in conflicting, complex ideas for some time, there will come a point when it’s essential to make sense of things. One effective tool for beginning to synthesise ideas is Hexagonal Thinking.

In Design Thinking, and in other deep stretches of thinking, we can all get muddled by the complexity of the ideas before us. It is a difficult mental task to work out what connects to what, which ideas are more outliers on their own, and which concepts tie to the core of the challenge we’re exploring. Linear thinking, where ‘a’ causes ‘b’ to happen is great for textbook writers, but isn’t the way the world works. How can we help students make sense of information in a why that also shows up the complex connections and sub-connections between ideas, concepts and facts?”

Read the rest of this post here.

Great New Blog for Global Connections & Inspiration

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There are a variety of ways to help your students connect globally.  If you are looking for ideas and inspiration, you should check out this great blog called the Global Classroom Project.

From their about page:

“We warmly welcome new members into the #globalclassroom community, and are happy to provide any support and guidance you need to get started on your global collaboration journey.

To join our community, please join our current project wiki and fill out the registration form. We would also highly recommend joining our online spaces on Google Plus and Facebook. You can follow us on Twitter at @gcporganisers.”

From a recent post titled, “Reflections on International Mindedness:”

A guest post courtesy of Toni Olivieri-Barton who blogs at toniobarton.wordpress.com.

In the International Baccalaureate (IB) Organization, “international-minded” students are defined as demonstrating all of the following attributes: open-minded, risk-taker, reflective, principled, balanced, inquirer, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators and caring. There are many ways to give our students enough time to practice these attributes. I have incorporated them into the library time and collaborating with teachers to allow students to show these attributes to others around the world

Global projects assist teachers and students in being able to demonstrate all those attributes, but especially open-minded, risk-taking, and reflective. In a global project, classrooms around the world meet virtually to discuss cultural similarities and differences. For students who may never get to travel outside of their neighborhood or school, this global experience is essential because they will hear ideas and opinions that they themselves have not thought about. Even understanding students in a different school in the United States can open up their minds allowing them to care and reflect on their life.” Read the entire piece here.

Kids Speak Out on Engagement!

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This Edutopia post represents one teacher’s quest to better understand what engages her students. She surveyed 220 eighth-graders and noted that all of the responses fell under 10 categories, including working with peers, working with technology, connecting the real world to class work, and clearly love what you do.

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“A while back, I was asked, “What engages students?” Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccurring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of babes, here are my students’ answers to the question: “What engages students?”

1. Working with their peers

“Middle-school students are growing learners who require and want interaction with other people to fully attain their potential.”

“Teens find it most interesting and exciting when there is a little bit of talking involved. Discussions help clear the tense atmosphere in a classroom and allow students to participate in their own learning.”

2. Working with technology

“I believe that when students participate in “learning by doing” it helps them focus more. Technology helps them to do that. Students will always be extremely excited when using technology.”

“We have entered a digital age of video, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and they [have] become more of a daily thing for teens and students. When we use tech, it engages me more and lets me understand the concept more clearly.” …

You can read all of Heather Wolper-Gawron‘s excellent post here.

Pictures Pack a Punch

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Sonya Terborg has an excellent new post titled “Pictures Pack a Punch.” She grapples with infographics and notes tips for finding them on pinterest as well as ways to use them. Some of her strategies include using photos and words to show how infographics can be created in real life as well as using them to show comparisons.

Her site and examples are beautiful. Check them out here.

Great Tools to Try Out for Formative Assessment

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Vicki Davis recently wrote a great post on Edutopia about 5 tools for formative assessment.

“Good teachers in every subject will adjust their teaching based upon what students know at each point. Good formative assessment removes the embarrassment of public hand raising and gives teachers feedback that impacts how they’re teaching at that moment. Instant feedback. We can do this now. Here’s how.”  Read about the five tools here.

Eliminate Fear from the Classroom

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Plenty of studies have demonstrated that when humans are stressed or afraid, they cannot learn. This ASCD chapter by Bob Sullo outlines how and why to eliminate the use of fear as a behavior management strategy for students and classrooms.

“Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, many teachers still believe that fear—fear of failure, fear of an unwanted call home, fear of the teacher, fear of ridicule, or fear of an unpleasant consequence—is a prime motivator for students to do high-quality work. The intentional creation of fear in the classroom remains one of the most widely used strategies for managing student behavior and encouraging academic achievement.

But fear compromises our ability to learn. In this chapter, you will meet a well-intentioned teacher who undermines his capacity to inspire high achievement by creating a classroom environment infused with fear.”   Read the entire chapter here.

Great Online Math Resources

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Our librarian, Rebecca Battistoni, recently shared these as part of her weekly update.  There’s something for everyone here, check one out!

“For elementary students, this author has a great website with math games perfect for the younger students.  Greg Tang’s books are here in the library, so why not design some lessons around his math books and online games?  Greg Tang Math Games

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This site has math games at various levels, for the youngest student through basic algebra and geometry.  Be sure to scroll down to the links at the bottom of the page! Cool Math

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For some challenging MS/HS online math games, try this site: Game On!

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Finally, here is another site that not only has math games, but also business, economics, and real world problem solving simulation games for MS/HS.  Head over to Learn for Good.”

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