Tag: differentiation

Posted on

What To Do About Late Work With Reteach/Retest

More questions than answers here:

In the past, I’ve used write-ups for late work instead of the common practice of taking off points for late work. My district is now shifting to letting students complete assignments in different amounts of time based on their abilities (differentiation). I am trying to figure out how to avoid saying to my students, “Just turn it in when you’re done.” I don’t think I alone could get students to turn in work with just that message. Maybe if there’s an entire paradigm shift, it would be fine, and students would just turn in their work.

In the past I had to handle this question for in-class work: What if a student has been working, but doesn’t complete the work in time to turn it in before class is over? (It’s a challenge for them, or they want to add a lot of time and effort to this particular assignment). Each time I would let them know they needed to show me how much they have done and told them it was due tomorrow. If they had been working, it was still on time, but if they had been off task, then I was counting it late.

Now, What if it’s homework? I won’t know if they’ve been working. Can I make them bring me a tutoring slip or a note if they didn’t finish? Is it enough for them to show me how much they’ve done? How much time would it take to not enforce the deadline? Should I just stick with the late procedure I currently have for homework? Too bad if they couldn’t finish it in the number of nights I’ve given. (It is just one step per-day-late, so if this only happens once in the last three weeks, then it doesn’t really affect them — it’s just a conference between the student and I. If it’s twice in the last three weeks, then it’s just a call home and stays between the student, the parent, and I. Only if it’s three or more are there disciplinary consequences.

Posted on

Informal Differentiation

As I get ready to meet with my team to develop lessons for the start of the school year, I am trying to actively think about differentiation. I do think that it may be wise to keep students all on the same page for a bit at the beginning until they all know the routines in my room, and because I can’t divide up the class based on skill yet — because I don’t know them.

But I do think that teaching Language Arts lends itself to what I’ve decided to call, “informal differentiation.” This differentiation is just a natural part of the lesson. Our first lesson of the year is a name plate. These help students think about character/personality traits right away, and lead to their use in a writing assignment about themselves (a topic they can all be confident they know). Students use these on their desks for about a week, and then we grade them according to a check list (that the students see up front), and we then attach them to the wall. This is a way of saying, “Even thought this is Mr. Heyer’s classroom, this is your class and you’ve already made your mark on it.”

When students create the name tent, they all must have four words that describe themselves, four images that symbolize their values, and they must have their names on the front and on the back, and the style must be different on each. This leaves most of the assignment in each student’s hands. What are all the ways their assignments will be differentiated? When trying to think up traits, students may select from a list we give them, raise their hand and ask the whole class help think of a work, ask a neighbor, or work on their own. When designing their names, they may plan it out first or they may jump straight to ink — depending on their artistic abilities and confidence. When illustrating their values, they may print things out, glue things on, use a minimum of two colors, or use the full spectrum of color. It depends on what their values are.

I am not formally breaking up the class, or having them choose which of a set number of choices they want to take. Students, however, are being met where they are — in countless ways — and each year they enjoy the assignment and are successful!