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Real academic rigor occurs when teachers create challenging lessons that help their students meet those high expectations. Rigor requires active engagement and critical thinking at deep levels.

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Real academic rigor occurs when teachers create challenging lessons that help their students meet those high expectations. Rigor requires active engagement and critical thinking at deep levels.

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Good instruction means that everyone gets what they need to be successful.  

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Good instruction means that everyone gets what they need to be successful.  

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How are you ensuring equity for everyone in your classroom (face to face, virtual, IEP, 504, EL etc)?

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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

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Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.

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Updated 01/2014

When I lesson plan with teachers, out of earshot from their fellow teachers and their principals, I can't tell you how often I'm asked, "what exactly does it look like?" when it comes to differentiated instruction.

In the education world, differentiated instruction is talked a lot about as a policy or as a solution, but rarely do educators get opportunities to roll up their sleeves and talk about what it looks like in practice.

The definition begins with this: Equal education is not all students getting the same, but all students getting what they need. Approaching all learners the same academically doesn't work. We have to start where each child is in his learning process in order to authentically meet his academic needs and help him grow. With a classroom full of children at different stages of learning, this certainly sounds overwhelming, I know. So I'd like to suggest a place to begin and provide some examples.

Start with the Student

If a child in your class is really struggling with reading, writing, organization, time management, social skills or all of the above, the first step is to find out as much as you can about her educational history and anything else. This includes learning about her interests, cultural background, learning style, and something about her home life (The youngest? Foster care? Single parent home?)

The fact is we are mainstreaming a larger number of our students to general education classes, who, 15 years ago, may have instead been assigned to a special education class. That's good news in so many ways but makes a teacher's job more challenging. This is also one of the reasons why differentiated instruction has become such a hot topic.

Several years ago, in one of the general education language arts class I was teaching, 8 of the 34 students enrolled had an Individualized Education Program (IEP). When a child has an IEP, it is required that all teachers provide accommodations and modifications to assignments and instruction for that student. Speaking of overwhelmed. I definitely was, to say the least.

So, I learned. I spent many of my conference periods combing through student files. It's amazing what you can discover about a child from doing this. For instance, I had a student with perplexing behaviors then I learned he suffered from schizophrenia. How did I find out? Looking at his file. I was a much better teacher for him after gaining this information. Of course, he had an IEP, and someone should have told me in the beginning of the year, but we all know how things -- and children -- fall through the cracks of large public schools in enormous school districts.

A Classroom Example

Making an assignment, task, or objective different for one student than the rest of the class is meeting that child where they are in their learning journey. It's okay, you don't have to feel bad or feel as if you are being unfair, or lowering the bar. You are the child's teacher and you spend enough time with her to understand what she needs. And remember, equality is about meeting the needs of the individual.

Here's an example from my teaching:

It's a high school language arts class, and students are reading a novel. The daily objective is practicing inference and application of this skill. They are writing a brief essay predicting what the character Crooks from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men might do next. They must pull textual evidence from the book to support their predictions and claims.

But Diana is seated over there, frustrated. She is struggling with the concept of inference, partly because she is reading below her grade level. Knowing this about her reading abilities, and other challenges indicated on her IEP, do I expect her to stay the course, or do I admit that success for her with this assignment as it stands is not likely? I decide to give Diana the task of listing five adjectives to describe the character Crooks. She has to find one quote from the character in the book to prove one or more of the words she has chosen. There are similarities to these two assignments, but different enough to ensure a higher probability of success -- and learning -- for her.

A Matter of Fairness

Differentiated instruction for Diana, and for other struggling students, may mean providing a handout with sentence starters or a graphic organizer to help them with constructing meaning. It may mean providing extra time to complete an assignment, giving directions again, reducing the length of an assignment, or offering alternate assignments or projects altogether. You can also provide struggling students with leveled text -- less difficult reading that contains the same content.

(For more differentiated instruction ideas and examples from the classroom, check out this Edutopia group discussion on the topic.)

Do I pre-plan variations of an assignment? Not always, but when I know my struggling students and their challenges well enough to predict road bumps ahead for them, I'm ready.

One way to be ready? Create file folders filled with various graphic organizers, visual aides, and sentence starters for different types of thinking (cause and effect, chronological, compare and contrast, to name a few). You can quickly pull out one of these in a pinch. If a student finishes a differentiated assignment with time left, then assess if it was too easy, and add a step. If a differentiated assignment is too difficult, break down the directions even more, give them one-on-one time with you, or remove a step.

I've heard teachers suggest that making an assignment less difficult for one student is not fair to the others. But I ask: Is it a matter of what is fair, or what is right?

What are ways you differentiate instruction for the grade level and content you teach? We look forward to hearing from you!

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Updated 01/2014 When I lesson plan with teachers, out of earshot from their fellow teachers and their principals, I can't tell you how often I'm asked, "what exactly does it look like?" when it comes to differentiated instruction.

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What is Academic Rigor and What Do We Do with It? - TeachHUB

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It's important to challenge students academically while ensuring they don't get overwhelmed. Learn more about academic rigor and what to do with it.

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Academic rigor: you're doing it wrong and here's why

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Spread the loveAcademic rigor is about creating lessons that challenge students. Unfortunately, educators haven't always produced a clear definition of what academic rigor is. Some administrators answer vaguely when prodded for examples after observing the teacher and students in the classroom. Knowing what you're looking for and being able to articulate its definition isn't easy.

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Effective questioning involves using questions in the classroom to open conversations, inspire deeper intellectual thought, and promote student-to-student interaction. Effective questions focus on eliciting the process, i.e. the 'how' and 'why,' in a student's response, as opposed to answers which just detail 'what.

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Effective questioning involves using questions in the classroom to open conversations, inspire deeper intellectual thought, and promote student-to-student interaction. Effective questions focus on eliciting the process, i.e. the 'how' and 'why,' in a student's response, as opposed to answers which just detail 'what.

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Asking questions is essential for checking pupil understanding and keeping them engaged with the task at hand. It's crucial to the way students receive and process information and it encourages independent and critical thinking. Statistics show that the average teacher asks between 300 and 400 questions per day. To have the desired effect, these questions need to be effective, well-considered, and challenging.

What is Effective Questioning and Why is it Useful?

Effective questioning involves using questions in the classroom to open conversations, inspire deeper intellectual thought, and promote student-to-student interaction. Effective questions focus on eliciting the process, i.e. the 'how' and 'why,' in a student's response, as opposed to answers which just detail 'what.' Using them in the classroom creates opportunities for students to analyse their own thinking, that of their peers, and their work.

Benefits of Effective Questioning

Using effective questioning in your classroom brings a host of benefits, as it:

Encourages students to engage with their work and each other.

Helps students to think out loud.

Facilitates learning through active discussion.

Empowers students to feel confident about their ideas.

Improves speaking and listening skills.

Builds critical thinking skills.

Teaches respect for other people's opinions.

Helps students to clarify their understanding.

Motivates students and develops an interest of a topic.

Allows teachers to check students' understanding.

Types of Questions in the Classroom

There are two main types of questions that are used in the classroom: closed questions and open questions.

Closed Questions

Closed questions are those that prompt a simple response, such as yes, no, or a short answer. Examples include:

Are you feeling better today?

Does 6 plus 7 equal 13?

Did Henry VIII have six wives?

What is the periodic symbol for potassium?

Who wrote Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet?

When was the Battle of the Somme?

There are many advantages to closed questions. They're quick and easy to respond to and generally reduce confusion. They're also particularly useful for challenging pupils' memory and recalling facts.

There are, however, also a number of disadvantages to using closed questions. Students may start to try and guess what you're thinking and give an answer based on that. They may also become anxious that they're going to get the answer wrong, which reduces their willingness to answer. Closed questions limit the child's opportunity to expand on an answer and provide reasoning or opinion.

Open Questions

Open questions, on the other hand, are those that require a deeper level of thinking and often prompt a lengthier response. They ask students to think and reflect, provide opinions and feelings, and take control of the conversation. Examples of some open questions includes:

What did you think of the ending of Romeo and Juliet?

What message was Shakespeare trying to portray through Macbeth's descent into insanity?

How did you interpret the end of the film?

Explain the importance of the Battle of the Somme.

Describe the role of insulin in the body.

Open questions are advantageous because they enrich the learning experience by encouraging individual thinking. They also give you, as a teacher, the opportunity to check your pupils' understanding and knowledge, and assess their ability to apply this knowledge.

Tips & Techniques for Asking Effective Questions in the Classroom

For questions to be productive, you need to implement them effectively. Here are some tips to do so:

Implement a no hands policy

Rather than having students volunteer to answer questions, you should offer the question to the entire class and then pick a pupil to answer. Make students aware of the fact they may be called upon so they can begin to think through and prepare their answer. If pupils are aware that you may select them, there'll be much higher levels of engagement.

Introduce a wait time

A wait time refers to the amount of time you wait from asking a question to when a student speaks. This time gives students time to think and rehearse their answers before speaking up. As a result, you'll see improvements in student retention, more considered and lengthier answers, and higher levels of student-to-student interaction. Students failing to respond will also decrease.

To achieve the best results, try to wait three seconds and be patient.

Plan ahead

When you're creating your lesson plans, consider what type of questions you want to ask. Plan which parts of content you want to ask about and when you're going to ask them, then write them down. This will help you to keep the lesson on track and achieve your desired learning outcomes.

Use a mix of questions

Open and closed questions are both beneficial for different purposes. While open questions give students the opportunity to provide detail and reasoning, closed questions are useful for quick fact checks and moving the lesson forward.

Therefore, you should vary your questions and use both open and closed questions depending on your reason for asking. For example, if you want to quickly check that a student has remembered a fact, ask a question like "Louise, who was the King of France when the Industrial Revolution began?".

Conversely, if you want a student to provide their thoughts on something, and initiate a class discussion on a certain topic, use an open question like "Ben, what do you think the West Egg and East Egg signify in The Great Gatsby?".

Get pupils to ask questions

Using questions to check pupil understanding is always beneficial. However, getting students to ask each other questions is also incredibly beneficial. This gets all students involved and thinking: the students who ask questions will be thinking about what to ask, and those who are asked will have to formulate an answer.

Prepare follow-up questions

Prepare a good stock of follow-up questions that you can use if you want a student to expand on their answer. For example: "What makes you think that?" "How do you know that?" and "What if ...?". These extend responses and propose a deeper level of thinking. Furthermore, asking questions like "How did you reach that conclusion?" makes students work through their decision-making process.

Get pupils to question themselves

At the beginning of a lesson, ask students in groups what they would like to learn more about or if there's any confusion they need you to clear up. This will help to stimulate their interest and allow you to assess what they already know about a topic. It will also get them to challenge their own thinking and consider what they know.

Don't dismiss answers

Every contribution is valuable, even if the answer isn't necessarily correct. Show appreciation for any answer and offer appropriate praise based on the quality of answer.

If a student answers incorrectly, use a follow up question such as "What made you think that?". This gives students the opportunity to think through their thought process and allows you to address any confusion.
Effective questioning is a great method for getting students to think critically and independently and for you to discover any misunderstandings. Once you start using it in your classroom, you'll quickly notice the difference in engagement and will keep lessons productive and beneficial to all.
What to Read Next:

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What is Effective Questioning? | Techniques for the Classroom

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Asking questions is essential for checking pupil understanding and keeping them engaged with the task at hand. It's crucial to the way students receive and process information and it encourages independent and critical thinking. Statistics show that the average teacher asks between 300 and 400 questions per day.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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When feedback originates with students, they can assess their current understanding and see what they need to do to improve.

Cavan Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The trigger for feedback is often when students complete a teacher-assigned task and then receive comments that ask them to make changes. Students typically revise their work for the sake of boosting their grade. Feedback in these cases has limited impact, since the teacher told students what to fix. In Visible Learning: Feedback, John Hattie and Shirley Clarke recognize that feedback is most valuable when it moves from student to teacher. High-impact feedback begins and ends with the student. It also takes off when it builds on student strengths: What are students close to mastering?

Feedback can be hard to receive when someone is telling you what to change. In a TEDx Talk, Sheila Heen explains that feedback can be difficult because we want to be accepted for who we are right now. According to Heen and Douglas Stone, three types of feedback include evaluation, coaching, and appreciation, and focusing on those can help teachers put students in the driver's seat.

Evaluation

Evaluation tells a student where they stand in comparison with grade-level peers typically through a letter grade or score. To put students in charge of evaluation, they should be the first ones to score their work.

For example, in English class, students can use a standards-aligned checklist on writing an effective argument to self-assess. After they get their score, they select an area of interest (and strength) to improve upon-this combination increases student motivation. Next, students use a tool like this SMART Goals Handout to customize a goal based on their self-assessment. The SMART handout asks the student to consider who can help as they work toward their goal. When the student reaches out to the teacher for any support, talk focuses on the goal with the evaluation as evidence. Evaluation feedback in this way moves from student to teacher.

Coaching

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) establishes what a learner can do independently and what they can do with some support. Through self-evaluation and goal setting, this grows clearer as students try out their goals.

Coaching feedback is a reflective technique within the ZPD. The type of coaching that students need depends on their goals and the roadblocks they face. Many times, students may need coaching that does not directly reflect the content they're learning. For example, the student who wants to improve the clarity of their writing may need coaching in time management strategies, not writing itself. This student knows that their writing is too lengthy in lab reports and leaves the teacher digging for the answer. The teacher might coach the student to put a time limit on their work. Try out answering each question in a lab in no more than 10 minutes.

The use of time limits will reveal roadblocks with which the student can then receive some more help. For example, if they still can't get their point across in a concise way, they should note what happens in that time. They might be rereading without beginning the response. In this case, they need to reflect on their note-taking, reading skills, or activity level during the lab. Allow students to drive the coaching feedback in this way.

A tool to use during coaching is WOOP for Classrooms from the Character Lab. This will help students quickly retool their goal based on feedback.

Appreciation

Appreciation feedback helps students to develop a positive self-narrative. They first need to appreciate themselves. They should learn about the power of yet and the counternarrative. As they evaluate their work and set goals, students should practice adding yet to "can't do" thoughts: "I am not a concise writer... yet." Using the word yet feeds into the counternarrative of reframing the story they tell themselves. The inner voice needs practice in talking up the positives and reframing the negatives.

In Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel explain how learning something new changes the brain; thus, making mistakes is the pathway to advanced learning. The counternarrative moves from "I failed and am embarrassed" to "I learned something new and am stronger for it."

All Feedback Begins and Ends With the Learner

In Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, William Burnett and David J. Evans mention a sign that hangs outside the Stanford Life Design Lab that reads, "You are here." It's where we all begin when seeking feedback. Students need to look around and verbalize where they are now and then ask themselves these three big questions posed by John Hattie: Where am I going? How am I getting there? Where next? These questions can be posted above your classroom board or on your digital course page for students to use daily.

Feedback begins and ends with the learner. If you teach students how to use these tools, feedback reframe takes place by having the student sit in the driver's seat-they determine their current location, route, and destination, and where to go next.

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A Way to Increase Students' Independence in Learning

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When feedback originates with students, they can assess their current understanding and see what they need to do to improve. Cavan Images / Alamy Stock Photo The trigger for feedback is often when students complete a teacher-assigned task and then receive comments that ask them to make changes.