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Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction.

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Student Success Center - Page: elm-555-learning-objectives

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The content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education are listed below: Printed publications can be purchased from CDE Press Educational Resources Catalog.

Current Standards

Search the California Content Standards
This application contains the 12 California content standards. The application is designed so educators can quickly find, search, and sort relevant standards across disciplines to aid in instructional planning and assessment. This is a web view of our available mobile application, which we encourage you to download. You can find more information about the mobile application on the CA Standards Mobile Application web page.

English Language Arts

Mathematics

English Language Development

English Language Development 2012

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the ELA/literacy standards provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also offer suggestions for parents/guardians to support their students' learning and a list of additional resources.
Spanish

Career Technical Education

Computer Science

Health Education

History-Social Science

History-Social Science, Adopted October 1998 (PDF)

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the history-social science framework provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also provide a brief summary of the instructional shifts in the framework.

Model School Library

Physical Education

Science

California Next Generation Science Standards

Brochures for Parents/Guardians
These brochures on the science standards provide parents/guardians insights into what their children are learning as they progress through the grade levels. The brochures also offer suggestions for parents/guardians to support their students' learning and a list of additional resources.
Spanish

Arts Education

The State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the California Arts Standards for Public Schools, Prekindergarten Through Grade Twelve ( Arts Standards) on January 9, 2019.To download the publication version of the standards, select the link below:

Information about the 2019 Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards Revision is available on the California Arts Standards Web page.

World Languages

The State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the World Languages Standards for Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve on January 9, 2019. To download the publication version of the standards, select the link below:

Previous Content Standards

Questions: Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division | CFIRD@cde.ca.gov | 916-319-0881

Last Reviewed: Wednesday, July 13, 2022

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The content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education are listed below: Printed publications can be purchased from CDE Press Educational Resources Catalog. Current Standards Search the California Content Standards This application contains the 12 California content standards.

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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7 Tips for Improving High School Assessments

1. Secure success by making it achievable: Student learning has been affected by the pandemic, with learners who need additional support being most negatively impacted. As a result, these students are now trying to build new knowledge and skills on shaky or absent foundations. Of course, we try to adapt our classroom teaching to account for this and support our students as best we can. So it follows that we should also adapt our assessments with student success in mind.

Assessments that students score poorly in can be hugely demotivating, resulting in negative associations with the subject, as well as embedding fixed mindsets-we have all heard students say things like "I just can't do it" and "There isn't any point in trying" after doing poorly in a test.

Research shows that a success rate of 80 percent is optimal for learning -it motivates students by helping them to feel successful. It gives them confidence and shows them that there is still room for progress in the future. Designing our assessments with this 80 percent benchmark in mind may require us to increase the accessibility for students by reducing the challenge until they're ready to tackle more complex questions and tasks.

2. Make sure your students know how to study: As we make our way through the ceaseless curriculum, we sometimes overlook the importance of teaching students how to study independently. Prioritize teaching study skills-whether you spend a small chunk of a time here and there or devote whole lessons to it. It will probably be more impactful in the lives of your students in the long run than the depth of content you might have to sacrifice in that period of time.

In my own practice, I teach a unit of work, which usually comprises around 10-15 lessons, following which I give students an end-of-unit assessment. About a week prior to this assessment, I will devote an entire hourlong lesson to study skills and revision. This can include, for example, modeling how to construct a concept map, revision games, showing students where to find study resources such as Quizlet, and encouraging them to share ideas and practice using new learning techniques in a supportive and safe environment.

3. Make sure your students know what to revise: Prepare a list of topics that might come up in the assessment, and share it with your students. If you have a class that is struggling with confidence, the more detailed you can be with this study list, the better. Help them to feel that their time spent studying is worthwhile in order to build them up to a place where they have the motivation to study on their own, even when they know not every topic will be assessed.

4. Complete the assessment yourself first: It goes without saying that you should proofread assessments before students take them, and it's even better to complete the assessment yourself. I find this most useful for open-ended assessments that I've written myself, as it allows me to put myself in the student's place. I can assess whether it's clear or confusing, and if it has covered an appropriate range and depth of topics on the study list.

I've found that doing this has been really important in reducing the stress and frustration that my students might feel when they're given a suboptimal assessment, and it has strengthened their trust in the assessment process.

5. Model and scaffold: When completing your assessment, make a note of the skills and exam techniques required to answer the questions. Then consider if you and your students have covered these techniques in enough detail. Just like with the content of the test, there shouldn't be any surprises. For each skill and technique, make sure that students have been exposed to models of good work, so that they know what success looks like. They'll also feel more confident during future assessments if they previously had the opportunity to apply these skills and techniques in a supported environment so that they know that they're capable of achieving success.

6. Allow students to make mature decisions about the assessment date: When assessment dates aren't fixed, give students some options for dates and times. You can also encourage students to take more responsibility for organizing their time in the run-up to the assessment by asking them to point out potential clashes with other deadlines or important dates.

7. Factor in choice within the assessment: Within the assessment, you might be able to provide students with a choice of questions to answer or tasks to complete. I usually give my high school students a choice of two extended-answer questions to complete in their end-of-unit assessments. I then set the question they chose not to answer as an open-book homework task.

The downside of providing choice within an assessment is that it can be harder to standardize, but the upside is that you confer a much greater feeling of control to the student, which in turn can be highly motivating.

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7 Tips for Creating Motivating Assessments

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1. Secure success by making it achievable: Student learning has been affected by the pandemic, with learners who need additional support being most negatively impacted. As a result, these students are now trying to build new knowledge and skills on shaky or absent foundations.

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As students with diverse learning styles fill the classroom, many teachers don't always have the time to plan lessons that use differentiated instruction (DI) to suit their distinct aptitudes.
This can involve adjusting:

Content - The media and methods teachers use to impart and instruct skills, ideas and information

Processes - The exercises and practices students perform to better understand content

Products - The materials, such as tests and projects, students complete to demonstrate understanding

To help create lessons that engage and resonate with a diverse classroom, below are 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples. Available in a condensed and printable list for your desk, you can use 16 in most classes and the last four for math lessons.

Try the ones that best apply to you, depending on factors such as student age.

1. Create Learning Stations

Provide different types of content by setting up learning stations - divided sections of your classroom through which groups of students rotate. You can facilitate this with a flexible seating plan.

Each station should use a unique method of teaching a skill or concept related to your lesson.
For example, students can rotate between stations that involve:

Watching a video

Creating artwork

Reading an article

Completing puzzles

Listening to you teach

To help students process the content after they've been through the stations, you can hold a class discussion or assign questions to answer.

2. Use Task Cards

Like learning stations, task cards allow you to give students a range of content. Answering task cards can also be a small-group activity, adding variety to classes that normally focus on solo or large-group learning.

First, make or identify tasks and questions that you'd typically find on worksheets or in textbooks.

Second, print and laminate cards that each contain a single task or question. Or, use Teachers Pay Teachers to buy pre-made cards.

Finally, set up stations around your classroom and pair students together to rotate through them.

You can individualize instruction by monitoring the pairs, addressing knowledge gaps when needed.

3. Interview Students

Asking questions about learning and studying styles can help you pinpoint the kinds of content that will meet your class's needs.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

Their favourite types of lessons

Their favourite in-class activities

Which projects they're most proud of

Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Track your results to identify themes and students with uncommon preferences, helping you determine which methods of instruction suit their abilities.

4. Target Different Senses Within Lessons

A lesson should resonate with more students if it targets visual, tactile, auditory and kinesthetic senses, instead of only one.
When applicable, appeal to a range of learning styles by:

Playing videos

Using infographics

Providing audiobooks

Getting students to act out a scene

Incorporating charts and illustrations within texts

Giving both spoken and written directions to tasks

Using relevant physical objects, such as money when teaching math skills

Allotting time for students to create artistic reflections and interpretations of lessons

Not only will these tactics help more students grasp the core concepts of lessons, but make class more engaging.
Prodigy, for example, is a hyper-engaging way to gamify math class in a way that worksheets simply cannot. 👇 Try Prodigy today - it's free, forever!
5. Share Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses

To familiarize students with the idea of differentiated learning, you may find it beneficial to explain that not everyone builds skills and processes information the same way.

Talking about your own strengths and weaknesses is one way of doing this.

Explain -- on a personal level - how you study and review lessons. Share tactics that do and don't work for you, encouraging students to try them.
Not only should this help them understand that people naturally learn differently, but give them insight into improving how they process information.
6. Use the Think-Pair-Share Strategy

The think-pair-share strategy exposes students to three lesson-processing experiences within one activity. It's also easy to monitor and support students as they complete each step.

As the strategy's name implies, start by asking students to individually think about a given topic or answer a specific question.

Next, pair students together to discuss their results and findings.

Finally, have each pair share their ideas with the rest of the class, and open the floor for further discussion.

Because the differentiated instruction strategy allows students to process your lesson content individually, in a small group and in a large group, it caters to your classroom's range of learning and personality types.

7. Make Time for Journaling

A journal can be a tool for students to reflect on the lessons you've taught and activities you've run, helping them process new information.
When possible at the end of class, give students a chance to make a journal entry by:

Summarizing key points they've learned

Attempting to answer or make sense of lingering questions

Explaining how they can use the lessons in real-life scenarios

Illustrating new concepts, which can be especially helpful for data-focused math lessons

As they continue to make entries, they should figure out which ones effectively allow them to process fresh content.

8. Implement Reflection and Goal-Setting Exercises

An extension of journaling, have students reflect on important lessons and set goals for further learning at pre-determined points of the year.

During these points, ask students to write about their favourite topics, as well as the most interesting concepts and information they've learned.
They should also identify skills to improve and topics to explore.
Based on the results, you can target lessons to help meet these goals. For example, if the bulk of students discuss a certain aspect of the science curriculum, you can design more activities around it.

9. Run Literature Circles

Organizing students into literature circles not only encourages students to shape and inform each other's understanding of readings, but helps auditory and participatory learners retain more information.

This also gives you an opportunity to listen to each circle's discussion, asking questions and filling in gaps in understanding.

As a bonus, some students may develop leadership skills by running the discussion.

This activity makes written content - which, at times, may only be accessible to individual learners with strong reading retention -- easier to process for more students.

10. Offer Different Types of Free Study Time

Free study time will generally benefit students who prefer to learn individually, but can be slightly altered to also help their classmates process your lessons.

This can be done by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities.
Consider the following free study exercises to also meet the preferences of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners:

Provide audiobooks, which play material relevant to your lessons

Create a station for challenging group games that teach skills involved in the curriculum

Maintain a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work

Allow students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from the quiet space

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners - not just students who easily process information through quiet, individual work.

11. Group Students with Similar Learning Styles

Heterogenous grouping is a common practice, but grouping students based on similar learning style can encourage collaboration through common work and thinking practices.

This is not to be confused with grouping students based on similar level of ability or understanding.

In some cases, doing so conflicts with the "Teach Up" principle, which is discussed below.

Rather, this tactic allows like-minded students to support each other's learning while giving you to time to spend with each group. You can then offer the optimal kind of instruction to suit each group's common needs and preferences.

12. Give Different Sets of Reading Comprehension Activities

Instead of focusing on written products, consider evaluating reading comprehension through questions and activities that test different aptitudes.

Although written answers may still appeal to many students, others may thrive and best challenge themselves during artistic or kinesthetic tasks.
For example, allow students to choose between some of the following activities before, during and after an important reading:

Participating in more literature circles

Delivering a presentation

Writing a traditional report

Creating visual art to illustrate key events

Creating and performing a monologue as a main character or figure

Offering structured options can help students demonstrate their understanding of content as effectively as possible, giving you more insight into their abilities.

13. Assign Open-Ended Projects

Similar to evaluating reading comprehension, give students a list of projects to find one that lets them effectively demonstrate their knowledge.

Include a clear rubric for each type of project, which clearly defines expectations. Doing so will keep it challenging and help students meet specific criteria.
By both enticing and challenging students, this approach encourages them to:

Work and learn at their own paces

Engage actively with content they must understand

Demonstrate their knowledge as effectively as possible

As well as benefiting students, this differentiated instruction strategy will clearly showcase distinct work and learning styles.

14. Encourage Students to Propose Ideas for Their Projects

As well as offering set options, encourage students to take their projects from concept to completion by pitching you ideas.

A student must show how the product will meet academic standards, and be open to your revisions. If the pitch doesn't meet your standards, tell the student to refine the idea until it does. If it doesn't by a predetermined date, assign one of your set options.

You may be pleasantly surprised by some pitches.

After all, students themselves are the focus of differentiated instruction - they likely have somewhat of a grasp on their learning styles and abilities.

15. Analyze Your Differentiated Instruction Strategy on a Regular Basis

Even if you're confident in your overall approach, Carol Ann Tomlinson - one of the most reputable topic thought-leaders - recommends analyzing your differentiated instruction strategies:
Frequently reflect on the match between your classroom and the philosophy of teaching and learning you want to practice. Look for matches and mismatches, and use both to guide you. Analyze your strategy by reflecting on:

Content - Are you using diverse materials and teaching methods in class?

Processes - Are you providing solo, small-group and large-group activities that best allow different learners to absorb your content?

Products - Are you letting and helping students demonstrate their understanding of content in a variety of ways on tests, projects and assignments?

In doing so, you'll refine your approach to appropriately accommodate the multiple intelligences of students.

16. "Teach Up"

Teaching at a level that's too easily accessible to each student can harm your differentiated instruction efforts, according to Tomlinson.

Instead, she recommends "teaching up." This eliminates the pitfall of being stuck on low-level ideas, seldom reaching advanced concepts:

We do much better if we start with what we consider to be high-end curriculum and expectations -- and then differentiate to provide scaffolding, to lift the kids up. The usual tendency is to start with what we perceive to be grade-level material and then dumb it down for some and raise it up for others. But we don't usually raise it up very much from that starting point, and dumbing down just sets lower expectations for some kids.
Keeping this concept in mind should focus your differentiated teaching strategy, helping you bring each student up to "high-end curriculum and expectations."
Differentiated Math Instruction Strategies and Examples

17. Use Math EdTech that Adjusts Itself to Each Student

Some EdTech tools - such as certain educational math video games - can deliver differentiated content, while providing unique ways to process it.
For example, Prodigy adjusts questions to tackle student trouble spots and offers math problems that use words, charts and pictures, as well as numbers.
To the benefit of teachers, the game is free and curriculum-aligned for grades 1 to 8. You can adjust the focus of questions to supplement lessons and homework, running reports to examine each student's progress.
Join over 90 million students and teachers benefitting from Prodigy's differentiating power today. 👇 Try Prodigy today - it's free, forever!
18. Relate Math to Personal Interests and Everyday Examples

Clearly linking math to personal interests and real-world examples can help some learners understand key concepts.

Working with 41 grade 7 students throughout an academic year, a 2015 study published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education used contextual learning strategies to teach integers and increase test scores by more than 44%.

Striving for similar benefits may be ambitious, but you can start by surveying students. Ask about their interests and how they use math outside of school.

Using your findings, you should find that contextualization helps some students grasp new or unfamiliar math concepts.

There are many math-related games and activities to find inspiration to implement this tactic.

19. Play a Math-Focused Version of Tic-Tac-Toe

Help students practice different math skills by playing a game that's a take on tic-tac-toe.

Prepare by dividing a sheet into squares - three vertical by three horizontal. Don't leave them blank. Instead, fill the boxes with questions that test different abilities.
For example:

"Complete question X in page Y of your textbook"

"Draw a picture to show how to add fraction X and fraction Y"

"Describe a real-life situation in which you would use cross-multiplication, providing an example and solution"

You can hand out sheets to students for solo practice, or divide them into pairs and encourage friendly competition. The first one to link three Xs or Os - by correctly completing questions - wins.

So, depending on your preferences, this game will challenge diverse learners through either individual or small-group practice.

20. Create Learning Stations, without Mandatory Rotations

Provide differentiated math learning opportunities for your students by setting up unique learning stations across your classrooms, but forgoing mandatory rotations.

The idea comes from a grade 9 teacher in Ontario, who recommends creating three stations to solve similar mathematical problems using either:

Data - Provide spreadsheets, requiring students to manipulate data through trial and error

People - Group students into pairs or triads to tackle a range of problems together, supporting each other's learning

Things - Offer a hands-on option by giving each student objects to use when solving questions

Only allow students to switch stations if they feel the need. If they do, consult them about their decision. In each case, you and the student will likely learn more about his or her learning style.

Supplemented by your circulation between stations to address gaps in prior knowledge, this activity exposes students to exercises that appeal to diverse abilities.

Downloadable List of Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples

Click here to download and print a simplified list of the 20 differentiated instruction strategies and examples to keep at your desk.

Differentiated Instruction Strategies Infographic
Here's an infographic with 16 ideas from this article, provided by Educational Technology and Mobile Learning - an online resource for teaching tools and ideas.
Wrapping Up

With help from the downloadable list, use these differentiated instruction strategies and examples to suit the diverse needs and learning styles of your students.

As well as adding variety to your content, these methods will help students process your lessons and demonstrate their understanding of them.

The strategies should prove to be increasingly useful as you identify the distinct learning styles in - and learn to manage - your classroom.

Differentiated instruction strategies overlap in important ways with a number of other pedagogical approaches. Consider reviewing these supplementary strategies to find more ideas, combine different elements of each strategy, and enrich your pedagogical toolkit!

Active learning strategies put your students at the center of the learning process, enriching the classroom experience and boosting engagement.

As opposed to traditional learning activities, experiential learning activities build knowledge and skills through direct experience.

Project-based learning uses an open-ended approach in which students work alone or collectively to produce an engaging, intricate curriculum-related questions or challenges.

Inquiry-based learning is subdivided into four categories, all of which promote the importance of your students' development of questions, ideas and analyses.

Adaptive learning focuses on changing - or "adapting" - learning content for students on an individual basis, particularly with the help of technology.

👉 Create or log into your teacher account on Prodigy - a free game-based learning platform that delivers differentiated instruction, automatically adjusting questions to accommodate player trouble spots and learning speeds. Aligned with curricula across the English-speaking world, it's loved by more than 90 million students and teachers.
Create your account - it's free, forever!

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20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples [+ Downloadable List]

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As students with diverse learning styles fill the classroom, many teachers don't always have the time to plan lessons that use differentiated instruction (DI) to suit their distinct aptitudes.

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4 Strategies to boost vocabulary acquisition and uses

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Vocabulary acquisition and uses are critical for student learning. Explore vocabulary acquisition strategies and activities for teaching.

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Assessment is at the heart of our teaching practice. We use backward planning and start with the end in mind. We ask ourselves questions like, "what do we want our students to know?" and "what will our students be able to do?" Because assessment is so important, it's no surprise that there are a ton of tech tools for assessment. Trying to find what you're looking for is time-consuming! That's why we've picked the ten best tech tools for student assessment, keeping your goals in mind.

Goal: I want to find out what my students learned

I wish we could read students' minds, but since we can't, we use exit tickets. If you rely on this best practice to plan your next instructional move, you have a lot of options. I love Google or Microsoft Forms. They are easy to use, and you can create multiple choice or short answer questions for students to complete. All the data is there for you.

Learn more:

Goal: I want to hear from my students and watch them share what they've learned

Flipgrid is a social media-style video discussion platform great for generating class discussion around topics, videos, or links posted to the class grid. Students can video record their responses to share with the teacher or class. It's a great tool for supporting your students to make their thinking visible.

Learn More:

Goal: I want to do a quick check in during my lesson

Mentimeter lets you add polls, word clouds, Q&As, and more to presentations and create an interactive experience for students, who can vote on/respond to questions and engage with the presentation in real time. This made our list because there's so much variety in the types of formative assessments you can give in real time.

Learn More:

Goal: I want to see my students' thought process and their answer

Jamboard is a digital whiteboard that is compatible with the GSuite services. It's a game changer for emphasizing the process of learning over the product. Math teachers love how students solve and explain their solution. If you don't use Google, Padlet is our runner up.

Learn More:

Goal: I want to listen to my students' read to assess fluency

Students read aloud and answer questions on their device (almost any device works). Within 24 hours, you get a running record with scores for accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. A free basic account includes 10 reading assessments/month.

Learn More:

Goal: I want to include checks for understanding as my students learn

EdPuzzle is a video editor that allows both teachers and students to add voice-overs, comments, resources, and quizzes to existing or self-created online videos. Best part? All the students' answers are gathered for you so you can quickly assess.

Learn More:

Goal: I want to put checks for understanding in my slides

Pear Deck is an interactive presentation and lesson delivery tool. Students use their devices to follow along with the teacher's slideshow on a classroom screen. Throughout, teachers can pause at points where they've added interactive questions and collect real-time data about student understanding.

Goal: I want my students to give each other feedback

Once you set up your assignment, pick a feedback rubric (or create your own), and select your assignment. Your students take it from there. They submit work, review each others', and then act on the feedback. Best part? There's a teacher overview where you can see it all.

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Goal: I want to give a quiz or test

There are a lot of options with this tool. You can include multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. I love how you see students' results in real time, and you can add explanations if students get a question wrong. Students can get instant feedback, or you can make the quiz self-paced or lead it yourself. My favorite feature: Space Race, a group quiz where students "race" to cross the finish line.

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Goal: I want grading to take less time

No matter what grade and subject you teach, grading takes time that we don't have. Enter Floop. This tool is a cloud-based website where students get annotated feedback from you and their classmates. Using any internet-connected device, students upload images of an assignment to the platform, and you put markers in places where you want feedback. Students are able to see and respond to comments, creating a feedback loop.

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Goal: I want one tool that does different types of assessment

Spiral is a free suite of four apps. Use Quickfire to give a formative assessment in real time and hear from all of your students. Discuss makes your slides more interactive for students. Team Up supports student collaboration, and Clip turns public-facing videos into a live chat with questions and quizzes.

Learn More:

Plus, check out 50 Free Seesaw Activities and Resources For Every Kind of Classroom

Want more articles like this? Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you can get our latest picks.

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The 10 Best Tech Tools for Student Assessment

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Assessment is at the heart of our teaching practice. We use backward planning and start with the end in mind. We ask ourselves questions like, "what do we want our students to know?" and "what will our students be able to do?"

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Learning goals are broad, general statements of what we want our students to learn and provide:

Setting goals gives us a real road map to where we want to go. The same when we provide goals to learners. Learning goals are the heart of a course design and need to be made clear at the planning stage.

An instructor can use those goals as a roadmap to prepare an online class. In this article, we are going to explore in-depth the role of Learning Goals and Objectives in course design and how to prepare a lesson plan based on them.

Defining Learning Objectives

The best way to use goals as a roadmap for a course design is to make them more clear and concise by determining specific learning objectives.

Learning Objectives are measurable subgoals of a lesson and inform particular learning outcomes.

Writing learning objectives keeps you focused and helps you in planning. This is easily achieved with the use of action verbs that describe learner capabilities at the end of a course.
From the learners' point of view, objectives help them understand what the instructor expects of them and what they must expect of themselves.

What is the Difference Between Goals and Objectives?

Many people confuse the definitions of goals and objectives, and often confuse the terms.

Learning goals are long-term, broad, and achievable, but not necessarily measurable.

On the other hand, learning objectives are also referred to as learning outcomes because they are immediately linked to the expected outcomes; what we can expect learners to be able to do by the end of the course.

Learning objectives can then be broken down into small learning activities, or assessments.

Changing one of these three components greatly affects the other two. So, this process is dynamic while planning course content. The table below can help you understand how goals differ from objectives:

Is it clear enough yet?

Now, let's see a real example of an instructional goal vs. the objectives in an Art course and Photoshop course:

Learning Objectives

- Learners will be able to identify. whether a print is a woodcut or a lithograph.

- Learners will be able to justify this identification.

- Learners will be able to manipulate layers.

- Learners will be able to correct colors.

- Learners will be able to paint.

- Learners will be able to create special effects.

Why is it Important to Set Objectives?

When setting Learning Objectives:

You can adequately organize the course material because you can establish a logical sequence of learning milestones.

You can immediately align objectives with evaluation methods.

You communicate expectations to your learners, so you help them evaluate themselves.

Finally, learners can interconnect goals through your courses.

Objectives tell the learner how they will be able to know, not merely quess, whether or not they have learned and understood the lesson.

How Should Objectives be Formed?

Objectives should be specific, concise, observable and measurable. Each learning objective should target one particular aspect of student performance and be expressed with a single action verb.

There is a specific order according to which learners process information in a course. Bloom's taxonomy helps understand this natural order. What Bloom did is describe the levels of student learning, that could help a designer set the right objectives:

Following this taxonomy is the most surefire way to boost learning to a higher level. The following table depicts everything we are talking about. In it there are examples of verbs and activities you can use to formulate your course objectives. Take a look!
Examples of how to use the listed verbs:
- Learners will be able to use a rule to determine if a sentence is grammatically correct.
(Application stage)

Learners will be able to classify foods according to their origins.
(Analysis stage)

Learners will be able to discriminate the program's peculiar features.
(Evaluation stage)

See how it goes? You may struggle at first to apply this method, but it provides an analytical design, worthwhile to try out!

You will see how much more your learners will engage in your course.

While designing your objectives, it is optimal to follow Bloom's hierarchical order of objectives and not dismiss lower levels as unworthy so that learners have all the requirements regarding previous knowledge to proceed.
Important tips:

Consider developing 2-3 learning objectives for each section of your course.

If the objectives are several, organize them into subcategories.

Use simple language, speak personally (ex. 'You will be able to') and keep objectives short.

Don't use more than one sentences to express your objectives.

Don't list multiple verbs in one objective - since every action will be measured and assessed differently, each verb should be in a separate objective.

Communicate your objectives through your course page, your welcoming video or discussion with your learners. In a next article I am going to show you how to express your objectives not in a listed manner but in a very creative one!

Designing Your Course Using Learning Objectives

Let's suppose you have chosen your topic and you are determined about what to teach in your course. When in the process of completing these steps, it is optimal either to use a pen and a paper or a concept map application to create connections between your ideas.

1 Imagine your course.

Brainstorm a list of all the possible things you want to teach and might include in your course.

2 Draft your course goals.

Write at least 2-3 goals to shape your ongoing course design. Here, we give you some questions that will help you plan your course goals:

"In this course, I will emphasize in..."
"The main themes learners will go through are..."
"The big picture I want to promote through this course is..."

Suitable verbs to use to set goals are shown below. "Through this course, you will..."

3 Design Learning Objectives

Using the table above, design your Learning Objectives. Break down your goals to form more specific and measurable learning objectives. Link those objectives to the corresponding sections.

Consider: For whom are you writing your learning objectives? Analyze your target audience and their pre-existing knowledge.

Keep overall course objectives to no more than a dozen-this will keep you focused on the essentials.

Don't exaggerate trying to write even more precise learning objectives-the main point is to express as clearly and plainly as possible.

4 Write the Activities

For each objective of the course, write down some corresponding activities that you are planning to use to accomplish that objective.Through these activities, students will achieve the objectives you set for them. Other activities not mentioned above are:

Reading a text.

Reading worked-out example problems.

Answering short objective questions.

Discussing issues with other learners.

Conducting research.

5 Develop Assessments

Ideally, as you are drafting course goals and learning objectives, you are also beginning to develop the assessments for the course. Decide which questions you will include in your questionnaires or exams (as well as the type of questions you will use) or the content of your assignments based on the objectives you have set.

Align your assessment activities with your objectives. This way you can be sure that your learners have the desired progress.

Reflect on your objectives and consider the following:

Are your course objectives achievable given the available resources?

Are your course objectives in agreement with the course goals?

Can learners' performance on the objective be measured?

Are there real measures stated (rate numbers, percentages or frequencies)?

When do you want learners to accomplish the objective?

Are you attempting too much so that your objectives are not achievable?

Is the objective valuable for the learner?

What if I Have Already Created My Course?

You may argue with the above if you have already created your course without having formed clear goals and objectives. But imagine how much you could improve your material by reviewing what you want to achieve and also how happy your old or new learners will be if you add this information to your course.
How to update a course using learning goals and objectives:

1. Review all of the material of your course thus far.

2. Identify any patterns in themes, content, hopes, objectives, and activities.

3. Group similar items together.

4. Give titles to each group of items. You automatically see what your objectives are.

5. Identify the most important things you hope learners will take away from the course and what you want their learning experience to be. These are your course goals!

Then, you can create a great lesson plan based on the learning objectives, goals and activities you have decided on.

Further Reading

To prepare quality educational materials using learning goals, objectives and outcomes is a challenge worth pursuing. It will translate into a higher valued course, satisfied students and will help you in the process of creating your own course.

For this purpose, we suggest the following literature for further studying:

Learning outcomes and instructional objectives: is there a difference? Ronald M Harden - Link to article

Choosing teaching methods based on learning objectives: An integrative framework. Sarah E. Bonner - Link to article

Bloom's taxonomy revisited: Specifying assessable learning objectives in computer science. Christopher Starr, Bill Manaris, Roxann H. Stalvey - Link to article

Academic Sources

Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricula, Third Edition, 2008. Robert M. Diamond. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA.)

Harden, R. M. (2002). Learning outcomes and instructional objectives: is there a difference?. Medical teacher, 24(2), 151-155.

Bonner, S. E. (1999). Choosing teaching methods based on learning objectives: An integrative framework. Issues in Accounting Education, 14(1), 11-15.

Starr, C. W., Manaris, B., & Stalvey, R. H. (2008). Bloom's taxonomy revisited: specifying assessable learning objectives in computer science. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 40(1), 261-265.

Bloom, B. S. (ed.). Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. Longmans, Green and Company, New York, 1956.

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Learning Goals and Objectives in Course Design | LearnWorlds Blog

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Learning goals are broad, general statements of what we want our students to learn and provide: Direction, Focus, and Cohesion Setting goals gives us a real road map to where we want to go. The same when we provide goals to learners. Learning goals are the heart of a course design and need to be ...

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How to Write a Learning Objective in Just 5 Minutes!