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As the IRT, I am constantly following other teachers curriculum and then modifying the lessons to make sure my student(s) are able to grasp the fundamental concept. One student in particular comes to mind. We'll call her S, who will be in 2nd grade this year. S has recently been diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia, and dysgraphia. We suspected that she was ADHD but having an official diagnosis will certainly assist us next year. Anyhow, before our official diagnosis, I treated S as though she were an ADHD student. She performed most tasks at the easel in class. When we had to memorize spelling words, we often used silly voices. S and I created the cards by using the online clip art to add pictures to the names of voices she wanted to emulate. We use southern, old people, under water, and opera, just to name a few. Affording S the opportunity to learn her way was a big game changer for her. She was able to increase her modified spelling list to 12 words by the end of the school year. She is one of my hero's.

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It has been several years since I have been in the classroom so I don't have a personal recent lesson to share so I will share an experience from a recent IEP meeting I attended which involve a non-verbal pre-k student. The student was involved in circle time and calendar but was not able to participate the same way that her non disabled peers were as she did not communicate. The teacher had differentiated the lesson by providing her with a voice-output device programed to answer some of the questions asked. The student was also provided with her own personal calendar and picture/number cards which she could velcro to her calendar. When the teacher asked a question the student was able to answer the question by raising her hand and holding up the correct picture or number (her card had already been preprogrammed with just two choices) and pushing the correct preprogammed button with the correct saying on the voice output device.

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For math instruction, I was teaching a lesson on Mean Absolute Deviation. Some students did really well with this activity and others had a very difficult time. To differentiate, I used the post test data to group my students into three groups. Students that had grasped the concept and needed an extension activity- a web quest. Students that needed more practice- A bubble gum activity and the third group needed me to reteach the skill.

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Differentiation occurs on a daily basis in my classroom in the form of guided reading and guided math groups. For guided reading I implemented leveled readers about George Washington's life. The literacy unit was about Washington and completing research for a writing assignment about Washington's life. Based on the groups reading level (F &P) they were assigned articles or books on their level. Studen who had difficulty with organizing information for their research were given detailed graphic organizers while students who were better able to organize their thoughts were given less specific organizers. Each student was asked to write about Washington's life using their graphic organizers.

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I recently used a QR code reader app and our school library's iPads for reading comprehension. All students were given a paper with questions on it and in the corner was a qr code. I had 3 versions of the same text. Based on the reading level of each student, they received a QR code that linked to one of the three texts that correlated closest to their ability. They all read their own respective text and didn't have to worry about if others were on a different reading level because there were no identifying marks on the comp quiz that I handed out.

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Teaching math to struggling learners often requires making abstract concepts more concrete. Recently, this meant taking the tissue box and writing the dimensions from the surface area problem on the box. Students could then solve the problem right on the box. To help students understand (especially one who could not wrap her head around the concept) how the volume of a cone is related to the volume of a cylinder, I filled a cone with water and dumped in into a cylinder with the same radius three times. Then she literally saw that it was one-third of the volume. What is great about some of the resources found in our readings is that I'm discovering new tools that I could use to reach my students.

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Last year during small group time I would differentiate the work that was required of each student. Our small group time focused on a particular reading skill and letter that we were studying the week. For my more advanced students we would read basic A level books (early kindergarten level) for my struggling students we would go over letter identification and letter sound identification. I initially grouped the students based on their reading pre-assessments; however, as the year progresses I did change the groups based on formal and informal assessments and observations.

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In my math class, I do a lot of different types of formative assessments to see where my students are in their learning. At the end of the school year, I taught a lesson on volume. Based on my observations and exit slips, I grouped students based on their comfort level with finding volume. These math groups allowed me to help students who didn't understand volume by allowing them to use cubes to fill rectangular prisms. Students that completely understood the skill, were challenged with problems that involved finding the additive volume. These groups allowed me to work with students based on their needs in the classroom.

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In my math class, like Danielle, I also give daily entrance and exit slips to assess my students understanding of content as well as use the information to create math groups based on student performance. For example, I had an index card for each student on their desk where they would answer a question from the SmartBoard. I would then use the index cards to group students while they were working on review activities in their math binder. I would have as many as 5 groups in a session but would not meet with each group everyday. This year I really focused on creating math groups based on students individual skills rather than group them as high, on, or below level as you would in guided reading. These groups were flexible and the students knew that the members of their group would change daily based on the topic or skill for that day. This type of grouping ensures that I am meeting the needs of all my students while creating a learning environment where students feel successful regardless their current math level.

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In my math class, I give daily exit slips to assess my students understanding of the lesson that was taught. I then use those exit slips to make guided math groups based on what students did well on and not so well on. For example, if the math lesson was on identifying and measuring angles, I would group students together that had a hard time using the protractor and then would also provide students with a more challenging activity, such as finding supplementary angle measurements for those students who did well on measuring angles. Grouping students based upon instruction allows for the teacher to meet the needs of each individual student.

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I definitely have to differentiate with my writing instruction - particularly with my A-level 9th graders. I've found that I have students who have no idea how the conventions and organization of writing work. When writing essays, I do my greatest level of interventions. For my lowest students, writing takes place using fill in the blank organizers that I've created and quote sheets that have lists of quotes from our text that they can choose from, rather than having them search out quotes themselves. For my students who are about on par, they have an outline and sometimes a quote sheet, but are responsible for the structure of the essay on their own. For my more "advanced" A-level students (those who are going to take an honors class next year) they have a related topic, but slightly different from the one I assign the rest of the class.

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In my math class, I often take a skill that the students have been learning and allow them to take ownership of it by creating a red, yellow, green activity. The questions are put into the color categories based on their difficulty, and students pick a question from the color category that they feel they are in. If they get three in the same color correct, they move on to the next color in order to challenge themselves. What I like about this activity is that I have the students write their answer and their initials on the back of the question card so that they can conference with others in the class if they get different answers. This allows students to not feel stressed about the skill and to work at their own pace.

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For my music appreciation classes, I introduced students to a computer music composition application called O-Generator.  Students have the ability to work through the self-guided lessons at their own pace.  There are different levels of difficulty for each O-Generator activity, that allow more advanced students to move forward when they are ready.  There are quiz assessments at the end of each lesson that determine whether a student is ready to move on to the next level (when the quiz assessment score is revealed to the student).  If a student receives a low score, he/she is able to complete the lesson activity again, and retake the quiz assessment for that particular level before moving on to the next level of difficulty.

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Ronnie

I recently asked my low level readers (6th grade reading level in 11th-12th grade)  to highlight the main ideas and useful facts of non-fiction science articles while the on level readers wrote 1 page summaries of the same article.  The differentiation occurred for the processing time/deficits in the below grade readers/writers and the on level readers who can do both well, read and synthesize content in writing.  How we arrived at the "end product" is differentiated, but the learning goal of comprehension/literacy and synthesis of non-fiction text was not lowered and the articles were not dumbed down.