• Create and move students into response groups.

• Give students resources that inspire critical thinking.

• Ask provocative critical thinking questions.

• Allow groups time to prepare their responses.

• Facilitate a lively class discussion.

  
  

For example, Kindergarten students learning about authority figures at home, school, or community could be divided into groups of mixed abilities. The groups would be given a few minutes to discuss amongst themselves how leaders in each setting help us. When time is up, each group will share out what they came up with.

• Discussion/ Debate themed instructional method

• The teacher draws a line down the center of the room and marks one side of the room as agree or disagree. Or provides some other sort of distinguishing marker. 

• Students stand in the middle and await a question from the teacher.

• Teacher poses the question & students decide whether or not to move to one side or the other based on their opinion. 

  • Once the students move, the teacher can have them pair up and discuss their reasoning for choosing their side. 

• Teacher takes volunteers to share their opinion with the class. 

• Once students share their opinion, the teacher can allow anyone the opportunity to switch sides & share why they decided to switch. 

For example, Kindergarten students could take a stand about whether or not they agree on the fairness of consequences (which would relate to rules/authority lessons.) Students would take a stand and move to the appropriate side of the room. Volunteers would be asked to explain their opinion to the class. After listening to different perspectives, students would be given the opportunity to change their answer and move to the other side of the line.

• apps for skills practice of varied complexities

• help stations or help folders

• think dots

Interest examples might include:

• class discussions with connections to student interests

• interactive journals

• genius hour approaches

Learning profile examples include:

• choice of working arrangements

• collaborative and competitive learning options

• hand signals for student communication/participation

A scenario in kindergarten utilizing process differentiation

could look like this:

After introducing a lesson on patriotic American symbols the day before, a teacher may follow up on day two with options for learning more with stations. One area might be set up for a handful of students who enjoy working together to create a poster laid out to look like the American Flag. Another area might be composed of students laying on the carpet on their iPads listening to teacher selected books on Epic about the history of the Statue of Liberty. Another might be a writing station stocked with paper, pencils, crayons and Pictionaries where students will complete a sentence starter like, "I think the best American symbol is ______ because ___________" followed with an illustration.

After 20 minutes of work, all students could return to their carpet spots to share out what they did/learned in their respective areas.

Directions:

• Provide each student with a picture that has been divided into four parts.

• The teacher then can ask students to make broad observations about each quadrant or corner, or the teacher can task the students to make specific observations through questioning. A teacher might ask for example, “What are the people doing in Quadrant I”. This question directs student attention toward the people present in the photograph and their specific actions.    

For example, this method is perfect for a Kindergarten lesson for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the observations that students make are oral only, not written. Secondly, students are commenting on what they see instead of what they know. When portions of the photograph are covered, it causes what is left uncovered to become more abstract. It forces young students to actually pay attention and focus on what they see, because they can't depend on something too familiar. This is actually very siimilar to a technique I learned in an art class many years ago. When attempting to draw portraits, we were told to turn the images upside down so that you actually draw what you see instead of what your brain thinks it knows and tries to create from memory. When you're finished and turn it right-side-up, the drawing is astoundingly accurate!

• The “I see” column should contain the students observations, 

• The “I think” column should contain the students reflections or inferences 

• The “I wonder” column should contain their questions. 

  
  

  Encourage students to begin with general observations about what they see. After about 3-5 minutes move on to reflecting about the picture (“I Think”) After another 3-5 minutes, encourage students to ask questions about the picture (“I wonder”). If students are working in small groups, after the analysis is over, pull them together as part of a whole class and then discuss the photograph(s) with everyone.      

For example, Kindergarten students learning about police officers might look at a photo of a police officer at a traffic stop. Students could dictate to the teacher (or draw onto a chart) "I see" bright blue lights. "I think" he is keeping someone safe. "I wonder" how fast his car can go?