Differentiation - Case Study Carousel by Elizabeth MacTavish

emactav — 2025-09-17 12:32:38 UTC

In all classrooms, teachers deal with at least three curricular elements: (1) content—input, what students learn; (2) process—how students go about making sense of ideas and information; and (3) product—output, how students demonstrate what they have learned.

emactav — 2025-09-17 13:20:30 UTC

By differentiating these three elements, teachers offer different approaches to

what students learn,
how they learn it, and
how they demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Serena

2025-09-26 16:24:45 UTC

Serena needs an extension to our lesson. We propose that she attempt to figure out the perimeter of objects. We can give her similar objects and have her estimate which one would have a bigger perimeter. This is a third-grade concept, but since she's ahead, it would be a good challenge for her.

Trevor

2025-09-26 16:26:37 UTC

To support trevor, it would be helpful to create partner groups where Trevor can work and learn from his peers to help in places where he struggles. To expand on that, Serena tends to fly through the problems, but if paired with Trevor it could help her slow down as she has to read it aloud for him and help. This would also give her something more to do than just solving the problem but acting as teacher (in a way) to Trevor.

Serena

2025-09-26 16:26:57 UTC

Provide her with the tasks of identifying the number of sides of each shape and counting them in sequential order. Asking her to explain what shapes are familiar to her experiences to integrate the lesson outside the classroom.

Theo

2025-09-26 16:27:53 UTC

Having visuals where he can connect the shapes he is learning with the real world. Him connecting these makes his learning meaningful and builds on the knowledge he already knows.

Trevor

2025-09-26 16:29:26 UTC

We propose that Trevor record his information in a way that demonstrates he understands the work, without requiring him to use the provided chart. He can record his thoughts in writing, and his partner can share them for him if he is uncomfortable speaking aloud.

Lin

2025-09-26 16:30:05 UTC

Visual aid- give her some flash cards with the shape and the name in English so that she can familiarize herself with the words and associate them with the shapes.

2025-09-26 16:30:22 UTC

Trevor: In a whole group setting, the word problem could be read aloud to accommodate for Trevors reading deficits. If the goal is for Trevor to be able to read it independently, he could read it to the teacher one on one and the teacher could support him with words that he struggles with. We could also work on developing Trevor's math word problem comprehension skills by teaching him strategies to identify the important information and key math words.

Lin

2025-09-26 16:30:23 UTC

Lin struggles to explain her thought process in English sentences, therefore, sentence stems will be of immense benefit to her. Sentence stems ensure that Lin is supported in her local thinking and organization of ideas. Additionally, providing a starting point for her so that she is able to boost her confidence when explaining her thinking in math. Finally, sentence stems naturally lead to students including justification/proof in their response which is essential to encouraging evidence-based reasoning.

Serena

espenc18 — 2025-09-26 16:30:30 UTC

For Serena, she could become a "coach" to the other students who are struggling with getting their work done. For example, she could help Trevor with reading the multi-step problems. This could help him with comprehending the problem and with fluency. Alternatively, she could have more of a challenge with having the problems that have discounts. Meaning that she will be working through multi-step problems that make her incorporate the discount, and she would have to figure out the tax afterwords. (article 1; article 2)

Trevor

2025-09-26 16:31:46 UTC

He can be asked to explain his process after a model demonstrates. Modeling is important because it provides a solid example of how to think through the problem and use academic language.

Lin

2025-09-26 16:32:28 UTC

We propose that Lin is supplied with sentence stems and graphics that help with centimeter and inch differences. We believe that if she can see the visual next to the image, it will connect more quickly.

Theo

2025-09-26 16:35:25 UTC

We believe Theo would be more invested if we gave him a choice. We can prompt him to think of 5 objects he wants to measure and have him create his own chart with those objects!

Serena

2025-09-26 16:36:15 UTC

As this student has demonstrated her understanding and seems to be bored, we plan to increase the level of instruction we could ask Serena to apply this knowledge of fractions to a real world situation by creating her own word problem using this understanding of fraction relationships.

2025-09-26 16:38:12 UTC

Lin: To support Lin in explaining her math ideas in English, we could provide sentence frames. For example, if she is expected to write a sentence answer we could give her "I think that _____ is greater than ____ because ______" This way Lin is able to convey her understanding of fractions without being limited by her English proficiency.

Theo

2025-09-26 16:40:39 UTC

Since Theo feels most motivated to complete work when it aligns with his interest, we think that giving the students 3 problem options with different topics that could interest them would be helpful for Trevor and all students. The choice will make all students more motivated because they get to pick what they do and also be able to do it for something they're interested in.

Theo

2025-09-26 16:41:33 UTC

From the start of the lesson, it would be helpful to implement application-based scenarios to capture his attention from the start of the lesson. This can look like providing a sports example right away, connecting to student interest and motivation.