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Modules 1 and 2: Planning for Differentiation 1

Planning for Differentiation

Jessica Dengah

OTL 565 – Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in the Differentiated Classroom

Colorado State University – Global Campus

Dr. Edith Esparza-Young

May 15, 2016


Your Name: Jessica Dengah CSU-Global Course: OTL 565

Subject / Course: Reading

Topic: Transportation

Lesson Title: On the Move

Level: D readers, Entering/Beginning ELLs Lesson Duration: Four 20 minute

lessons

SUPPORT YOUR CHOICES THROUGHOUT EVERY PHASE OF THE LESSON WITH RESEARCH THAT SUPPORTS ITS EFFECTIVENESS.

Common Core or State Standard(s):CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.2Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.7Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

Description of Lesson as currently taught:Normally for students who are significantly below grade level, I teach a different text every day in small group reading instruction (guided reading groups). This way, I can expose students to a variety of texts leveled at their instructional reading level—the goal being to help them catch up to reading fluently at or close to grade level expectations. The new text is always introduced: highlighting key vocabulary words and strategies to solve unknown words, identifying key concepts necessary to understand the text, helping students make connections to concepts presented in the text. Next, students read the text on their own. I monitor one student’s reading behaviors while conducting a running record during the independent reading time. Finally, when all the students have finished reading the text, students participate in a discussion about the text. I try to get students thinking about the text (or from Bloom’s Taxonomy, knowledge and comprehension), beyond the text (Blooms, application and analysis), and about the text (Blooms, synthesis and evaluation) for each text we read. To do so, students must retell or summarize the main events of the story and identify the main idea or theme. They then discuss what this new learning means for them, what would they do in the situation the character found himself in, why should we learn this information, why did the author want us to know this, etc. Finally, students analyze the choices the author made in writing the text. We discuss what students can do when writing a text similar to the one they just read. They identify specific language choices the author used to convey his/her meaning and even discuss why specific pictures/photos/graphs/charts were used in the text and how they support the topic. I am able to take notes and make anecdotal observations about the discussion, such as which students easily navigated the text to support their opinions and which struggled to recall the events in the story to summarize or retell. This information is then used to help provide support or extensions for students during future guided reading instruction.

Differentiated Instructional Approaches and Pre-Assessments


ClimateIn this module you learned that one of the important elements of planning for differentiation was establishing a CLIMATE that fosters differentiation (safe, nurturing, encourages risk-taking, multi-sensory, stimulating, challenging and collaborative). Explain what steps you will take to establish a climate that allows for effective differentiation.

Students will be working in a small group of other students with similar language levels. This will create an atmosphere that is more conducive to safe and comfortable learning. According to Baecher, Artigliere, Patterson, and Spatzer, (2012) “it’s better for the teacher to gather a leveled group in a small circle and reteach objectives, modify content, and offer support” than to pair a low proficiency student with a high proficiency student. This way, students will complete all the work at their best capabilities. The low proficiency student will not simply copy the work of the high proficiency student—meaning that the low proficiency student will actually take on and make meaning from the new learning. Baecher et. al also suggest “[allotting] the same number of minutes for a set of differentiated tasks” (Baecher et. al, 2012) to create a sense of equity in the classroom. If all students receive 20 minutes of small group instruction, no one set of students is singled out as different or highlighted as needing extra support. The small group instruction will also be differentiated, which makes the information students are responsible to understand “do-able for low- proficiency students and ramps up their learning” (Baecher et. al, 2012).

Knowing the LearnerIn this module you learned that another one of the important elements of planning for differentiation was KNOWING THE LEARNER (abilities, strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, multiple-intelligence preference, and cultural diversity including linguistic, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic area). Explain what steps you will take to know the learners in your classroom.

I will use summative assessment data to know each student’s academic level in reading (reading benchmarks, WIDA ACCESS scores, phonics screener data—PALS). Additionally, I plan to conduct an interest inventory to determine “access points to the curriculum” for my students. According to Powell and Kusuma-Powell, “access points are the connections that make the content and concepts relevant to learners, whether through similar experience, or an interest, or tapping into their way of thinking” (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2011). Interest inventories are an entry point to making learning relevant for my students. This will also help me choose engaging texts for students to practice their reading skills.

Pre-AssessmentIn this module you learned that instructional decisions should include time for pre-assessment in order to determine the potential impact of the affective filter on the comprehensibility of instruction (e.g., cultural background, first (L1) and second (L2) language proficiency, prior knowledge in the content area, etc.). Explain how you will pre-assess students in this lesson.

First, I plan to use the summative assessment data collected from WIDA ACCESS testing. This will provide me with beginning understanding of each student’s language abilities. I also plan to analyze student language usage during comprehension conversations, using the WIDA speaking rubric as a guide to help me analyze their current understandings and usage of English. I will use this analysis will help me determine which types of texts to choose for students to read (based on sentence construction and vocabulary usage), which types of language structures to provide as support for students during discussions, and which grammatical structures to teach before attempting to read the text. For instance, if students communicate using “single words, set phrases or chunks of memorized oral language” (WIDA Consortium, 2007-08), I would need to be sure to teach key vocabulary presented in the text before asking the students to read the text


independently. I also would need to be sure to choose a text that follows a predictable sentence format (I like ___, I like ___) to be sure that the language is within each student’s zone of proximal development.

Learning Target (Objectives, Student Set Goals, and/or Essential Questions):Students will be able to identify different types of vehicles and discuss what each vehicle does and where it is found using nouns, verbs, and prepositions.


Learning Task (Remember to consider relevance and career/workforce readiness skills around what is being taught):Number of Days: 4

Learning TaskLesson 1:Using photos gathered from Google and MorgueFile.com, introduce key vocabulary from text: boat, airplane, dump truck, bridge, canal, street, construction site, ocean, and air.Discuss background knowledge of students for each vocabulary term (if they’ve ever seen/ridden in the vehicle, translate the term into native language, where the vehicle may be found—in home country or in USA, etc.)Introduce sentence frames: Where can a __ go? A/An ___ can go in/on/over/under a __.Model using the sentence frames with the different vehicles, and TPR if necessary for students (using a looking or searching gesture when saying where, placing one hand on top of the other when saying on, swinging hand over head for over, etc.)—using picture support of the vocabulary.Have students take turns orally rehearsing the language (content vocabulary and sentence frame) w/picture support.

Lesson 2:Revisit content vocabulary and sentence frames from previous lesson.Model first, if necessary, and then ask students to use photo support from each of the vehicles to discuss where they may be found.Model and discuss how the picture in students’ minds change according to which words are used (A plane can go in the water vs. a plane can go over the water).Have students construct their own sentences using the topic vocabulary and discuss which sentences make sense in English and which do not.

Lesson 3:Quickly, revisit content vocabulary and sentence frames from previous lessons.Provide each student with a copy of On the Move, asking students to identify key vocabulary terms learned in previous two lessons written in the text. Conduct a picture walk of the text with students, identifying places and vehicles in the photographs. Discuss any new vocabulary students learn from the picture walk, answering any questions.Have students read the text independently. Choose 3-4 pages for each student to read out loud and conduct a running record for each student, recording reading behaviors (fluency, decoding skills, accuracy).When students have finished reading the text, discuss main ideas and key details. Be sure to discuss information found within the text, connections students can make to the text (beyond the text), and the author’s purpose for writing the text and text features (about the text).

Lesson 4:Give a copy of On the Move to each student, allowing him or her to peruse/read the text again.Discuss concepts introduced in the text, summarizing key ideas.Display sentence frames to aid students in group-discussion and encourage students to use the text to support their opinions and thoughts.Provide access to pictures, labels, and sentence frames to support students with writing extension. Students will be required to write three or more sentences describing what different vehicles are used for and where they can be found. Writing samples will be assessed for content (using about the text, beyond the text, and within the text rubric from Fountas and Pinnell) and language usage (using the WIDA speaking rubric).

Student DifferencesIn this module you learned that differentiation consists of planning lessons in response to student differences in one or more of the following areas: Readiness, Interest, and/or Learning Profile/Style. Choose which area you will use to differentiate your lesson and then explain how you will assess or determine the student differences in your class.

Readiness: The level of a student’s skills or understanding of a topic, do some need scaffolding and others challenged?

Interest: Finding ways for students to pursue individual areas of interest about the topic; will choices be given?

Learning Profile/Style: What is the intellectual preference of the student? Individual vs.


Summative Assessment (Collect student data):At the end of this series of lessons, students will be asked to write about at least three types of vehicles—identifying the vehicle, describing where it can be found, and for what it is used. In order to differentiate this assessment for these beginning ELLs, I plan to “allow students the opportunity to illustrate their thinking with their own sketches and drawings” (Boyd-Batstone, 2013) along with words from the text and discussion. Students will not only be able to share their comprehension of the text, but also their acquisition of new English vocabulary and grammatical structures.

YOU WILL COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS IN MODULE 2, AFTER THE LESSON IS TAUGHT

Self-Reflection for Continuous Improvement:Explain what went well in the implementation of your lesson. What changes would you make to improve based on student achievement data and/or evidence? A visual display of the student achievement data must be included (i.e., table, graph, chart, etc.). What are the next steps for the students in your class, a group of students, and/or an individual student to ensure EVERY student is proficient? What are the next steps for you in becoming better at differentiating your instructional approaches for all learners in your classes? Use research (Module readings from the course text and 1-2outside sources) to support your choices and ideas.Based on the data I collected and observed from students, I am pleased with the outcome of these lessons! The vocabulary building activity before reading the text really seemed to help students achieve the learning objectives and gather necessary vocabulary terms. All three were able to successfully discuss the topic of the lessons with the language that was taught. The picture cards allowed students an opportunity to physically manipulate the words in the sentence frame. I believe students were able to internalize the grammatical structure of the nouns, prepositions and verbs of the sentence because of this manipulation.

This activity also seemed to increase the students’ motivation and enjoyment of the lesson. While they independently and cooperatively practiced the sentence structure correctly a number of times, they eventually started matching the names of the vehicles with the wrong names of places—on purpose! A round of giggles and pantomime followed this, of course. (“A truck on the ocean?! Ha ha, watch this!” placing the picture of the truck on the picture of the ocean “Oh no!! Ha ha, help me!”) Allowing the students to manipulate the language in this way was a fun little break from learning, but it also aided students in transferring their newly acquired English vocabulary into their long-term memory, allowing for transfer of knowledge.

Feedback Strategy (Frequent checks for understanding):Much of the formative assessment will occur during the discussions before, during, and after the reading of the text. Powell and Kusuma-Powell describe a short story about a student who seemed to have no problems with speaking English—in fact, they describe her has being “orally fluent in English”. They go on to explain that she remained a mystery to many of her teachers because she struggled immensely in writing. “One teacher decided to have a private conversation with May Ling to try to pin down what she understood from her reading of the social studies text…[and] it soon became apparent that May Ling had developed social language in English, Cantonese, and Danish but lacked the academic language that would allow her to engage in abstract thought” (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2011). With this anecdote in mind, checks for understanding of content and key vocabulary terms will occur quite frequently throughout the lessons to ensure students are gathering the knowledge they need to successfully read and discuss the text.


Students were able to continue their practice with this knowledge when they created their own sentences, using the sentence frames in lesson two. They participated in a few rounds of changing the nouns, verbs, and prepositions used to share with their other two group mates. Soon, they desperately wanted to create the entire sentence on their own—mixing up ALL the word cards used to create a sentence. This proved to be a fantastic next step for these students—one that I had not planned for! Students not only had complete autonomy to create their own sentences, they also were able to self-monitor and help each other. Through this activity, I noticed that students struggled to remember where or how to use the articles a and the, since most of their sentences lacked any articles at all. This was a great opportunity to give specific, timely, and actionable feedback to the students in the moment (Wiggins, 2012).

Originally, I did not plan to teach students how to use articles. However, with this newly acquired knowledge, I decided to add a lesson to this unit to help these three beginning ELLs how and when to use singular and plural articles. For instance, the two students who are native Vietnamese speakers continued to leave out an a when creating sentences with the word cards. Yet, they both would include the article when orally rehearsing the sentence. After having one-on-one conversations with the older, more proficient English speaker of the two about their home language (Herrera & Murry, 2016, p. 41), I learned that articles are not used in Vietnamese. Therefore, I chose to include a quick lesson about this English grammatical rule. That conversation proved to be incredibly helpful to address this need for two of my students.

The students quickly pointed out the pictures of the places and vehicles discussed in our previous lessons during our picture walk of the text—proving it was worth the time to teach and identify these key English terms. Since none of the students seemed to notice the words in the text (nouns, verbs, prepositions), I decided to specifically ask students to look for them. I ended up pointing out some of the words that the students were unable to find on their own. For the most part, though, all three students could find and read most of the vocabulary. However, while conducting reading records on these two students, I noticed they still struggled to read the articles before nouns (the truck, a boat, the bridge, etc.). I will be able to use this information to plan more work with articles in future lessons.

The native Spanish speaker of the group was able to identify all the vocabulary we discussed (nouns, verbs, and prepositions). He was also able to read the text quickly and accurately the first time through. In conducting a reading record on all three of the students, I was able to determine that the data I had collected from classroom teachers regarding reading levels for each student needed to be updated for this student.

By allowing students to gain an understanding of the English vocabulary presented in the text before requiring them to read it, all three were able to successfully discuss the main idea and support it with evidence from the text. One student surprised the other students and myself by mentioning a fact that we had not read about, but noticed from the pictures. During our discussion, he added, “plane can go on water”. I thought he was being silly again, but decided to asked him to explain his idea. He repeated the same sentence and turned to a page in the middle of the text to show the rest of us the picture to which he was referring. It was a picture of a water plane landing on open water. He was able to gather this important information from the text features and shared his new learning with his group-mates using his newly acquired language skills even when the words were not presented in the text. It was a wonderful moment of transference of knowledge!

Finally, the students were allowed to use their texts, the picture/word cards, and vocabulary word cards to help them independently create at least four sentences about where vehicles can be found. The sentence frames were not provided for students this time because I was hoping to gather information on their knowledge of English grammatical structures. The native Vietnamese


speakers struggled to write articles at first, but began trying to use them in later sentences. These attempts were not correct, but showed me that this information was pushing them to the next stage of their language acquisition (just within their zone of proximal development). The student who was able to read the text quickly and fluently wrote only about a boat in each of his sentences and used one preposition--in (see evidence). I was able to determine that I needed to provide more written application practice for the native Spanish speaker, and perhaps more specific instruction on prepositions. His oral and reading language may be slightly more advanced than the other two students in the group, but his use of written English could be expanded upon.

Echevarria, Vogt, and Short advocate for student interaction as an essential means of language acquisition, stating, “students benefit from using and practicing English as a means of expressing their ideas, opinions, and answers” (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004). Students were able to feel safe and comfortable to try out new learning during these lessons because they were working with two other students who were capable of the same level of English. Since my instruction is in addition to their normal academic learning (pullout intervention group), they are still exposed to more proficient examples of English throughout the school day. However, this small group environment provides an opportunity for students to make mistakes, take risks, and ask questions they may not with native English speakers surrounding them (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). When “students feel accepted while working with one another and are comfortable participating in [group] discourse” (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013), they are more likely to gain a deeper understanding of both content and language.

In future lessons, I will focus my instruction on meaningful vocabulary development in connection with writing rather than placing so much emphasis in reading a text. Since these three students are no longer reading at the same level, it may be more beneficial to work with the other domains of language acquisition (speaking, listening, and writing) than to focus as highly on their reading skills.

Language Acquisition (Written Application)Key:(+) Proficient(/) Partially proficient(-) Unsatisfactory

Student A

Student M

Student S

Vehicles vocabulary + + +Place vocabulary + + +Verb placement + + +

Article - - +Preposition / / /

Content (Written Application)Key:(+) Proficient(/) Partially proficient(-) Unsatisfactory

Student A

Student M

Student S

Where? (Vehicles and places)

+ + /

How? (Prepositions) + + /

Evidence of Implementation:


Attach student work, photos of the lesson in progress demonstrating student motivation/engagement and/or any other evidence as proof of implementation. Remember to maintain student confidentiality (e.g., names removed, etc.) and follow school policies around student photos, etc.

Picture/word cards (language experience discussion)

dump truck

plane / airplane


sky / air

road / streetr

construction site


Word Cards (for Sentence creation)


Written application (summative assessment)

References


Baecher, L., Artigliere, M., Patterson, D., & Spatzer, A. (2012, January). Principles for

Differentiating Instruction for ELLs. Retrieved from

http://ell.nwresd.org/sites/ell.nwresd.org/files/u6/DifferetiationForELLs.pdf

Boyd-Batstone, P. (2013). Five Strategies to Help Beginning ELLs Meet the Common Core [PDF].

Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye On Education. Retrieved from

http://www.catskillcsd.org/documents/Boyd-Batstone_ELLs.pdf

Echevarría, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2004). Making content comprehensible for English learners:

The SIOP model (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: A checklist for staying

focused every day. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Herrera, S. G., & Murry, K. G. (2011). Mastering ESL and Bilingual methods: Differentiated

instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students (2nd ed.).

Powell, W., & Kusuma-Powell, O. (2011). How to teach now: Five keys to personalized learning in

the global classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Running Records. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.teachervision.com/read-aloud/assessment/48545.html

WIDA Consortium. (2007-08). Speaking Rubric of the WIDA Consortium [Behaviors of English

language learners at each level of language proficiency].

Wiggins, G. (2012, September). Membership. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept12/vol70/num01/Seven-Keys-to-

Effective-Feedback.aspx

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept12/vol70/num01/Seven-Keys-to-Effective-Feedback.aspx

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept12/vol70/num01/Seven-Keys-to-Effective-Feedback.aspx

https://www.teachervision.com/read-aloud/assessment/48545.html

http://www.catskillcsd.org/documents/Boyd-Batstone_ELLs.pdf

http://ell.nwresd.org/sites/ell.nwresd.org/files/u6/DifferetiationForELLs.pdf

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