I'm baaack

I took some unscheduled time off from this blog as I moved, finished my thesis, settled into a new school, and added a new addition to my family.

I am currently in Orlando, Florida where I am attending the ACTFL conference.  It is awesome, and I have loved meeting so many of my virtual friends.  I made a presentation of how to effectively differentiate instruction in a world language class for visual-spatial learners.

One of my favorite sessions so far has been on embedded readings.  In embedded readings, the teacher edits a story into several nested versions of the same story.  Each version is comprehensible to the students, but adds new levels of complexity.  By the final reading, students are able to read complex stories.  If you would like to learn more about this, go to: www.embeddedreading.com  Another great source for this is www.martinabex.com

On Going S-L-O-W in a GT class

The point was made that if I slow down my delivery to the point that even the slowest student in my class can understand, then I am hampering all of my other students. Is that really fair for me to do, especially considering I am trained in teaching GT students and am working towards my master’s in GT education?


Yes, it is. Because the underlying assumption is that if I slow down my delivery there is nothing left for the advanced students. But therein lies the beauty of TPRS. In any traditional class, during the direct instruction all the students are learning exactly the same information at the same time. Or at least, they are being exposed to the same information. The students at the top of the curve have already mastered the material, and they are now bored. The students at the bottom of the curve aren’t ready for it and they react by looking bored or uninterested. But really, they are just overwhelmed.

In a TPRS class, however, this is not true. Although the teacher is standing in the front of the room talking (sometimes), this is not direct instruction in the way we have always envisioned it. The teacher is leading a group into a collective effort, but each student is focused specifically on the information that is new to him/her. Slower processing students are focused solely on the words and trying to construct meaning. Faster processing students are focused on the underlying grammar behind the words, and how to construct meaning. Faster processing students are honored because they are often the students who can think of clever new scenarios in the stories the class is creating.

There have been a few studies that have shown that mixed level TPRS classes have been the most effective. I know that Michelle Whaley has posted about the results of her mixed level Russian classes on Ben Slavic’s blog, and Blaine Ray has referenced another teacher who had astounding results with her levels I-IV in the same class. When the vocabulary and the speed were not an issue, students could truly acquire some of the more subtle parts of the language. These kids often nail grammatical points that usually stick out as the immediate flag that a person is not a native speaker (in Spanish the use of the subjunctive, por and para, ser and estar) and they do this because “it sounds right” and because the many pop-up grammar lessons infused throughout every class stick.

As a teacher, I can pop-up anything I feel my students need to work on. So, for my slower students I pop-up, “Why did I put an –n at the end of that verb?” (It’s plural) and for my students who are beyond that I will point out that although this is an –ar verb, it ended in an –en, why is that? (It’s a plural command)

Dictados

I want to make it very clear that I stole everything I know about dictados from Ben Slavic. I also want it known that this is NOT TPRS. It's pretty much very focused output. There is a lot of comprehensible input going on here, and I have seen a lot of gains (especially in confidence) from it, so I will keep doing it, especially since it really doesn't take up more than ten-fifteen minutes of class a week.

I keep my dictados to 5 sentences. They are always recycled from the stuff (stories, readings, etc.) we do in class, so there is no new information in them. The students can focus entirely on writing the information, not on comprehension. It lowers the affective filter a lot. I tell my kids that I only expect them to give me ten minutes a week of undivided, focused work time for spelling and grammar. (Which is really a lot, but that's another blog entirely.)

As in any dictation, the students have a piece of notebook paper, and they copy what they hear me say. However, I have them leave two blank lines between every line they write on. So, there is a line of text, then two blank lines, then another line of text.

I read through the five sentences very slowly. I usually read them through two times, although I will offer more, especially if there are complicated structures or long sentences in there. After I have read the dictation through and students are ok with it, I project the correct version of the dictation on the board. (I was lucky enough to have an interactive white board last year which made this all very fun.) At this point I go through the dictation again, but letter by letter, accent mark by accent mark. I point out all the tricky things, but I do it via pop-up lessons and circling. "Class, Did you notice the accent mark here? Why do I have an ía at the end of this verb? That's right! It's in the past tense." Then I keep going.

While I am going over the correct version of the dictation, my students are following along on their papers. Their assignment is to underline all their errors, and on the line immediately below the error they are to copy the correct spelling of the word. I print out hard copies of the dictation for students who have difficulty changing their focus from the paper to the board and back.

When I grade the papers, I only grade on what has been corrected. So, every single student regardless of his/her ability to spell can earn an A+. Talk about lowering that affective filter! I just removed all possibility of failure.

But it isn't just an easy A.

First of all, I am picky about accent marks and punctuation, because I am giving them the corrections visually and orally. So, the first mistake brings them to an A. After that, every second mistake drops them a letter grade. I write the new corrections directly beneath the mistake, so either on that second or third line.

Second, I am differentiating my butt off here, and I'm not even breaking a sweat. Every student is getting a spelling lesson and a grammar lesson in EXACTLY what he/she needs to learn.

Third, I am getting true assessments from this. When I look at the dictations, which I do, I am noticing where students are making mistakes. If a word or phrase keeps popping up, and it is a high frequency word, I make sure to recycle it into future lessons. If it's a "throw-away" word, one that isn't used often but was in that story, I don't pay much attention to it.

As the year went on, I noticed that despite (or is that because of) the lack of fear about grades, my students were making fewer and fewer mistakes on their spelling. That was in the dictations, and in the free writes. They were nailing words that are often spelled incorrectly.

my new student

My new student who just transferred into class is doing well. I have slowed down the pace of my delivery for her, and am back to translating many, many structures and pointing to the question words so that she can follow what we are doing. But, I am continuing with instruction for the rest of the class, we are covering new structures and asking new stories. I think we will all get through this ok.

I did realize on Tuesday that I have forgotten to explain certain class policies/procedures to her. For instance, on Free Writes students are only scored against themselves. The biggest thing is going to be making her feel comfortable in class to ask questions before she becomes overwhelmed.

Native Speaker update

My native speaker has been doing her self-study for one week now. So far all is going well. She seems to be much happier now that she can work at her own pace and not be caught up in the class, and it has helped my management of the class she was in. The other students are no longer comparing themselves to her either consciously or sub-consciously. And her negative attitude is not spilling over onto the other students.

A few students have asked why she is no longer in the classroom with us, and I have just explained that having her in the room with us and doing the work we are doing is similar to having one of them sit in on a first grade classroom and being asked to do that work. No complaints when it is explained like that.

I made a weekly worksheet to keep her accountable. On Mondays she is to predict her work for the week. Each week she is to work on her reading, writing, and grammar and she can spread that work over the week as she sees fit. She reads books at her grade level, then summarizes each chapter in basic Spanish that would be accessible to her peers. She also has a native speaker grammar workbook that she works in. She turns in her work and worksheet to me at the end of every week.

my native speaker

I spoke with my student, her mother, and my administration. We are all set to begin a self-study course for native speakers next week with the beginning of trimester 2. Woohoo!

My goals are:
Reading Comprehension - she will need to be reading grade level novels.

Writing - I want her to summarize what she reads in simplified Spanish so that a. I can verify her reading comprehension, b. we can work on her accuracy in spelling and grammar, c. we can work on circumlocution skills, and d. these texts can become more accessible to my other students

Grammar - She has a Spanish for Native Speakers workbook that she will continue to work out of.

I have a few concerns though:

Accountability - How will I ensure that she is making productive use of her time and progressing through the material? I'm thinking I can make a log of activities to be done and have her mark how she used her time each hour.

Engagement - All the work I have at this point is rather dry. I would like to find something interactive that she can do regularly. This is a very social girl and I am isolating her physically and emotionally here.

the worm on the hook

Since my days as a student teacher I have had a policy that I do not call on students who do not volunteer. It can be too embarassing if they aren't comfortable yet with the material, or if they are by nature shy people.

On the other hand, I can't check in with my barometer students (those who are trying but slower than the class average) if I don't check in with them. So, I've been playing with strategies like teaching to the eyes, and making sure I move through the classroom more often.

Yesterday, as we were reading the class novel, I could see that some of my slower processors were struggling. So I would reread the sentence slowly and ask that student to translate what I had just read. I didn't do it in a mean way, and I was there to help them through it the whole time. I pointed at the words on the board, I repeated the words slowly. And I didn't let their peers call out the answers quickly. Every student responded.

Every student except one. This is a student who has struggled the whole year, not just in my class but in all of his classes. We, his teachers, have brainstormed strategies to help this student engage, to accomodate him, and to provide appropriate interventions for his needs. Yesterday I asked him what a sentence meant and he wuickly shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "I don't know," he said. Perhaps it was his tone of voice, which suggested he couldn't be bothered to care, or perhaps it was the speed of his shoulder shrug. But something inside me told me not to let him off the hook. I gave him the "teacher look" for what felt like five minutes. I refused to let his "I don't know" stand. I repeated the question, pointing at each word slowly. And I stared at him. At the end of that time he finally stammered through a translation. And I praised him for his efforts and went on.

It was painful to me to watch him squirm for so long. It was painful for the other students too, they desperately wanted to call out the answer and just go on already. And I know it was painful for him. He had 24 pairs of eyes on him for a lengthy bit of time.

But what that told me is that I have been letting him slip under the radar and simply choose not to engage. He is capable of engaging if he is required to, and now that he has tasted that, I plan to continue. I hope the next time I ask him a question he doesn't wait five minutes to answer. I hope that the next time I ask him a question he was already thinking that being called on was a possibility so he should be paying attention before hand.

differentiation... techniques (content and product)

If students are going to learn different material or doing different products, there are several ways to make this fair, equitable and most of all manageable. The hardest part is always having so many *different* things to grade, that and making sure that students are doing equivalent work. :)

The products are the vehicles students use to show us their knowledge. The content is the material they have learned. I'm putting the two together because they can often go together in practical application.

Sometimes content can be differentiated while the product and skills remain the same, i.e. each student picks the topic of their research paper but all the students are responsible for the same type of research paper. In this case the student chooses the vehicle based on interest, but the skills being taught by the teacher and the product are the same for all students. This means that the teacher expectations and grading rubric remain the same for all students.

RAFT and tiered activities can also work well.

Other Menu activities also work well. In my class I used to require personal projects. Students could choose from a variety of assignments to show me learning and knowledge of the different Spanish speaking countries. Each assignment had its own mini-rubric and point values assigned. Students could choose which assignment to do, but their total points had to equal 40. A 5 point project was to make an accurate flag and provide the population statistics on the back. A 15 point assignment was to prepare a typical dish from that country and bring it in to share with classmates. A 40 point assignment was to write a mini-research paper with at least 3 references cited. Students were able to use their talents and interests and I was able to assess their learning. In addition, the other students were able to benefit from their learning when we shared our work. I always had a category for student choice which required talking to me, making a plan, writing a rubric, and assigning a point value for the project.

Independent study

Mentorships

Authentic problem, product and audience

Flexible grouping

Learning contracts

Varied homework

Curriculum compacting

Curriculum enrichment

Portfolio development

Reasons to differentiate

More musings on my upcoming workshop:

When we use differentiation in the classroom we should have clear-cut objectives just as we should have objectives for everything we do in our classroom. Our objectives then guide us in our choice of how to best differentiate and which methods to use. When we keep our goals clearly in mind then we are able to reflect and analyze our own performance and the effectiveness of our strategies. Not only does this help us as individuals in our classroom, but it also provides a way to document the effectiveness of various intervention techniques for individual students.

What are some of the reasons we differentiate?

Medical - if a student has a medical reason to be unable to perform the same work or to learn in the same way as the other students.

Previous knowledge - Students come to us with different levels of knowledge. We can differentiate to accomodate students who have already mastered knowledge their peers are being introduced to, or for students who have not yet mastered material that is foundational to the work the class is preparing to do.

Processing speed - students are able to master material at different speeds. If a student is able to learn the material at a significantly faster or slower rate, then he or she ought to be accomodated in the classroom.

Strengths/weaknesses - (learning styles) we can use students' strongest academic skills to help scaffold and strengthen their weaker areas while also ensuring that they learn the material being presented in class.

Student interest - sometimes students can use a passion area to demonstrate skills or knowledge.

differentiation workshop

My school is hosting a conference on gifted education. I am scheduled to present on differentiation. Right now my main thoughts are that differentiation goes beyond Gardner's learning styles.

There are at least six ways to differentiate:
The pace
The content
The delivery
The product
The environment
The assessment

If you are differentiating the pace then each student can progress at the speed that he/she is able, but they are all learning the same material. I have seen elementary teachers do this very effectively with checklists.

If you are differentiating the content then each child is able to learn something different. This can go as far as independent study, but can also work in a more traditional setting where although groups learn different material they then report back to the class as a whole what they learned.

In delivery differentiation every student is responsible for learning the same material, but the teacher presents the material in different ways to maximize each students' learning potential.

In product differentiation every student is learning the same material, but they show the mastery of the material in different ways. Some students may choose to do posters while others do PowerPoint presentations.

In environment differentiation the physical environment and the conditions the students work in are differentiated. Students may have preferential seating in the classroom, or be allowed the use of certain tools and/or manipulatives.

By differentiating assessments students are still held accountable for the same information, but they are allowed to demonstrate their competence in a way that will best reflect that for them as individuals. Assessments can be modified to show students' individual growth rather than reflecting their mistakes. Assessments can be formative when the teacher uses them to inform future instructional plans.