IMPROVING SUCCESS OF ALL STUDENTS
THROUGH DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING, PROJECT BASED LEARNING & MORE
"No two children are alike. An enriched environment for one is not necessarily enriched for another. "Marian Diamonds: Professor of Neuroanatomy at Berkeley
Improving the success of all students is a goal in our classroom daily. All assessments in our courses can be taken and retaken as many times as desired (unless abuse is evident). All courses incorporate a plentitude of PBL (Project Based Learning) and include a rubric that students can check for completion before submitting. Assessments incorporate UDL (University Design for Learning) and allow students to assess and then relearn material and reassess without penalty. Interactive assessments, PBL projects, pre and post exam scores, pre and post course surveys, time capsule writing papers, rubrics and student quick polls all provide an venue to get student feedback to make changes to lessons and plans as well as teaching methods and encourage repetition.
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Differentiated AssessmentsTest assessments in Mrs. Leiker's class are completed electronically with results immediately viewable using ExamView. All of the test assessments in Mrs. Leiker's classroom can be taken and retaken as many times as desired by the student to obtain the desired result. Penalties are not applied and the student receives the best score obtained. Parents are notified of this policy through the classroom website and remind101 notifications. In one class on one assessment for the 2013-2014 school year, the average went up nearly 20% after retakes for those who chose to retake the assessment (See chart at right).
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Blended & Flipped Learning Define Differentiated Learning
Our classroom is a Blended Learning Environment. Many claim this is the future of education! Some content is digital which can be referred to as Flipped since students can get lectures anytime/anywhere but in our classroom we don't require students to flip entirely since we allow time to view and learn the material onsite. We also use Student Centered Learning in our classroom as well as many methods of UDL. As can be seen at the right, classroom lectures can be found on YouTube or other digital sources to be watched on student iPads, home computers or even smartphones on the go! This also allows students to learn at their own pace and relearn material as much as needed until comprehension is achieved.
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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Knowledge Comprehension Assessments
In applicable courses, after completing a tutorial video, book section or other instructional services, students complete an assessment to test their mastery of knowledge. If the assessment is unsuccessful, they are encouraged to go back and repeat the lesson and try again. Students can complete these lessons & quizzes as many times as desired until mastery is achieved and can work at a different pace than their classmates.
Student Real Time Polling for Differentiated Instruction
Our classroom uses QuickPolls with edmodo, Socrative and Google Form Surveys to analyze student understanding within lessons and to evaluate goals at course start and the course conclusion. Re-teaching is used for selective students when understanding isn't met. Individual student concerns can be discovered. These surveys and quick polls methodically guide differentiated instruction for the teacher. Below is an example of a QuickPoll taken this year in class. In this instance, we went back over the material and polled again until satisfactory understanding was met.
Note the example of a quick poll provided for students in order to discover their preferences in Review Question format. In the end, it was decided that UDL would be used to allow both methods of submission.
Note also the example of a testing of understanding on MailChimp below using Google Forms. Before our class started this program, 100% answered the first choice that they had never used MailChimp and in the end 100% answered they had an account and were very proficient in the program. Results on the other tools in the course had similar or identical results. |
Project Based Learning (PBL) Projects Supporting Differentiated LearningProject Based Learning (PBL) is used extensively in our classroom to support differentiated learning and student work is submitted electronically to be graded but can be submitted at the student's own pace with no penalty. Students also have choices as to the type of project they complete and often get to choose their own topics/career/research subject. Notice the high number of assessments using PBL in the chart to the right. Shown at right is a breakdown of two different 2013-2014 courses.
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The Makers Movement
The Veteran's Day Project completed in the Multimedia course in November is a prime example of combining the mastery of in-class tools and concepts using a community benefit application. After completing the project, student members were asked to evaluate both the project and other student's participation in the project. The answers to the question, "Would you recommend this project to future Multimedia courses?" was an overwhelming YES by ALL class members. In addition, the class shared some of their thoughts on the project which I have included to the right.
Classroom Participation & Discussion Forums for Differentiated Instruction
Journal Blogs, Online Forum Participation and other forms of in course writing allows students to express themselves through participation using their own thoughts and words. Growth is shown through writing and can be done ANYTIME ANYPLACE using tools such as edmodo. Students can choose to participate when they feel ready and after they have had time to think through responses and read other student responses. Teacher instruction is changed to include re-teaching when such discussion forums show a lack of understanding. See the charts above to notice that this too, is included as a large portion of our classroom grades.
Differentiated Instruction with Quizlet
Differentiated Practice, Class Set Participation & SQ3R
Quizlet allows students multiple methods of studying course material. As shown in the screenshot below, students can take practice tests, learn by flashcards, play scatter or space race (even against classmates) and (NEW!) it can even speak terms and definitions to students! Students submit Quizlet sets in class in order to obtain credit. This allows students to discuss and collaborate about course material. It also gives the students a chance to show their work 'to the world'. All Quizlet sets are submitted to Mrs. Leiker's classes (as shown below). Sets are also created by me as a teacher. It allows me to determine participation in the course since as a teacher I can view who has used and studied the sets that I create as well as statistics as to which students get which terms correct for what percent of the time. Genius!