A Differentiated Learning Experience

Something I have been trying to discover is a way to personalize learning for my students. It has definitely been a learning process for understanding the difference between differentiation, individualized, and personalized learning. If you are interested in learning the difference between all three I recommend reading this ISTE article that was tweeted out by one of my Vanguard Fellows.  

I began by testing it out with Linear Relationships. The original thought was students had an agenda that listed the TEKS of the entire unit all in one place. There was a pre-test that would allow students to opt out of the independent practice if their score was above a 75%. However, if their score was below that they would move on the introduction and notes for the TEK and then select one of the options for independent practice. If they were successful with the independent practice they would move on to the post-test and if they weren't successful they would receive guidance from the teacher. Afterwards, they would attempt another independent practice which would then lead them back to the post-assessment. 

He wanted to pass the pre-assessment so much he grabbed the math dictionary to try and discover what slope was.  As a 7th grader he had never seen this vocabulary term before. This was the exact moment that made me realize how great this idea was.

After doing this for the linear relationships unit I asked my students to reflect on their scores as well as how the unit went. Specifically what were strategies and tools I as a teacher provided them that helped or recommendations for strategies and tools they would want that I wasn't able to provide them. Eighty-eight percent of my students wrote in their reflection that the agenda had been one of their favorite learning tools because it allowed them to select their independent practice from a choice menu. I decided my first trial had a good run and decided to try it once again for my Probability unit.

As always you have to reflect and tweak to continue improving teaching practices. I reflected and realized the majority of the independent practices were not hands on and the only technology integration was when students received their first line of instruction through Edpuzzle. So for my second agenda I tried my absolute best to find independent practices in which students would have a more hands on experience. I must admit finding a way to integrate technology into my probability unit was difficult so if you have any ideas please send them my way! With this unit students felt more comfortable with the concept and I made sure to keep my students on track for the due dates. I once again asked my students to reflect and give feedback. The most received feedback on something students didn't like was the pre-test. I decided for my next agenda there wouldn't be any pre-test instead I would have re-test for students who weren't successful the first time on their post-assessment.

Pythagorean Theorem has got to be by far my favorite agenda so far. Since this is an 8th grade concept and I teach 7th grade my students are given about a week and a half to learn the concept. I decided to take a chance and give the third agenda. The difference was since it was such a short unit I made it all online with the awesome help of ItsLearning.

Here is an image of a piece of the agenda that students saw. The top section in colors are the instructions. This unit had 3 TEKS that needed to be taught and for each one of those TEKS students were given 3 options and had to choose 1 for their independent practice.

When planning for this unit I wanted to increase the learning experience and what better way to do so than having students create, write, and reflect. Instead of me assigning a Quizizz, students were given a choice to create them. There was an option where instead of creating a quizizz students had to create problems and reflect on a padlet as to why the three numbers were or weren't sides to a right triangle. Here is the link to that padlet. 

Here are a few pictures demonstrating the learning experience that has been happening in my classroom. 

Looking at the student screens you can see that although students worked on the same TEKS they chose different assignments.

  

These ladies would brainstorm and problem solve on the dry eraser desks and would then snap pictures of their beautiful mathematical work to upload as proof as their assignment. #LookAtThatTeamWork

Here is some of the products. An expectation for each assignment was to have students explain their work:

One of the options for 1st line of instruction was Nearpod. I absolutely love the drawing tool because as a math teacher it allows me to see the steps students are taking to solve their problems. 

The 2nd first line of instruction was edpuzzle. Here is an example of a student response to one of the questions that paused the video they watched. 

Here is a response given on ItsLearning. Again student explanation is extremely important because it shows me they understand what they are learning. 

There is always something that can be changed and I will continue to do so with the units that are to come. So far this menu has been a great way of differentiating but I definitely am striving to go towards personalized learning.  One of the options given for students was to do a response on Flipgrid, sadly none of my middle schoolers wanted to record themselves so I am going to try and motivate them to do so in the future. If you want to check out what the agenda template that students receive look like click HERE.

If you have any ideas, comments, and suggestions please comment away 😃😃😃