Tiered Lessons Project Aspire 2004 – 2005 Broadcasts Sara Delano Moore

What are tiered lessons? Tiered lessons are an organizational structure for meeting a variety of learning needs in a single classroom. Tiered lessons are built on the premise of “variations on a theme” where teachers create thoughtful variations of lessons they already teach in order to meet the needs of a wider range of learners.

On what basis are lessons tiered? ContentProcessProduct Interest X Learning Style X Readiness X

Agenda for these broadcasts November – focus on tiering product by interest December – focus on tiering process by learning style January – March – focus on tiering content by readiness – grant focus

Tiering Product by Interest Easy way to start – doesn’t change daily instruction Teachers develop alternative products they think will be of interest to students for the end of the unit. These can be in addition to or instead of a unit test on the content.

Making this work It is most helpful to develop a standard set of products you will allow in your classroom, with rubrics for each. Product Guides (Jim Curry and John Samara) are a good resource here. Rubrics are essential to the success of this strategy – students have to know what quality work looks like!

Sample Product Set Physical model (3D) or demonstration Visual representation (2D) Oral presentation (live or taped) Written report These products respond to a variety of student interests and learning styles These products accommodate a wide range of content.

What about the rubrics? Rubrics here have two parts – content and product The content rubric is the same no matter which product is selected – students are still demonstrating the same knowledge. The product rubric stays the same from unit to unit – a good written report, for example, is always nicely structured and mechanically accurate.

Implementation Work with your vertical team to develop a set of common products and rubrics. Identify a unit where 2 – 4 of these common products might be appropriate. Develop a content rubric for the unit topic. After reviewing all the product options & rubrics, allow students to choose which one they will use to share their learning.

Things to Remember This can be in addition to a unit test everyone takes or instead of a test. Spending time with the product rubrics is key to not being overwhelmed with questions about the various products. Emphasize that with a common content rubric, everyone is demonstrating the same learning, just using various strategies.

Tiering Process by Learning Style In this context, learning styles means being responsive to the fact that students learn content in various ways and bring different cognitive and intellectual strengths to our classrooms. Potential learning style models you might know: –Multiple intelligences –Visual/auditory/kinesthetic –Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Making this Work This is a more teacher-directed approach to tiered lessons than allowing students to choose products based on interest. There are two basic approaches –Students rotate through a set of tasks so everyone has done all tasks at the end –Students do a subset of the available tasks based on teacher assignment and/or student choice

Sample set of tasks Students read from the text and answer questions (visual, verbal-linguistic, intrapersonal) Students conduct a simulation (kinesthetic, visual-spatial, interpersonal) Students interview a community member or expert about a topic (auditory, interpersonal)

How to Manage These Option 1 –Everyone does the simulation in class during the week and has two homework assignments, the interview and the text reading/questions Option 2 –Students spend a day in class reviewing the options and hearing the big ideas from the teacher –Students then choose how to spend their time the rest of the week based on the fact that they have to complete two of the three assignments, one selected by the teacher and one selected by the student.

Tiering Content by Readiness In this scenario, we are adjusting the content students study (what they are learning) based on their level of prerequisite knowledge/skill. It is assumed that working at grade level means they are meeting the state standards for the course Typically think of three groups – below level, at level, and above level.

Pretesting We discussed pretesting in the May broadcast Pretesting is one way to determine a student’s readiness level Teachers can be as general or as specific as they like in determining readiness level. Three groups is generally a manageable number.

Adjusting for Skills Teachers form three groups based on student skill level. Activities are often hierarchical and students simply enter the sequence at different points and progress to different levels. Example – solving systems of equations

Adjusting for Conceptual Knowledge More difficult to pretest for this Focus here is on big ideas and depth of understanding more than discrete skills Groups might be formed like this –Has no knowledge of the concept –Has some surface knowledge of the concept –Has solid understanding of the concept Again, teachers create a sequence of activities, scaffolding from one to the next

Questions for facilitators How much work do we need on rubrics? How much work do we need on scaffolding? What are good examples of content where teachers are likely to see varying preparation levels? Examples from your own practice?