Sunday, November 10, 2013

Differentation in the CCSS

The Common Core has been a guiding force in classroom shifts in the past few years in Hudson.The Common Core State Standards outline rigorous content expectations with the intent to make all students college- and career-ready by the end of 12th grade. 
Questions that come up are how do we use the standards to meet the individual needs of my students.  This includes specific learning disabilities, speech disorders, ELL, EBD, Gifted and talented students and the range of students you see in your classroom.

The graphic above shows the student is always the center of learning.  We need to utilize formative assessments to determine student needs to reach the outcome or the CCSS.  Differnitated instruction is the route we take to support students to independently demonstrating the standards.

Click here to view the standards.

Directly From the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts… 
"By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed... Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards." 

"The Standards set grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. However, the Standards do provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students." 

"All students must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post–high school lives." 

"Instruction should be differentiated: good readers will need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will. The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention." 



Directly the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics…
“These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.”

“What students can learn at any particular grade level depends upon what they have learned before. Ideally then, each standard in this document might have been phrased in the form, ‘Students who already know A should next come to learn B.’ …. Learning opportunities will continue to vary across schools and school systems, and educators should make every effort to meet the needs of individual students based on their current understanding.”


The keys to differentiation are to change:
1.  Content

  • Use the standards from the grade below if students need more support or the higher grade levels to determine appropriate extensions 
  • Different text levels or complexity in Guided Reading
  • Choice interests for inquiry


2.  Process

  • Gradual Release to scaffold learning- Think aloud, Think together, Guided Practice, Independent Practice
  • Small group corrective teaching with more support
  • Small group extension
  • Use more visuals and vocabulary development


3. Product

  • Use choices for students to share learning


Read more on differentiation:  Differentiation in the Common Core  Please comment to share more ideas how you differentiate in the CCSS.




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