Doing Differentiation

Strategies to use in your classroom today

Gifted Kids Need Differentiation

• Miamisburg City Schools currently serves only 13% of its identified gifted students through the Challengers program and advanced coursework.

• 87% of students with a gifted identification receive no services outside of what is provided in the regular classroom.

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Nature and Needs of Gifted Children

• Gifted children are characterized by their ability to process information quickly and to make connections within and among disciplines.

• Gifted children benefit from differentiated content, process, and product.

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Assessment

• Assessment before, during, and after instruction is critical for making appropriate modifications for your students.

• Think outside the box- assessment is not limited to written tests and quizzes! See the assessment packet for some ideas for quick and easy ways to assess your students.

• Note- OAGC recognizes content mastery at 85%

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Levels of Cognition and Multiple Intelligences

• Differentiation of process involves offering opportunities to process information at different levels of Bloom’s taxonomy as well as providing students with options to take in information through a variety of learning modalities.• See the Thinking in Bloom packet

for information on integrating these learning theories into your instruction.

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Questioning

• Higher level questioning strategies encourage discussion and thinking beyond recall of information.• Open-ended questions give

students room to make content connections and to think critically and creatively about the material being presented.

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Anchor Activities

• Anchor activities provide students with relevant, meaningful activities that can be completed independently.• These can be leveled to meet

different student needs, and can be used as a management tool for early finishers and to facilitate small group instruction to meet student needs.

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Tic Tac Toe and Choice Menus

• Tic tac toe boards and other choice menus are great tools for integrating student choice, different levels of thinking, and multiple intelligences.• 2-5-8 menus allow for student

choice and more teacher control over the types and quantity of work completed by each student.

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Flexible Grouping• Gifted students are not necessarily gifted in

everything. Flexible grouping allows for students to move in and out of groups based on need, ability, interest, etc.

• Every student deserves the opportunity to work with intellectual peers on appropriately challenging tasks. Gifted students are not always the best teachers.

• Peer teaching is most appropriate for students who have just gotten a concept- not for a student who has already mastered it.

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Cubing

• Incorporating cubing in your classroom allows you to guide student thinking in multiple directions and to differentiate process and product for students of varying abilities.

• Don’t want / have time to make a bunch of cubes? Consider using think dots- correlate activities and questions with the number of dots on each side of a regular die.

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Curriculum Compacting

• Curriculum compacting is a great way of finding time for enrichment and extension activities for gifted students.

• It is guided by demonstration of student mastery (85%) and allows students to substitute projects and activities that more appropriately meet their learning needs.

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Independent Study• Students participating in independent study

learn time management and organizational skills in addition to research and content related understandings.

• When discussing independent study topics, consider using connections to real life problems, student interest, and depth of the content covered.

• Students can present their independent study as an enrichment to other students in the class.

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Tiered Lessons

• Differentiate content, process, and product for students based upon data obtained from pretesting.

• Students must have the understanding that not everyone needs the same thing.

• Each tier must have motivating and challenging activities that are appropriate to student needs.

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Resources

• http://guest.portaportal.com/renegar• http://www.orc.org• http://

www.ohiotresurechest.org• http://www.hoagiesgifted.com• http://www.oagc.com

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