>>Valerie: Wow, look at
all these brave volunteers. Go ahead! >>Student: "C" >>Valerie: Yes! Nice job. >>Valerie: So, the impact
of differentiation, the students feel successful. They feel supported. They know if something is difficult for them there's something
that's a little more in line with their strengths coming up soon. So, it really makes education
fun and approachable. I really think it's the most effective
way that I have seen to teach. >>Teacher: Yay! >>Jane: The vision and the
mission of Highlander is to use innovative practice
as a social catalyst. We want our kids to be able to do anything any other kid
from Providence could do. >>Valerie: We use differentiation all
across the curriculum here at Highlander and especially in the first grade. Although the content is the same,
having the stations really allows me to tailor my lessons to each
individual group of learners. So, how the differentiation
looks in my classroom, we start off with a whole group lesson. >>Valerie: So, let's get
our reading classes on. Let's get the letter part
of our brains activated. >>Valerie: This section of our curriculum we have been
looking at non-fiction texts. >>Valerie: When we're looking at our
book today we're going to be thinking about where we can get information. >>Valerie: And then in the phonics
realm we focused on contractions. >>Valerie: We're talking two words and
what are we sticking them together with? >>Student: Apostrophe! >>Valerie: Yes, Karen! Good job. >>Valerie: And then we break
off into our small groups. So, our yellow group is still learning
how to do a lot of our literacy things. The green group is doing pretty well,
but has a few things to work on still. And our blue group is hitting
all the first-grade standards and needs to be stretched. So, our differentiation
kind of takes two forms: The first is by student grouping and
the second is by modality of learning. We have twenty minutes per station
and there are three of the stations. The students will rotate through
all three stations each day. >>Dianelys: So, our first station for
the blue group is the computer station. >>Valerie: The students use
a Google form to check in. They'll normally watch a video
or carefully observe a photograph and answer some questions about that. >>Jamarie: We watched a video
about how to grow a seed. We had to type in our
favorite part and why. >>Valerie: After they finish that
form, they can check out an e-book. >>Jamarie: And then you could
do this game of reading called "Teach a Monster How to Read." >>Valerie: We're delivering things in
a way that is visual, that is auditory, that is individual to the
students through the technology. >>Dianelys: After that
she rings the bell. >>Valerie: Clean-up, switch
up, first grade readers. >>Dianelys: We switch
to the sort station. >>Valerie: Our sort station is
more of a physical modality. They're using their bodies, which
is so important for first graders. They need to move. Kids are cutting out the words,
they're gluing them down. >>Jamarie: We had a contraction game. It's fun, because it's all mixed up
and you have to find the right pieces. And then after we do that,
we do rainbow writing. >>Valerie: That's another
way that we differentiate. If students are able to
get through more work, then they have some freedom of choice. >>Valerie: Clean up, switch it up. >>Valerie: The last station
we're talking to each other and learning from each other. So, that's more of the social
interaction-type of modality. >>Dianelys: I like the teacher
station the most, because we get to be with Miss Gallagher and we
get to learn cool stuff. >>Valerie: So, take a look at
the illustrations on this page. Right? >>Valerie: The content is the same, but it can be differentiated
in a number of ways. My blue group, for example,
they know what text is. They know what illustrations are. And, so, for them I create
a Venn diagram. >>Dianelys: You need to
make one circle like this and then you make another
circle overlapping that. >>Valerie: Oh! >>Valerie: For the yellow
or the green group, I'm just leaving the
Venn diagram out of it. We're still doing essentially
the same thing. But just that piece that might be
confusing to some of those students, I just leave that out for a later time. They'll get to it. >>Valerie: All right,
so, clean up and meet me in the middle of the rug for writing. Nice work, first grade. >>Jane: Being able to move through
those stations it's just another level of helping the students learn
as much as they can each year. They really feel excited
when they make that growth. >>Valerie: They're proud of themselves. They feel like they're
effective learners. As a teacher, honestly, it is a lot
of work but the results that you see in the happy faces of the kids
and the good feeling that you have in the classroom is worth it.
