Designing a Differentiated Lesson Plan

 Using Pictures to Build Vocabulary and Fluency While Supporting Comprehension

This week, I designed a lesson to help my students build their reading comprehension by increasing their vocabulary and strengthening their fluency. I used our intervention and benchmark assessment program, Istation, to target a known skill and knowledge gap for my students. My district uses Istation because it assesses students using the ISIP for benchmarks and state testing, and it provides personalized, targeted instruction based on the data from the ISIP. It also provides suggested lessons for teachers to implement based off of the priority report's findings. 

I used such a lesson centered around analyzing individual words in sentences for understanding. When implementing the lesson, my first step is to read the sentence to my students and put it up on the SMART board, either by writing it or having it typed and ready to go in a presentation. Next, I will ask my students to review each individual word or phrase within the sentence for the information it provides. The students will also be asked to act out any action words to add some movement and fun to the lesson. After reviewing each component, we will reread the sentence together, building our fluency, and check for understanding of the sentence as a whole. Finally, to demonstrate their understanding, students will need to match the sentence to a picture. Students will repeat the process in an interactive whiteboard activity with a partner before completing an independent summative assessment on Otus, our learning platform. Early finishers will be able to do a Kahoot that provides even more practice with this skill!

How I chose the strategies and planned for readiness, interest, and learning style

Research shows that learners vary in their motivation, their learning processes, and how they demonstrate their learning (Perez & Grant, 2022). They also come to school with various readiness levels and interests, so as a teacher, I needed to take into account what I knew of my students and their preferences and learning styles as well as how they learn and perform. My students tend to be auditory learners that benefit from visual supports. A few of them prefer learning kinesthetically or with their hands, but overall, they tend to be auditory learners. They love learning new things, moving around while they learn, and using the SMART board or their Chromebooks.

In differentiated instruction, teachers can adjust the content, the process, the products, and/or the learning environment for their students (Tomlinson, n.d.). The lesson I designed was suggested by Istation, my district's chosen program, however, its original format was traditional lecture, pencil, and paper. I kept the content of the lesson, but I adjusted the process for my students to match their varied levels of readiness and learning styles by adding in extra supports, more auditory support, and partner work. They are very social students but could use the practice in communicating politely with each other even when they disagree.

How I differentiated the assessment and how I would differentiate for varied learners

The original assessment required students to read some sentences and choose from four similar pictures to pick the one that best matched the full meaning of the sentence. I took the lesson and decided to rebuild it into our learning platform, Otus. This allowed me to vary the structure of the tasks to suit my different learners. For example, I could create multiple choice questions, drag and drop questions, true and false, etc. Since my students are primarily auditory learners, I added in a Text-to-Speech feature that they are able to use to read any and all words on the page with the click of a button. They select the words they want to have read aloud, and a voice will read the words and highlight them to help the students track. For my students that dislike using the technology or are hampered by it, I decided to have the print versions available. I would provide auditory support myself if needed.

In order to support my varied learners, I worked to implement tenets of UDL: reducing barriers for learners, providing appropriate challenges for the varied readiness levels, accommodating student interests when possible, and providing alternative pathways for processes and products (Vanderbilt University, 2022). I do not have any ELL students in my class, but I do have one student with a speech IEP. To differentiate for her, I incorporated extra auditory supports into the lesson that she can access as many times as needed as well as allowing her to work with a partner since she is not ready to work on reading independently. For her assessment, she benefits greatly from the Text-to-Speech tool and will be able to use a "Check Answer" button before submitting her work. This allows her a chance for immediate feedback and revision.

I also have two students who have been identified as potentially having gifted abilities. They are strong, independent, self-directed learners who are reading above grade level. Their comprehension sentences will be adjusted to include higher level academic vocabulary and greater varieties of sentence structure to analyze and comprehend. These students also typically fall in my early finisher category. For any students who do finish early, there will be a Kahoot available for extra practice (my students are major fans of Kahoot). They can also work with their partner again (if they are finished) and give each other a sentence to read and analyze before selecting the picture that best matches it.

Technology and Curriculum Materials

A key component of differentiating for my students within the lesson and assessment was technology. I teach first graders, and while we have been working hard at learning how to use our Chromebooks and learning platform, Otus, technology can sometimes be a hindrance instead of a helper if it gets too complicated or is stacked on top of new routines or skills. Therefore, when deciding on what to use, I looked for tools the students already know how to access and use. I also looked for things that would appeal to their interests and needs. This is how I determined what to use in the lesson.

During the "We do" portion of the lesson, I decided to incorporate an interactive whiteboard activity that they would complete with their partner. For students that enjoy working with others, this is appealing. It also helps mitigate the technology barrier for students that are uncomfortable with it because they have a buddy to work with. For the summative assessment, converting it to an activity on Otus allowed for greater variety in task format as well as the ability to give my students access to the Text-to-Speech tool. As the purpose of the lesson was to practice skills that could help build vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, I felt this support was not only allowed, but appropriate.

Technology also helped me as the teacher decide on what curriculum materials to use. I used the priority report data from our Istation program to target skills that needed support. The same report provided me with a range of lessons to implement for intensive interventions. The lesson that I developed is based on the first lesson of a series. Its format and delivery was not right for my students, however, so I kept the core content and concepts and adapted the lesson to benefit my students. Not only does this help them work towards success within first grade, but it also is helping them prepare for our upcoming state testing.

Final Thoughts

Differentiation helps teachers tailor their instruction and assessment strategies to fit the needs and interests of their students. Knowing my students preferred learning styles helped a lot in deciding which portions of the curriculum to adapt and how. I also needed to take into account their readiness levels and whether or not they had any special needs or gifted abilities. By getting to know them and analyzing their assessment data, I was able to design a lesson plan that will help support the success of all of my students.

Thank you for reading!

Cassandra Coleman

References:

Perez, L., & Grant, K. (2022, February 9). 30+ tools for diverse learners | ISTE. ISTE. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.iste.org/explore/Toolbox/30-tools-for-diverse-learners

Tomlinson, C. A. (n.d.). What is differentiated instruction. Reading Rockets. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

Vanderbilt University. (2022). IRIS | page 1: Universal design for learning (UDL). IRIS Center. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/udl/cresource/q1/p01/#content

Learning Styles Analysis

 Learning Styles of My Small Group

Last week, my mentor teacher and I surveyed a small group of students using a learning styles inventory. Because I teach first grade, we implemented a 20-question inventory that used a happy face/sad face answering system. As I met with this small group during our intervention, I read each statement, and the students colored a happy face if it applied to them or a sad face if it did not. The intent behind this inventory is to get to know my students' learning style preferences while also learning about their personal interests. This information is useful because it will help me differentiate future lessons for them and allow them a greater amount of voice and choice that will include options they are actually interested in (Dabrowski & Marshall, 2019). Below is a summary of the results. Things to note:

• The students' results will not add up to 20, what you see is their tendency to answer in favor of that learning style. If they answered a question negatively, it was not a part of their score. Verbal answers were noted and taken into account in the event that there was a tie between scores.
• Girl 3 was absent leading up to Spring break, and we have not yet returned to school. She will be asked to complete the inventory when we do.
• Every student noted that they enjoy coming to school and like to learn new things in their learning styles inventory.

Learning Styles and Student Development

Now that we have reviewed my small group's learning styles, we can look at how their learning styles interconnect with their cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development. Students' learning is impacted by their developmental progression as well as their environment and individual schema and funds of knowledge (Dartmouth, 2019). For example, Girls 1 and 2, along with Boy 1, all struggle with speech, yet they tend to favor auditory learning. This is because their linguistic development impacts their ability to read and write, so they prefer to listen and learn with visual supports when necessary. All of these students receive Title One support in reading. Let us take a brief look at each student individually.

Girl 1 is helpful yet reserved in class. She likes to work with others but prefers not to talk. When she does, her language is more casual and colloquial. She does not show much emotion and does not like to acknowledge it when she is unhappy. She has good fine and gross motor skills, but overall, she prefers auditory learning with visual supports. She is Tier 1 (at grade level) in math and Tier 2 (nearing grade level) in reading.

Girl 2 is usually friendly, but she tends to tease her friends without noticing if they are bothered or not. She struggles with grammar such as matching pronouns to their nouns and sometimes needs to try again in order to be understood. She has good fine and gross motor skills and is Tier 1 in math and Tier 3 (below grade level) in reading.

Girl 3 struggles with all of her adaptive skills (conceptual, social, and practical). She likes to be a part of the group but struggles to make herself understood. This can impact her self-confidence and make her feel down. She lashes out when this happens. She has many friends and likes to help others. She has good fine and gross motor skills and is Tier 2 in math and Tier 3 in Reading. When she returns to school, she will complete the learning style inventory. From what we have observed in class, she seems to enjoy multimodal instruction with a greater benefit from kinesthetic or tactile learning.

Boy 1 has fairly strong adaptive skills. He has many friends across many grade levels and is strong in academics during class most of the time. While he has some colloquialisms in his speech, linguistically he is on par with the rest of his classmates. He is petite, but he has good fine and gross motor skills. His biggest struggle is with focus as he is easily distracted, and sometimes when communicating with his peers, he can cross their boundaries without understanding what he is doing. He is Tier 2 in math and reading.

Boy 2 struggles with focus and tends to be reserved. His social-emotional and language development is not quite on par with his classmates, and he also lacks self-efficacy when it comes to doing things. He prefers visuals that he can reference as needed over auditory and kinesthetic or tactile learning. He is Tier 1 in math and Tier 2 in reading.

Knowing where my students are at in their development and being able to link that with their learning styles and interests helps me differentiate for them in more meaningful ways with greater relevancy and accuracy.

Use for Planning

This small reading group has shown through their inventory that they tend to prefer auditory learning with visual supports. Only one student has demonstrated a true preference for kinesthetic or tactile learning. This tells me that I need to differentiate for my small group by including multimodal instruction that includes a lot of auditory and visual support. Using multimodal instruction with multiple means of representation can make learning more accessible for a greater variety of students and learning styles (Murawski & Scott, 2019). Because they all need to work on communicating with their peers, I will also need to look into incorporating more activities that allow them to practice with each other in this small group.

Since I will need to accommodate auditory, visual, and kinesthetic/tactile learning, I will need to use a variety of instructional strategies. The first strategy I would use is the incorporation of audio books or recordings when working on reading comprehension. These recordings would allow my students to reference them as many times as necessary while still being able to follow along with the printed words. The second strategy I would use is the use of pictures or diagrams when teaching new academic vocabulary. Using pictures gives them an image to link the definition and word to, making it easier for them to remember as well as activating their schema with familiar images. The third strategy I would use is to incorporate more sorting activities, particularly cut-and-paste style. My first graders love to cut and glue, and this would appeal to any kinesthetic learners as they physically sort the words or images into categories. In order to help my learners practice communicating, we would practice describing what happened in a story or justifying why we sorted concepts a certain way. The latter provides us with an opportunity to practice navigating opposing opinions.

Use for Instruction and Decision-making

It is important to keep my students' strengths, interests, and needs in mind while instructing them and making decisions regarding our next steps. Using the interest inventory is a good way to survey them for their learning style preferences and interests, and I can analyze their benchmark assessment data to look for strengths and weaknesses. For example, this group's students were all higher tiered in math than in reading, so we will be focusing on reading. I can also use formative assessments like think-pair-shares to see how they are doing during instruction. In order to monitor how they feel they are doing (an extremely important factor in student success) I could also have them use our learning platform, Otus, to keep a digital diary of their interests and goals. Self-reflection will help them with their social skills practice, which they need, while goal setting supports their practical skill growth (Murawski & Scott, 2019). The digital aspect means they can record themselves speaking their thoughts, removing their writing barriers and allowing them to work on their speaking skills. I can have them share important moments from their digital diaries too to further practice their communication skills. With all of this data and skill practicing happening, I will want to put it to good use in designing and implementing assessments.

Learning Styles and Assessments

When I design assessments for my students, I try to stay focused on the content mastery I want them to demonstrate, not necessarily their mode of demonstration. Allowing them voice and choice also lets them use their strengths while their weaknesses are supported (Murawski & Scott, 2019). For example, when assessing their knowledge of diphthongs, I allowed my students to create a comic strip retelling a heard story using the medium of their choice. They could do a traditional comic strip using drawings, or a 3D comic strip using craft supplies, or they could create a photo comic strip using objects and toys to create scenes and take photos. They then would write a sentence for each scene using at least one word with an appropriate diphthong. This would allow me to assess their spelling in an authentic context as well. In designing and implementing assessments for this group, I would allow them to demonstrate their learning in a way that they feel comfortable while providing prompts and supports as audio recordings. Whenever possible, I would also provide pictures, diagrams, and examples as they have shown that they benefit from visual supports as well.

One of my favorite ways to design and implement assessments for this group is to use our learning platform, Otus. I can create a sorting assessment for images, sounds, or words. I can type the prompt and instructions and attach any images, links to read-alouds, or videos they may need. I can include a check answer button to provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their answers and change if need be. I can also allow them to access a text-to-speech feature which will read any words on the page and highlight them, something which greatly improves access for my struggling readers. This kind of assessment appeals to all of the learning styles in my group because it includes auditory and visual supports, and the manipulation of the images, words, or sounds into their categories allows for some kinesthetic learning to take place.

Conclusion

Students are coming to school with a variety of interests and needs. They have varying levels of cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development. It is imperative for us as teachers to evaluate their strengths, interests, and need for growth in order to inform our planning, instruction, and assessment. My favorite way to support my varied learners is to use multimodal instruction as described above that will appeal to all of my students and their learning styles.

Thank you for reading!

Cassandra Coleman

References:

Dabrowski, J., & Marshall, T. R. (2019). Choice & Relevancy: Autonomy and personalization in assignments help motivate and engage students. Principal, 98(3), 10–13.

Dartmouth. (2019, March 12). Student Development. Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://dcal.dartmouth.edu/resources/teaching-learning-foundations/student-development

Murawski, W. W., & Scott, K. L. (2019). What really works with universal design for learning. Corwin.

Technology for Differentiation

The Tools 

Today's students are facing a rapidly changing world with a knowledge pool that grows continually. More and more they are immersed in technology in and out of school, and many of them are finding ways to use technology to make life and learning more accessible. Teachers can do the same when thoughtfully and purposefully using technology as an instructional tool, a reflection tool for students, or as a means to allow students to get creative and engaged in relevant contexts (Robinson, 2022). This post will investigate three technological tools that can aid with differentiation in the classroom: SMART boards, Otus, and Newsela.

Technology	Ease of Use	Practicality of Incorporation	Cost	User friendliness		Cross-curricular Ability
				Teacher	Student
SMART Board	Depends on the model and technology already in use	Depending on the model, setup is easy and you may use immediately	Anywhere from $2500-$7000 (Weatherford, 2020)	Varies	Varies	Extremely useful and useable
Otus	May require some training, but logically structured	Incorporates seamlessly and can save time (Otus, 2023)	About $10 per student (Westman, 2022)	Training may be required, but they have many supports built in	Very useable	Extremely useful and useable
Newsela	Very easy to search and adjust	Articles are short enough to fit into any class period, covers all content areas	Can create a free account with limited options, additional solutions vary based off student count and district size	Easy to use and very easy to adjust for differentiation	Very easy	Has articles for every content area

The above table outlines some features of the three tech tools that may impact an educator's decision in pursuing the implementation of the resource. Let's begin with SMART boards.

SMART Boards

SMART boards are like giant, touchscreen computers that hang on the wall. In my classroom, the SMART board is constantly in use and is actually a motivator for my students. I have worked with several SMART boards or Promethean boards, and the model will have a major impact on the ease of use. Setup can be easy, and as soon as it turns on, you can use it, but be forewarned that effective use of the board may require some training. You will also need suitable W-fi and accompanying technological tools, such as devices for your students to connect with (if you are deploying interactive resources from the board. These boards can be expensive, so maybe think about applying for a grant or donation. Again, the board can be user-friendly, but training may be required. The cross-curricular potential of the board is limitless as it can access the internet and the plethora of resources available. 

Otus

Otus is a learning management system used by my district. It is created by teachers for teachers and has a logical structure to it, so it is actually pretty user-friendly. For those who want it, Otus maintains a professional development library, a blog, and a support chat. They also implement cohorts each semester for targeted learning. Otus is only about $10 per student. It can be highly useful for teachers with multiple gradebook options, lesson-building and assessment-building capabilities as well as multiple interaction points between students and teachers. As a LMS, it is very useful for cross-curricular teaching as well as cross-curricular collaboration since you can share resources with your colleagues directly in the system.

Newsela

Newsela allows teachers to find articles on a large variety of topics for their students and select an appropriate Lexile level for each student. Once signed up, it is very easy to search and adjust the articles. The articles are easy to fit into one class period if necessary and can build on what students are already learning about. Newsela has free options, but districts can investigate pricing to allow teachers greater flexibility and access to articles. As it allows for instant adjustment, Newsela is both teacher and student-friendly. Its large variety of topics makes it a perfect tool for cross-curricular resources.

Differentiation and Teaching Strategies

Each of the three tools can be used to differentiate, whether it be for readiness, interests, or learning styles. Differentiation is our efforts to respond and adapt to our students' unique needs and interests in order to support their academic success (Tomlinson, n.d.). The SMART board allows teachers to employ digital strategies such as graphic organizers to help differentiate for students who are functioning at different readiness levels. Students who need the support can access collaborative or individual organizers that are dispersed to their Chromebooks from the SMART board. The SMART board's access to the internet also allows students and teachers to find resources for all interests and gamify learning via websites and apps such as Kahoot! This quiz-based game has a library of ready-made Kahoots on topics from every content area. The teacher can pull it up on the SMART board and the students can engage with it on their Chromebooks either in teams or individually through their choice of game mode. Finally, the SMART board appeals to all learning styles as it provides visuals, audio, and even kinesthetic activities through digital manipulatives.

Otus allows teachers to differentiate for readiness levels through their lesson-building and assessment-building tools. There are a variety of options to choose from, and in order to adjust them, teachers can simply clone the assessment and alter as needed. For example, in my classroom, I could create a CLOZE reading assessment for my first graders. For my students that are ready for it, I could create it using only text. To adjust it, I could clone it and add picture supports or even enable a text-to-speech tool. Otus also allows for differentiation for interests and learning styles because of the infinite options the teacher has in creating resources, lessons, and assessments. They can upload their own, such as Youtube videos, PowerPoints, links to Kahoots!, etc. or they can use ready-made question items to build assessments.

Newsela supports differentiation for readiness levels because it allows the teacher to choose Lexile levels and automatically adjusts the text within the article. This makes it easier for teachers to create groups based off skill. Grouping is an important strategy for differentiated instruction (Colquitt, et al., 2017). Similarly to the SMART board and Otus, Newsela has access to such a wide range of topics, it can appeal to students' varied interests and lends itself well to cross-curricular activities. In order to appeal to different learning styles, Newsela has built in supports such as images that students can expand, annotation tools, and even options to listen to the article while following along.

Student Ownership

In this final section, we will look at two of these technologies and see how they promote student learning and student ownership of their education. In order to foster student learning and ownership, teachers need to provide students with choice and relevancy, which means the lesson or activity needs to present useful knowledge that is interesting to the student (Dabrowski & Marshall, 2019). The two tools we will look at are Otus and Newsela.

Otus is designed to support student learning. Teachers can create lesson pathways with multiple options for students to choose from to demonstrate their learning. Students can access a variety of resources through Otus as well as collaborate with their classmates and their teachers via the Class Board and the Blog. They also learn to own their learning because they can track their progress in the built-in gradebook, add to their portfolio with the click of a mouse, and monitor their own timelines and processes as they work through the lessons their teacher has created.

Newsela can be completed individually or as a group. It has visual and auditory supports to foster student success and even includes annotation tools so students can actively monitor their own reading. This also helps students take charge of their learning. They can work to analyze the information and decide what is important enough for them to take notes on. They can also, if provided by the teacher, choose which articles to tackle.

Conclusion

With all of the resources and options available, SMART boards, Otus, and Newsela can help teachers provide relevant, meaningful opportunities for students to learn. They assist with differentiation and can promote students' ownership over their own learning.

Thank you for reading!

Cassandra Coleman

References:

Colquitt, G., Pritchard, T., Johnson, C., & McCollum, S. (2017). Differentiating Instruction in Physical Education: Personalization of Learning. JOPERD: The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 88(7), 44–50. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/07303084.2017.1340205

Crayons clip art. (n.d.). Daily Clip Art. https://www.dailyclipart.net/clipart/crayons-clip-art/

Dabrowski, J., & Marshall, T. R. (2019). Choice & Relevancy: Autonomy and personalization in assignments help motivate and engage students. Principal, 98(3), 10–13.

Otus. (2023, March 2). Implementation | otus. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://otus.com/implementation/

Robinson, A. (2022, January 21). Effective uses of technology in elementary school. Edutopia. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/effective-uses-technology-elementary-school

Tomlinson, C. A. (n.d.). What is differentiated instruction. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

Weatherford, M. (2020, March 3). How much does a SMART board cost? Smarter Systems. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://www.smartersys.com/blog/how-much-does-a-smart-board-cost