ACTION PLAN
To ensure the curriculum was slightly beyond my students’ grasp and required significant effort to master the math skill, I implemented differentiated math instruction. Through research, I chose the best strategies to implement in my study: mind maps, math talk, formative assessments, and Build, Act, Writing, or Draw (BAWD). These strategies were chosen due to the level of scaffold support that was differentiated for the diversity of learning needs within my classroom. My class required instruction that fit their own style of learning within a multitude of strategies.
MIND MAPS
Mind Maps provided a visual reference of the end goal. My students kept the end goal in mind as they gained confidence and understanding with the math skills. This was created before each unit, discussed as a class, and referred back to throughout each math lesson. Pre and Post tests were taken to show where each student was at the beginning and end of a math unit. This data was used to gain an understanding of where my students were mathematically and used to plan my instruction.
MATH TALKS
Math Talk consisted of purposeful questions for my students to answer throughout the math lesson. These questions were planned before the lesson to guide my students to success, rather than funneling their thoughts to the correct answer. Using multiple perspectives from my CADRE Associate and teaching partners, misconceptions were addressed and planned for. This allowed me to foster my students’ mathematical skills through their thinking, writing, sharing and learning. This strategy created a strong communicative community within the classroom which set the stage for purposeful math talk.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Formative Assessments, purposeful questions, and conferring with my students were implemented in the math instruction. I conferenced with students during the whole group and guided practice instruction to define the differentiation needed within the math curriculum. This impacted my instruction by utilizing the data to create a flexible grouping for my students: intervention, extra practice, and enrichment.
BUILD, ACT, WRITING, DRAW (BAWD)
The amount of time and level of support were scaffold based on the data from the formative assessments which showcased my students’ knowledge of math concepts. Depending on the math lesson of the day, students received interventions or extra practice which aligned with the curriculum. One strategy I implement was Build, Act, Writing, or Draw (BAWD) for those students to have a choice of how they best understood the specific math concept.
IMPLEMENTATION
For the high-achieving students, they received enrichment within the math lesson to keep the learning goal active. I gained a new perspective as I collaborated with the High Ability of Learning Education (HALE) teacher to align an enrichment tub filled with hands-on activities and math packets to differentiate the instruction for this group. The scaffold instruction added depth and complexity to their learning.
Questions were planned to address misconceptions and cues were provided to deepen my students’ thinking. These involved stations that were implemented to differentiate my math instruction this year. In my classroom, I taught whole group instruction for 10 minutes. During this time, I modeled the skill and expectations for the lesson from the math mat and shared the ‘I can’ statement for their learning goal. This was direct instruction. Students completed guided instruction through working on problems with a partner. I walked around to answer questions and guide their learning as they worked in their seats. This guided instruction lasted 5 minutes. From there, the student completed a formative assessment to share their knowledge of the learning goal. This data was used to plan instruction and groups for the math rotations: Teacher Table, Hands-On, and Math Mat. The curriculum was scaffold and differentiated for interventions, extra practice, or enrichment based on student needs. The groups rotated through these stations after 10 minutes.
Differentiation took place through each math station. Students were grouped based on the formative assessment score, Quick Checks. Flexible groups were implemented to provide appropriate skill-ability instruction that best fit their needs. Intervention, extra practice, or enrichment were embedded to keep the learning goal active for each student.
DIVERSE LEARNING NEEDS
The knowledge my students brought into the classroom was diverse and special due to the wide range of interests and abilities. The diversity in my classroom, based on the data I collected, conceptualized the need for differentiated instruction. The goal of my study was to increase student math achievement through the use of differentiated instruction.
Diverse learning needs were met through this study by differentiation. During whole group instruction, a ‘hook’ was used at the beginning of the lesson to hook their attention. I made this something that was relatable and interesting to them. This was used to invite students in the learning process with excitement. Based on the needs of my classroom, physical activity was often involved during guided instruction to improve on-task behavior.
My class required multiple movements breaks to refresh and refocus the learning. Desks were arranged in groups of two with purposeful partners to have guided practice completed successfully. The instruction was differentiated by the amount of time and scaffold instruction provided to students.
For students who needed more support, I provided hands-on visuals, step-by-step guidance with practice problems, sent home practice sheets and assisted with the student’s math mats. For my students who were on-level, they were given guiding questions to deepen their thinking and less step-by-step support. I clarified their level of learning by purposeful questions and they completed their math mat independently. Students who required enrichment were given extra practice material from the HALE teacher and less instruction from me for the math mat.
For each math station, Teacher Table, Hands-On, Math Mat, students were engaged while they achieved the math goal by writing, sharing, or talking through the math skill. During stations, I observed and scanned the classroom for confusion or misunderstandings. This was proactive to ensure student work was completed through focus and engagement.
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE
I wanted to create a culture for my students to feel known, cared for, safe, and respected. To do this, I gained an understanding of their diversity of interests, background, knowledge, learning styles, and levels of learning. This knowledge was used as a tool to create trusting connections and learning opportunities for my students.
I accomplished this goal by knowing the individual importance held by each of my students. To encourage individual learning, I incorporated differentiated instruction throughout my study. My students were grouped flexibly by ability through formative assessments. This was in order to provide the needed level of instruction at their level. This provided each student to reach the same outcome through a different path which was based on their individual needs.
On each path, the learning goal was the same and made accessible for each of my students. They were able to reach the learning goal of the content taught through the whole group instruction. The differentiation of instruction allowed for each student to reach the learning goal with instructional methods that met each students’ needs. This was encouraged through previous teaching experiences, mentors, research, and collaboration with my teaching partners. Through this instruction, I was able to give direct instruction that was fair to my students.
My students followed the expectations for fairness. Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same thing, but instead, everyone gets what they need. This was implemented during guided instruction and group work within the flexible grouping based on the formative assessment.
Fairness and differentiated instruction set the stage for equity in our classroom. Equity encouraged failures as steps toward success. My students were not fearful of being rejected and taking risks with their learning as they used their failure to guide their next step to achieve the math concept. This encouraged mathematical confidence, asking more questions, challenging math concepts, and assisted in each of my students to reach success. I allowed my students to reach the same learning goal with mathematical achievement, through a different avenue which was based on their needs.
Throughout my study, reflection guided my instruction for the differentiated instruction needed to meet my students’ needs. Daily reflection has made an impact as a reflective scholar to better meet the needs of my students. My students were able to learn through the collaboration of peer work and playing games with their peers. To integrate multiple perspectives, I allowed for students who prefer to work alone, the choice to work by themselves to help them to reach the learning goal.
Through my students’ various paths of learning, I myself was learning as well. As a reflective scholar, I consider myself a lifetime learner, always seeking advice and using mentors for collaboration and support. Through the literature review process, I gained new perspectives on how to meet the needs of my students. Specifically, through differentiated instruction through the math curriculum. I began to see the importance of meeting the needs of my students in various ways. As I researched new understandings of how to utilize differentiated instruction, I realized I would also need to find effective strategies to showcase the data of this research through this implementation. Through the study, I continued to develop skills, dispositions and gain knowledge as a dedicated practitioner, reflective scholar, and responsible citizen. Cognizantly, I learned students learn through a variety of styles that can be matched through effective teaching practices and differentiated instruction.
COLLABORATION
My CADRE associate provided on-task behavior checks through this study. As he observed five students, each for one minute, he was focused on their engagement. Students needed to be writing, reading, sharing, or working hands-on towards the math goal. This collaboration and data were utilized in my reflection of the lesson. The engagement piece was altered for the next lesson if engagement needed to be increased. Both my school principal and I believed on-task behavior during learning would increase the amount of information that is learned. This was valuable information to make sure my students were actively learning their learning goal during math instruction.
Externally, I had the opportunity to work with my CADRE associate. He assisted with preparing purposeful questions for math lessons. This supported my study and gained a new perspective of insight into what types of questions that were used to guide instruction.
My teaching partners and I collaborated to discuss common misconceptions for each lesson. They have taught this curriculum for the past four years and have gained knowledge of the skills and clarifications needed for students to be successful. Their multiple perspectives helped me to prepare and prevent the misconceptions that have happened with previous experience. We discussed common questions that have been asked, that I may not have anticipated, and I was able to take this information and prepare questions to purposefully guide my students to the learning goal. The collaborative math lesson during math instruction fostered powerful discussions within my classroom. We were able to find a few times to meet together to share resources and ideas to provide interventions and enrichment for my students based on the data collected.
Numerously, my CADRE cohort and I collaborated and shared research articles, resources, and perspectives to find strategies that supported my action research implementation. This collaboration supported my instruction and ability to positively improve math achievement through differentiated instruction. We, also, shared hands-on activities to increase student engagement.