I Put on Clothes for This?

Here I go again, sounding like an old person. . .

Back in the days before the Internet, curious scholars who wanted to learn from a wise expert enrolled in classes to listen to lecturers pontificate about their areas of knowledge. I have fond memories of many of my college professors (and some of my high school teachers) regaling  (mostly) eager students with lectures while we furiously took notes to capture as many brilliant ideas as we could.

In today’s world, we can find lectures in many places. A simple Google search will yield numerous videos, podcasts, and presentations on nearly any topic featuring eminent scholars from around the globe. Students can now receive a better-than-average traditional education for free with only a smartphone and a pair of earbuds.

It would be vain for any of us to believe that our lecturing abilities surpass those of everyone who has ever made a TED Talk or YouTube video, so if we are relying on the one-way transmission of information during our classes as our sole mode of instruction, we are replicating (probably less effectively) an experience students can get elsewhere. Similarly, if we spend class time showing videos or movies, we are asking students to come to school to do something they could do just as effectively at home without having to change out of their jammies.

The advent of learning management systems, such as Google Classroom, and the trend toward 1-to-1 access to technology have made it all too easy for instructors to post an assignment and sit back while the students work quietly on it on their Chromebooks, laptops, or tablets. In many cases, these online assignments are the electronic equivalent of worksheets, with students filling in blanks and boxes as they answer teacher-created questions or complete online charts and tables. Many students come to school and spend most of their day sitting silently in front of screens, providing the information asked for, with little to no interaction with their instructor or peers. It’s really no different than if they had stayed at home taking an online course, except, of course, they had to put on clothes to come to school.   

If physical schools and colleges are going to remain viable in the present and future, they must provide an education that is different and better from what students can receive at home online. Real school has to be different from e-school.* There has to be substantial value in making the effort to get dressed and come to class beyond just hanging out with friends in the halls and cafeteria.

Additionally, if teachers want to remain in actual classrooms with students and to push back on politicians who try to increase class sizes, we have to show that our physical presence in proximity to our learners makes a difference. We can’t follow the example of “Ditto,” the character from the 1984 movie Teachers, whose students are so accustomed to filling in worksheets without any interaction that no one notices the teacher has dropped dead at his desk until  they run out of mimeographed worksheets to complete. We must put into practice the things that distinguish live instruction from e-learning.

One benefit to being a student in a classroom with an actual, living teacher is the opportunity to receive live, in-person, in-the-moment verbal feedback from the instructor. We know that the most effective feedback is the kind that occurs when learners actually need it, at the point when they can improve what they are working on. Telling students what they should have done after the fact doesn’t have the same impact as coaching students along the way. As students are reading, writing, or creating, teachers could hold quick check-in conferences with individuals or small groups to clear up confusion, redirect those who are heading off track, offer suggestions for growth, ask questions to promote self-reflection, or nudge students to the next level.

The teacher isn’t the only source of valuable feedback in a face-to-face classroom. Some of the most transformative feedback comes from peers. When we teach students to give and receive feedback from one another, everyone becomes more skilled and accomplished. Establishing structures and procedures for providing feedback in class on one another’s work is a worthwhile step toward making the most of the learning options available in traditional classroom settings.

Differentiation is another opportunity that is seized more easily in an in-person teaching situation. A savvy teacher figures out where each student is and offers next steps that are responsive to each student’s needs. If we are marching all our students in unison through a one-size-fits-all series of experiences, we are missing out on the opportunity to grow all our students to their fullest capacity. Teachers who make the biggest differences with students have a sequence of clear goals in mind and are able to put each student at the right point on the continuum to move them closer to the target. They also have an idea of how to challenge at a deeper level any student who has reached mastery.

Perhaps the most significant bonus of coming to school and learning in classrooms is the chance to have conversations in real time about what we are learning. The art of verbal discourse is limping along in our emoji-driven society. When the only communication students have with other humans is through Snapchat pics and abbreviated text messages, they don’t get better at speaking. Yet those who can effectively express themselves verbally get what they want in life. What better place is there to practice speaking than in a classroom where there are others with whom to converse and a teacher to offer feedback for improvement? Classroom conversations—whether in informal pair-share situations, structured discussions (such as Socratic Seminars or Philosophical Chairs debates), collaborative study groups, or small work groups—bring the learning to life. Students aren’t just sitting there slack-jawed in front of screens; they are engaged with one another, defending positions, trying out new ideas, clarifying their thinking, and questioning themselves and each other. This is where the learning happens. This is when the effort of coming to class becomes worth it.

As we plan for instruction, it’s not a bad idea to look critically at how we are teaching. If every day of class involves something students could do just as effectively at home in isolation, it’s time to change it up. We need to rethink the role of the teacher and the role of the student in schools. When we see the teacher as a valuable source of feedback, individualized coaching, and inspiration and the students as active participants in a community of learners, school will once again become something worth putting on clothes for.

* I mean no disparagement to those who are doing important work developing online courses and electronic learning experiences for students. There’s a growing demand for e-school classes, and I’m impressed by the efforts to make online learning increasingly interactive, open-ended, and responsive to student needs. I wonder whether the demand for e-school classes is partly due to the fact that so many traditional schools are still teaching like it’s 1985.  

While You Were Paying Attention to the Strugglers. . .

When we dive deeply into our student data, we learn so much about the kids we teach. It’s fascinating to put together the clues of a student’s assessment history. We notice trends in performance, uncover weaknesses, and make plans to rescue those who are struggling the most. We develop remediation plans. We target specific standards to emphasize and reteach. We identify the objectives most missed by our students and redesign entire lessons to make sure our kids learn what they don’t know. We become that guy from the sappy little parable, walking along the shoreline and frantically flinging starfish from the beach back into the water, determined to save as many as we can.

Meanwhile, the gifted kids in our classrooms often go unacknowledged, ignored, and unchallenged.

Helping struggling students grow is one of the most important things teachers do, but every student deserves to make at least one year’s progress during one year of school. While we are scrambling help our neediest, what are we doing to meet the needs of the kids who already get it?

Education has no finish line where kids get to stop and rest, satisfied that they know all there is to know and have learned everything. When we cap off instruction, putting a ceiling over our students, growth is stifled. Bright students become disengaged, bored, and apathetic. Some of them turn their attention to mischief-making and become your worst classroom management problems because gifted kids who want to cause trouble are often very skilled at doing so.

Gifted education guru Carol Ann Tomlinson says that differentiation, ultimately, is an act of empathy. Educators put themselves in the position of each student in the classroom and figure out what everyone needs. Then, they try their hardest to take care of each one, not because they are told to do so but because they know it's the right thing to do. 

It’s not easy to meet the needs of every student in a mixed-ability classroom, and secondary educators tend to be much less accommodating to diverse learners than our friends in elementary. Traditionally, secondary classrooms are a one-size-fits-all model, where every student receives the same instruction and does identical assignments. One popular solution to this—though not one I think very highly of—is to always have some extension work for students who finish early. This solves the problem of keeping every kids occupied, but the extra work seems more like a punishment than a blessing to the high school gifted student who soon figures out the way to keep from having to do more is to work more slowly. When the extension work is a meaningless diversion unconnected to the curriculum (puzzle pages, logic problems, crosswords, etc.), the purpose is clearly babysitting rather than growing learners. Elementary teachers understand that good teaching sometimes looks like a three-ring circus, with the teacher checking in on everyone and providing appropriate attention at just the right time to keep everyone progressing.

One of the ways I prefer to think about providing appropriate experiences for gifted learners is to consider depth and complexity:  How can this content, skill, or subject be viewed more deeply and in more complex ways?

Depth and complexity can appear in many guises, some of which can be uncovered by asking yourself questions like these:

• What does this look like when the experts do it?
• What’s the next step or the next level in producing a more advanced product or thinking about the topic?
• What do people who study this professionally argue or discuss?
• What moral or ethical issues are associated with this topic?
• What is ambiguous about this subject?
• What words do experts use to talk about this topic? 
• Are there exceptions to the rule, plausible non-examples, or variations you didn’t teach to the entire class but that are worth exploring?
• Who are some of the important thinkers, doers, or innovators in this field?
• What are some articles, books, or primary sources that would provide interesting additional understanding of the topic?
• What do your students wonder about this topic that could be explored more deeply?
• What does this topic look like in another locale, in a later time period, in a different situation, of from a different perspective?
• What influenced this? What did this influence?
• What’s the counter-argument, point of disagreement, or opposite viewpoint?
• How does this topic connect to other topics you’ve studied, to other subjects, or to the wider world?

Sometimes, differentiation for gifted learners is as simple as offering some choices that intrigue the students and pointing them in the direction of the right resources. The option to explore at a level that provides a worthwhile challenge—not more work but different work—might hook some of your gifted learners. Who knows? Some of your struggling learners might take up the challenge, too.

By all means, take care of your special ed kids, your English language learners, your at-risk students, and your underserved populations. Just don’t forget to also take care of your gifted and talented students. As much as anyone in your classroom, they need you to push them and motivate them to keep growing as learners.

Growth for All

I half-jokingly mention to people that I am the sole caretaker of a number of at-risk houseplants. It’s pretty much true, though. Despite my attempts to foster the growth of the specimens under my care, most of the vegetation in my home exhibits at least one undesirable trait. My aloe has stopped growing. The peace lily hasn’t bloomed in years. The two remaining leaves of the once-vibrant snake plant seem healthy but lonely. The philodendron drops yellowed foliage periodically. The zeezee plant (yes, the one that Better Homes and Gardens says is “so easy it’s almost a challenge to kill”) is proving that I’m exceptionally bad at plant life support. And the unidentified plant I grew from a cutting my neighbor gave me is now so tall and gangly that it constantly requires cutting back and propping up.

I’ve read all about plant care, and I have come to a conclusion. I’m overfertilizing some, underfertilizing others. Some are too wet; others, too dry. A few could benefit from repotting. Two need to be moved to a sunnier window. One needs to be left alone. And one will be just fine if I find something for it to climb on.

It occurred to me (in my never-ending quest for educational metaphors) that my plant E.R. is a lot like a classroom. Like my houseplants, every student has needs that must be met in order for each one to grow. Some could use a little boost of fertilizer or root stimulant (I might call that motivation). Others require supports and scaffolds. A few would benefit from some pruning or redirection. Many should receive more care from me, but some are stifled by excessive attention and need to be left to their own devices.

In every case, plants and students grow more successfully when you get to know each one individually and meet each one’s needs. Plants allegedly like to be talked to; so do students, especially when the talk shows that you see them as people, not just as part of a collective whole.

Plants and students all deserve to experience at least a year’s worth of growth in a year. Tending to one segment of the population and extending that same treatment to all will ensure that only one segment grows.

A grave danger exists in schools when educators create a single deficit narrative and apply it to all their students. “My students can’t or won’t  ______.”  Fill in the blank with whatever you want: read, write, solve problems, do homework, think critically, pass the state test, study, pay attention, etc. What sometimes happens is that we craft a deficit narrative, apply it to all our students (even though in reality it only relates to a portion), and then prescribe a treatment for all according to that narrative. In effect, we put leg braces on every student even though only a few need to wear them.

When a houseplant appears healthy but has stopped growing, chances are it is root bound. The roots have reached the capacity of the pot and have nowhere to expand. The only way to get the plant to grow is to transplant it into a larger pot.

At times, the one-size-fits-all approach to classroom instruction leaves the most able learners root bound. By teaching to the lowest common denominator, we limit the growth of students who could thrive if given the room to expand the scope of their learning.

I’m going to work on getting better acquainted with my plants. I need to stop trying to diagnose them as one big, problematic group and instead get to know each one and give it what it needs. I’m also going to encourage teachers, administrators, and others who work with students to do the same. It would be nice if one solution fixed every problem, but the world is more complex than that, whether we are talking of plants or pupils. Let’s give all a chance to grow.

Can Openers

Do you know how to use a can opener? Not the fancy electric kind. The old-school hand-held contraption with the twisty-knob on the side.  

Imagine you are a student in a class where the teacher gives everyone a can opener pre-test. Each student gets a can opener and is asked to try to open a can. A handful of students complete the task effortlessly. Some of your classmates just look dumbfounded. Others fumble around a bit and manage to finally get the utensil to latch onto the edge of the can. The lefties in the room gripe about this task being especially difficult for them because the knob has to be twisted with the right hand, but some master the procedure nonetheless. Several minutes later, the teacher takes stock of the situation: some of the students are successful, and others are not. She marks that down in her gradebook and proceeds with the lesson.

It’s time for the can opening lecture and demonstration. The class dutifully takes notes as the teacher explains how to open a can with a can opener. Next, it’s time for the can-opening YouTube video, a five minute thriller in which a voiceover narrator explains in detail how to open a can while showing the process four times, once in slow motion to break it down for everyone. The teacher pauses the video twice to wake up or redirect the off-task behaviors of students who came into class already knowing how to open a can.

Noticing that the bell is about to ring, the teacher announces the homework assignment:  “Go home tonight, get twenty cans out of your pantry and open the odd-numbered ones. Bring the opened cans to class tomorrow so that I can check your work.”

The bell rings, and you are dismissed.

If you were one of the students who already knew how to open a can and demonstrated it during the activity at the beginning of class, how excited are you going to be about this homework assignment? If you’re a compliant pleaser, you’ll go home and waste time (and money) opening 10 cans to bring to school. If you’re one of those kids who is easily bored and isn’t motivated by grades, chances are that you will get a zero on this assignment.

My friend’s son J.T. Is one of those kids who would get a zero on this.

J.T. is a high school junior who has the (mis?)fortune of having two educators as parents. In other words, J.T. sometimes knows too much for his own good.

For instance, J.T. once asked his math teacher why, if he made a 97 on her formative assessment, he was having to do the same homework as the entire class. Instead of getting an answer, J.T. got sent to the office for insubordination.

We can speculate all day about this scenario and the cause of J.T.’s punishment. Maybe the teacher was having a bad day. Perhaps J.T. has a history of misbehavior, and this was the final straw. It could be that the studies are accurate that say that young black males are disciplined disproportionately and that J.T.’s reasonable question was viewed as an attack intended to disrupt the class and derail learning.

I suspect, though, that the real root of the problem was that J.T. asked a question that called out an indefensible practice. If an assessment is truly formative, it is used to inform instruction. If the purpose of homework is to provide practice on content so students can master it, students who have already demonstrated mastery shouldn’t have to do it. And if gradebooks are designed to communicate mastery toward objectives, homework grades of zero for noncompliance don’t give any worthwhile feedback to the person viewing the gradebook.

I can’t even think of an answer to J.T.’s question that makes sense. Because I said so? Because homework builds responsibility? Because it’s good for you? Because it’s not fair to the other students if you don’t have homework?

What answer would you accept from your teacher if you asked why you had to spend your evening opening half the cans in the pantry when you already knew how to open a can?

Formative assessments aren’t any good if we don’t use them to modify our instruction. We can pat ourselves on the back all we want for using exit tickets, pretests, Kahoots, Plickers, Nearpods, quickwrites, and quick quizzes, but all of those tools are useless if they aren’t giving us a guide for what needs to happen next for the class as a whole and, in most cases, for subsets of students within the class.

Formative assessment is one of the most powerful tools in the educator’s toolbox but only if it’s used the way it’s intended.  Don’t use a can opener to floss your teeth.

Yoga Teachers Understand Differentiation Better Than I Do

I’ve been thinking about differentiation quite a bit lately. Sometimes, I even think about it when I’m not supposed to--in my yoga class last week, for instance.

I understand that while I am in the midst of my yoga practice I am supposed to be focusing on my breath and allowing my mind to be an empty slate, but since I had spent a considerable amount of time that week talking about differentiated instruction with teachers, pedagogical thoughts kept interrupting my asanas.

Secondary teachers, in particular, often struggle with differentiation. Our colleagues in the elementary schools get it. It’s not uncommon to observe students in an elementary classroom learning at various paces and working on individualized learning trajectories independently or in small groups. At the middle school and high school levels, however, the idea of planning instruction that is responsive to varied levels of academic readiness and ability in one classroom causes some consternation among even the most accomplished teachers.

Unfortunately, there’s not a simple recipe for differentiation. There is no step-by-step process we can easily plug into any educational situation and--voila!--our lesson is differentiated. There are, however, some basic principles that govern many differentiated instruction scenarios.

During my yoga class last week, I realized that my yoga instructor, Nicole, understands those principles and practices them much more skillfully than I.  

Have a clear idea of the goal for the class session. Nicole always has a clear plan in place, a goal for each yoga session. Perhaps it’s a hip-opening class, or maybe we are working on shoulders. Whatever the goal, Nicole has designed a series of poses that will help all the students in the class reach it. In our own classrooms, this translates into having a clear purpose or objective in mind. All students are working toward the same objective, and the teacher has carefully constructed lesson plans and activities to allow the students to reach that end goal. Depending on their readiness, students will take varied paths to reach the goal, and some will make some extra stops along the way to examine the journey in greater depth, but they’re all headed to the same place.  

Assess students’ needs and abilities. As the room fills up before the yoga class, our instructor meets the newbies, introduces herself, and asks if they have any injuries or issues she needs to know about. During the class, she’s been known to shout out, “Those of you with knee issues might want to use a blanket here,” or a similar warning. She knows that I’ve been having problems with my right Achilles’ tendon, so she will offer me tips on how to do certain poses to avoid exacerbating the injury. She knows who’s a beginner and who’s experienced, and she alters her vocabulary and terminology to suit her audience. Because she is aware that we all show up with different levels of experience and bodies that each perform differently, Nicole works hard to know her participants and adjust her plans to help all succeed. Classroom teachers can learn from this example. Before planning and implementing differentiation, we first need to become aware of our students’ strengths and potential growth areas. We can’t meet needs unless we know what the needs are.   

Allow students to set goals for their own learning. As yoga class begins, we sit on our mats and pause a moment to set an intention for the class. Each of us reflects on a goal--mental or physical--to help focus our practice. Allowing our students to set some goals for themselves is a great way to help them focus their learning and measure their achievement.

Provide support for students who are struggling. My hamstrings are chronically tight. Forward bends are tough to execute fully. Sometimes, I stand there sadly with arms dangling six inches away from the floor when I’m asked to bend forward and put my hands on the ground.  Fortunately, our yoga studio comes equipped with foam and cork blocks, cloth straps, specially-designed yoga chairs, and piles of blankets that can be used as props to assist us during class. When she’s leading class, Nicole will often suggest modifications to help the less bendy students get the benefit from particular poses. In my case, I might use a block to “raise” the floor several inches so I can reach it. In our classrooms, teachers do the same thing. We use scaffolding to help students access the content at an appropriately challenging level. Sometimes, we are required by law to make accommodations and modifications for students, but at other times we see a need and address it with an instructional adjustment that gives that student the necessary support. Once the student can handle it on his or her own, we remove the support.     

Allow students to work at their own pace.  There comes a time in nearly every class when we do a number of sun salutations. For those of you unfamiliar, a sun salutation is a series of poses that almost always involves some combination of a downward dog pose, an upward-facing dog, a chaturanga (which is like the lowering part of a pushup and which can be done at varying speeds and at varying heights, stopping at painful points midway to elongate the pain), and other add-ons like leg lifts, hops, or warrior poses. At some point during the sun salutation fun, Nicole will invite us to proceed at our own pace rather than following her verbal cues. This allows the yogis to pace themselves, to add extra flourishes or challenges, or to rest, if needed. During the time allotted for this, some opt to zoom through many salutations while others slow it down and savor the moment. Still others retreat to the safety of child’s pose to recuperate for a few minutes. This is the essence of differentiation: every student working to the best of his or her ability at his or her own pace. We don’t do it for the entire lesson (because then most of us would not be learning anything), but Nicole carves out the appropriate time for this so that all participants in her class get a good workout.

Offer opportunities for exploring the material with greater depth and complexity. We were in some kind of twisty knot pose. Nicole informed us that this was the perfect opportunity for the more advanced students to try a bind, that is, to reach one arm beneath an outstretched leg and join it with another arm that has been wrapped behind the back. Later, we were on the floor doing a forward fold of some sort, and Nicole invited us--if we wished--to tip forward onto our hands, kick our legs out to the side, and attempt an arm balance. Finally, we were given the option to move into a headstand if we were into that sort of thing. Several took Nicole up on her offer each time. I did my best to join my hands in the bind and successfully stood on my head; the arm balance is something I’ve yet to master. Those who chose to stay in the base poses weren’t shamed in any way, but the advanced students were given the opportunity to excel. That, again, is what differentiation is all about.

Don’t make assumptions about abilities. I once walked into another teacher’s class, and she greeted me by saying, “You’re probably going to have a hard time in this class.” She was partly right, but she didn’t know that I was a fairly regular yoga practitioner who could handle most of what she was dishing out. She made me feel largely unwelcome, and I never went back to her class because she made it clear from the start that she wasn’t planning to meet me wherever I was when I walked into the studio.  Nicole doesn’t do that; she welcomes everyone and helps them to feel successful when they take her class. That’s what differentiation is all about: making everyone welcome and helping them feel successful. Furthermore, not every athlete is a brilliant yoga student. Ask the guy who left after ten minutes of class the other night. Similarly, not every student with a label performs according to that label in all situations. A "gifted" student may struggle in your class even more than a student not bearing that designation. Observe their performance, notice their capabilities, and make your differentiation decisions accordingly. 

Push students to go as far as they are capable. As weird is it may sound, Nicole’s yoga class has a safety word. She tells us that yoga, like any high-risk activity, should have a word to let her know when she’s pushed us too far. So if she tries to stretch me further than my body can go, I know that I can scream out, “Crockpot,” and she will back off. She doesn’t assume we can’t do it, and she lets us stretch to our maximum capacity. The same is true in our classrooms; we should let each student soar to his or her maximum capacity and then realize we’ve taken them as far as they can go.

Make the class a safe place to take risks. Crow pose is scary. It requires you to crouch forward, put your knees on your elbows, and balance. There’s a chance you’ll topple forward and all flat on your nose. But Nicole takes some of the fear out of it and encourages us to play around. A time or two, I’ve actually been able to balance for a few seconds. By making our classrooms safe places for our students to push themselves to their  maximum capacities without a risk of looking stupid or failing completely, we achieve unexpected results.   

Offer Choices.  Throughout my yoga class, I’m given choices about what I want to do next. That’s the hallmark of a well-differentiated class. We offer our students options about how they can demonstrate understanding of our objectives. More often than not, the more capable students will select the more challenging--and therefore more interesting--route.

Debrief as an entire class. The differentiated yoga class didn’t look the same for every participant. Some put their legs behind their heads while others of us attempted a modified pigeon pose instead. Regardless of what our paths looked like during the class, we end the journey in the same pose as we pause together to reflect back on the intention we set at the beginning of the session. Nicole will offer some words of wisdom about what we worked on, where we might be headed in future classes, what we might practice on our own at home, and how we need to make sure to drink lots of water that evening to rinse away all the toxins we stirred up. In the same way, a successfully differentiated lesson in class should conclude in a place that allows all students to debrief together. Since everyone worked on the same thing--albeit in different ways--all are prepared to talk about what they learned and whether they met the stated objective.

We can all learn something from the common practices in my yoga class. Though it’s not necessarily easier than forcing everyone to march to the same drummer throughout the class period, providing options for differentiation will help every student engage to his or her fullest potential and will make our classes more interesting and effective than what we were doing before. I challenge you to make that happen.

Namaste.     


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If you want to know more about my yoga teacher, Nicole Payseur, visit her website. She's always got some wisdom to share.

How High is Your Ceiling?

Students are tired of bumping their heads on the low ceilings in our classrooms. Trying to learn in a hunched-over mental position prevents students from growing to their full height academically.

I'm not talking about a physical design flaw we should complain about to the architects. This low-ceiling phenomenon is completely our fault.

Sometimes, we assume our students can't do the thinking on their own, so we do it for them. In effect, we build a really tiny room so that everyone can easily reach the ceiling. Since there’s no need or expectation to extend and grow, students learn to live comfortably in a cramped position. It doesn't seem too bad while they're there. The problem occurs when they leave your room, go elsewhere, and realize they haven't grown enough to reach the things the world expects them to be able to reach on their own.

At other times, we give our students assignments or pose questions that have very clear and reachable endpoints. When students complete the assignment and there’s nowhere to go from there, they bump their heads on the academic ceiling we build above them.

If you’re intending to offer differentiation for your high-ability learners, there should be no ceiling. Removing the upper limits will allow these students to stand as tall  as possible and stretch beyond your expected boundaries.

I’ve always been a fan of setting high expectations for all students. I never know when a particular subject or assignment will pique the interest of a specific student who will take off and run with it. Some students, of course, will need a bit of a boost to successfully reach the level of expectation; that’s where scaffolding comes into play.

Many of the strategies AVID uses to engage students are designed to add that support when necessary. Most teachers feel comfortable and justified adding scaffolding to help modify or adapt the learning for those who struggle; however, many times we forget about the students on the other end of the spectrum.  

All students need and deserve a challenge. The gifted students are the ones who least consistently receive one.

Those of you who've been around for a while have no doubt experienced the joy of the online bloodborne pathogens training we get to undergo each year. After a year or two of the same training, there’s not a lot learning to be uncovered in a repeat viewing of an online module. This yearly requirement, then, becomes a tedious drudgery because it’s not mentally engaging or academically stimulating. As I click through the slides and answer the simple questions at the end of the sections, I can feel the ceiling looming close above my head.

How often do our brightest students have this same experience in our classrooms? Do they feel stifled because their learning is limited? Bored because there’s no challenge? Complacent because there’s no incentive to go beyond the basic expectations? Do they speed through their assignment, reach the end, and either occupy themselves with something more interesting or zone out until the period ends?

Many gifted learners are wonderfully compliant and have learned that if they do what’s expected, they can rest comfortably for extended periods of time without having to exert much effort. Others become behavior problems as they seek to entertain their idle brains.

Here are a few ideas for raising the ceiling for your students:

Depth and Complexity:  GT Differentiation Buzzwords:  When you are considering ways to differentiate your curriculum for gifted and talented students, the key words to remember are depth and complexity. What are you doing to allow these learners to dive more deeply into the curriculum? Where are the points where some students can explore more advanced or technical aspects of the content? How can you challenge your students with advanced potential to see the nuances, make more thoughtful connections within and between disciplines, and consider varied perspectives?

What next?  I recently attended a training during which we were asked to share our experiences with particular teaching activities with others at our table. Some groups would no doubt finish before others. Our facilitator visited each table a few minutes into the discussion, checked in with the group to see how much more time they needed, and, if it looked like they were soon to finish, he provided a follow-up assignment (“What I want you to do next is….”).  Thus, there was never a point where a group would be completely finished because there were always more tasks. Following his example, if teachers have a seemingly inexhaustible series of increasingly challenging activities in their heads, students can work at full capacity throughout the class period.

Choices: Providing several ways for students to demonstrate mastery of course objectives is another way to meet the needs of a variety of students. Some students, of course, will try to take the easy way out, so in some cases, you might need to direct students to the best option for their ability level.

Formative assessment:  One important purpose for using formative assessment is to determine what your students know and don’t know so that you’ll know who needs differentiation. If you learn that some students are “getting it” more quickly than the rest, it’s time to pull out some differentiation tools to raise the level of challenge for them. If you find that only a few are lagging behind, keep things moving with the remainder of the class while you scaffold the learning for the stragglers.

Differentiated assignments:  One assignment or lesson might exist in several versions that approach the learning objectives at varied levels of depth and complexity.  A teacher might provide specific students with a differentiated assignment at a lower cognitive level for those who require more scaffolding and ramp up the mental challenge for those who can easily grasp the basics. The basic assignment looks the same to the learners, so no one has to know that some are diving more deeply. You could offer differentiated assignments to groups of students or individuals as needed.

Flexible grouping:  At times, ability grouping your students within a class for an assignment or lesson can permit easier differentiation. For instance, in a unit where the students are preparing to present about a topic to their classmates, groups composed of more advanced learners can receive topics which require more complex thinking or more challenging research.   

Independent study:  Once a student has demonstrated that he or she knows what’s expected, there’s an opportunity for that student to devise a learning goal for continued growth. Letting a student who is already interested in a topic explore that topic in more depth is an excellent way to promote learning and engagement. Allow the student to set some teacher-approved learning goals, and guide the exploration as needed to keep the student on track.  

Open-ended assignments:  Assignments and activities where students are expected to converge on one correct answer have a built-in low ceiling. Consider substituting assignments that have many possible answers and, if possible, the opportunity to extend beyond the minimum expectations.  

Crank up the Costa’s:  Spend some time examining the cognitive level of the questions and thinking in your classroom. Realizing that some students will struggle to master the Level 1 knowledge and skills associated with your curriculum while others will catch on quickly, come to class prepared to challenge your kids at whatever level necessary. Level 2 and 3 of Costa’s Levels of Thinking requires students to make connections (within disciplines and among them), draw conclusions, predict, create, suppose, and evaluate.  Providing increased opportunities to explore the curriculum at higher levels keeps the ceiling high above students’ heads.  

One quick caveat:  Differentiation shouldn't mean more work. The difference lies in the depth and complexity of thought required, not the amount. If differentiated assignments look like punishments, no one will want to do them. Think of it like an hour at the gym with a physical trainer. Each participant should work to maximum capacity during the hour so all can grow stronger.  No one gets to leave the gym early because he or she was stronger from the outset, and  no one has to stay late because he or she wasn’t very mighty to begin with. As a result, all are challenged, and all build strength and stamina.

Differentiation is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach to learning. The first step to successful differentiation is awareness: knowing where the ceiling is in respect to the various learners in your room. Once you are aware of the limits you’ve deliberately or accidentally placed on your students, you can work on ways to systematically remove them.