By Leah Knowles- MacMillan And Tracy Young

 Time  Meeting the needs of our students.  Strategies to differentiating our instruction.  Class size  Confidence in ourselves as professionals and Math Learners  Time  Meeting the needs of our students.  Strategies to differentiating our instruction.  Math materials and resources.  Confidence in ourselves as professionals and Math Learners

 Truth….  Every lesson, each day, cannot be differentiated. Just as our students are at various levels in academic skills, we are all at various levels with the concept and process of differentiation.  Differentiation needs to be implemented gradually, at a manageable rate for the teacher.  … thoughtful, purposeful and flexible grouping. Sometimes students work alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes as a whole class, and sometimes in small groups– depending upon demonstrated student need and the teacher’s purpose for the activity. Misconception  …individualization of the math program for each of our 20+ students.  …creating extra activities to keep students busy if they finish the “regular work”  …group work Sandra MacDonald, “Differentiation: What it isn’t; what it is”, MTA 2009

 Provide meaningful work for students when they finish an assignment or project, when they first enter the class or when they are “stumped”.  Provide ongoing tasks that tie to the content and instruction.  Free up the classroom teacher to work with other groups of students or individuals.

 Using existing resources for anchor activities  Keeping an “open mind” about activities  Student-created anchor activities

Teach the whole class to work independently and quietly on the anchor activity. Half the class works on anchor activity. Other half works on a different activity. 1/3 works on anchor activity. 1/3 works on a different activity. 1/3 works with teacher---direct instruction.

 Open-ended questions (little purple book)  I Get It activities  Website exploration (bookmarked sites)  Math Journal writing  Choice Charts completion  Manipulative activities: exploring tangrams, pattern blocks, pentominoes, etc.  Cribbage, Chess, Jigsaw puzzles  Problem Solving Center

 Explain how to do the activity and how to track it  Model it with the whole class  Practice with half the class  Feedback and try again with the other half

 Some ways to differentiate instruction in mathematics class  Common Task with Multiple Variations  Open-ended Questions  Differentiation Using Multiple Entry Points

 A common problem-solving task, and adjust it for different levels.  Students tend to select the numbers that are challenging enough for them while giving them the chance to be successful in finding a solution

 The approach is to plan an activity with multiple variations.  For many problems involving computations, you can insert multiple sets of numbers.

 Marian has a new job. The distance she travels to work each day is 5 kilometers. How many kilometers does she travel to work in 6 days?

 Marian has a new job. The distance she travels to work each day is {5, 94, or 114} kilometers. How many kilometers does she travel to work in {6, 7, or 9} days?

 When using tasks of this nature all students benefit and feel as though they worked on the same task.  Class discussion can involve all students.

 Well designed open-ended problems provide most students with an obtainable yet challenging task.  Open-ended tasks allow for differentiation of product.  Products vary in quantity and complexity depending on the student’s understanding.

1. Identify a topic. 2. Think of a typical question. 3. Adjust it to make an open question. Example: Money How much change would you get back if you used a ten dollar bill to buy Caesar salad and juice? I bought lunch at the cafeteria and got a few coins back in change. How much did I start with and what did I buy? Today’s Specials Green Salad$4.15 Caesar Salad$5.20 Veggies and Dip$6.75 Fruit Plate$5.99 Macaroni$6.35 Muffin$1.85 Milk $1.75 Juice$2.25 Water$1.85

Multiple Entry Points are diverse activities that tap into students’ particular inclinations and favoured way of representing knowledge.

Based on Five Representations: Based on Multiple Intelligences: - Concrete - Real world (context) - Pictures - Oral and written - Symbols - Logical-mathematical - Bodily kinesthetic - Linguistic - Spatial

 Van de Walle (2006) recommends using multiple entry points, so that all students are able to gain access to a given concept.  diverse activities that tap students’ particular inclinations and favoured way of representing knowledge.

 Differentiating instruction is about acknowledging a reality- that different students in your class are at different stages of readiness for your planned instruction on a given day.