1. Wanda's Take on Education

2. INTRANET Use the district site sccsd.net to fill in the structured response sheet at your table

3. ACTIVITY Review the modules of DI STUDENT CHOICE ANCHOR ACTIVITIES LEARNER PROFILES Discuss and then At your table, using the CONCEPTS, IMPLICATIONS & APPLICATIONS fill in the chart to review

4. Benefits of Student Choice

5. Supports student's intrinsic motivation to learn. Offering students choice helps them meet their innate need to feel competent, to belong, and to have some degree of freedom or autonomy. This frees them to pursue constructive learning experiences.

6. Encourages students to learn from each other. Student choice gives them opportunities to consult each other about their work, see each other's finished products, and talk with each other about how they achieved their final result.

7. Draws on different strengths, abilities, and interests. Having choices allows learners to work from their areas of strength and personal interest. They're then more likely to feel invested in their work and to draw personal meaning from it.

8. Maximizes student learning The planning, working, and reflecting process mirrors how children naturally learn. It allows them to generate their own goals, actively interact with concrete materials, and make sense of their experiences. This gradually broadens their knowledge and makes them more sophisticated thinkers.

9. Used with permission of Jody L. Smith, Vertical Articulation Specialist, Seneca Valley High School Anchor Activities Anchor activities are ongoing assignments that students can work on independently throughout a unit, a grading period or longer.

10. What Is an Anchor Activity? It is curriculum-based. It has instructional clarity. It is differentiated to meet the needs of each student. It is engaging.

11. Learning Style Differentiation How do I find out about students’ preferences? How do I keep an accessible record of this in order to USE the information in instruction? How do I group students in either think-alike or think-differently tasks? What are some possible strategies? –Sternberg multiple intelligence lessons –Learning modality preferences in lessons –RAFTs (writing across the curriculum, differentiated by learning preference) –Anchoring “go to” activity –Learning contracts (differentiated by learning preference)

12. Balance It is not the goal of a teacher to differentiate everything all the time, but rather to find key opportunities to meet learners where they are in order to propel them forward in knowledge, understanding, and skill. Curriculum is WHAT we teach. Differentiation is HOW we teach. Do we cover or uncover curriculum? Do we teach to our students or learn with them? Fair does NOT mean equal…fair means everyone gets what s/he needs.

13. Teamwork Inspirational - The Big Four