Episode 276: A Simple Hack to Differentiate Your Lessons

So get your pen and pencil ready and don't forget to grab the free download in the show notes below . Alright , let's go ahead and listen in . Hi there , caitlin here .

Our mission at EB Academics is simple Help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons , planning frameworks and genuine support , so that you can become the best version of yourself both inside and outside of the classroom .

So if you think you might be ready to try something new , because you know you simply cannot continue the way that you have been that I'd invite you to take a moment to check out the EB Teachers Club , the EB Writing Program or the EB Grammar Program by visiting the links in the description of the podcast .

We hope to continue to support you within one of our programs in the future and in the meantime , we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast each week . Alright , you guys , welcome back to another episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA Podcast . I gotta be honest , it's so fun , megan , to have you here . I love it . I agree it's the best day .

It's just adds like another layer of fun , of personality . I don't know , it's just the best .

That link for you is in the show notes , so make sure that you go grab that , because it's going to make what we're talking about today much more easily implementable in your classroom . Is that a word , is that a phrase , much more easily implementable If it's ?

I love how he reframed that for all of us . Ok , so today is a super simple hack that you can help that will help you seamlessly incorporate differentiation into your ELA lessons . So we talk about all the time at EB Standards are the North Star in your classroom . Right , the standards are the North Star .

Your target , your task , your assessments , those are all aligned with your standards . But what do you do when some of your students are having difficulty meeting those standards and others are capable of learning far beyond those standards ? And let's be honest , that's just the reality of what happens in our classroom any given day with any given topic .

It just always is . That will just always be the reality . And if we were back in college , right in one of our teacher prep courses , your professor would likely talk all about increasing or decreasing cognitive levels so you can provide enrichment and support .

And I don't know about you , but that harkens back to a week spent on an hour lesson of all of the details and stress and anxiety . And oh my gosh , I don't know about you , but I had to submit all of these things to the state of California with four different . Oh my god . And to get through those , I'm like this cannot be the reality at all .

And now it's like you write it on a post-it note , like this is my lesson again , but you just get good at it and I get what they were trying to do . But I'm sure for you guys when I said that , it brought up all of those feelings of having to create more work for yourself in order to meet the needs of your students with where they're at .

Maybe you're picturing small groups and each group has their own differentiated assignment writing , your frantically trying to go from group to group where you see yourself working with students who are struggling and crossing your fingers that those other students are going to be on task and well-behaved , and maybe you don't even do this in your classroom because of those

fears and because of those reasons and you're like I just can't go there , right ? So today's episode is absolutely not about creating more work for you and less work for your students , depending on how they learn .

Instead , it's about going up or down a taxonomy level within the standard that you're covering , and the free download that we're going to share with you guys , I think , is going to make this so much easier for you as well . So we're taking differentiation and we're just trying to make it a heck of a lot easier for you .

So , jessica , if you want to pick us off with this , yes .

We had to use it , like Caitlin was saying , to create those massive units . And you're like , oh my gosh , that took me hours . This is a 32 minute lesson , right ? In reality , bloom taxonomy it's awesome information for us as teachers , but when we were in college we probably weren't using it in a very practical way , so we kind of like rush it aside .

Right Now we're doing those post-it type lesson planning that Caitlin was talking about . So how can we bring back Bloom into the classroom ? And in case you're like I don't even remember who Bloom was , here's a little bit of background for you .

So he was this influential American educational psychologist and he and his colleagues developed Bloom's taxonomy in the 1950s and basically it's a framework that organizes educational objectives and learning outcomes into a hierarchy of cognitive skills .

So I want you to picture a triangle that's broken into six different levels and at the very bottom of the triangle , so that longest , biggest piece you have remember . So this level involves recalling or recognizing information . So basically , students are demonstrating their memory of facts or of concepts or information .

So a question a teacher might ask at this remember level might be something like identify the setting introduced in the first chapter of the novel or name the protagonist , and all students have to do is kind of recall that information . Boom , they're good to go .

The next level , moving up the pyramid in Bloom's taxonomy , is understand , and at this level students are comprehending the meaning of information . They're interpreting , interpreting , explaining and summarizing .

So you can see how this goes beyond a recall or beyond memorization , and it gets students to start thinking about and processing the information that they're learning . So if you were asking your students a question at this level , it might be something like explain what you think the author of this short story is trying to say about friendship .

So again , students are thinking a little bit harder here . They have to come up with a more thoughtful response . And then , after that level , the third level is apply , and here students use acquired knowledge to solve problems or apply concepts to new situations .

So a task you might give your students at this apply level might be for them to use the information from the story and then create a dialogue between two characters that explores a different resolution to the conflict . So now think about this . They're recalling , or remembering , what is the conflict in the story .

They have to understand what conflict is , and now they get to apply it to a completely new situation . So again , you can see how this is becoming increasingly more rigorous for students . And then there are three more levels that Megan's going to walk you through .

So they're identifying patterns , structures and components , and so a learning task at this level might be to break down the elements of foreshadowing in a novel per se and then discuss how those elements contribute to overall suspense .

I used to do this with movie clips too , like bring in Hitchcock to your classroom , and it's great for breaking down those elements of foreshadowing . So the next level up is evaluate . This level involves making judgments about the value of ideas , materials or methods .

So students are really assessing and then critiquing information here , and that critique word really helps me with this one , I believe . So to include an evaluating task in the classroom , you could simply ask your students do you agree or disagree with the protagonist's decision in the story , and then have them justify their opinion with evidence from the text .

So I immediately think about Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games . Like have them , you know , do you agree with what she did in this part of the story ? And then justify it . So they're really again critiquing what that ?

So I just think that these types of questions like yeah , we're asking our students in middle school , but they're so applicable to the real world and a real job that they're going to go do eventually , so in any capacity , it doesn't matter . It's not like we're just doing this to do this , like it's so relevant to real life .

So sorry to interrupt , it just popped into my brain .

So at this level , you could ask your students to imagine maybe they're a script writer and they have to create an alternative ending to a play they're reading that showcases a different character's perspective and resolution . You could do that with a novel , too , but the idea is that they're creating something new .

But what does knowing these levels have to do with a simple hack to differentiate your lessons ? And so , like I said at the beginning , we're going to provide you with your own taxonomy pyramid , and the hack has to do with the verbs that we've listed at each level of that pyramid . And again , you can grab your copy of that in our show notes .

And so make sure that you download this , print this out , keep it taped to your desk or a cabinet or a table where you do group work , something where you can quickly access it during class , so you can just differentiate on the spot , and we're going to give you examples of what this looks like and what we're talking about .

So when you're working on a particular standard in class and you realize that , as usual , you've got some students who are on level , some students who could benefit from additional support , and then those students who are just ready for the next level , they're ready to go enrichment you can go .

Look at that pyramid and quickly and efficiently adjust by assigning a different verb to each group of students . So I'm going to have Jessica give us an example for what this actually looks like in the classroom so you can see it apply .

So I want you to imagine you're in the middle of your sixth grade literature lesson and your objective for the class period is describe how a particular stories plot unfolds in a series of episodes . This is a very common standard , especially if you do common core .

So you take a minute and you look at that verb in the skill or in the standard it's describe , right , and you quickly glance at that taxonomy period that you're going to download from us and you see that the verb describe is listed on the understand level .

So this objective might be perfectly fine for your on level kids , but you know , okay , I want to differentiate from my students . So what you're going to do is you're going to look for a verb at the taxonomy level below understand , which would be remember on the pyramid , and you're going to create a task for your students who need support .

And then you're going to look for a verb at the taxonomy level above understand in the pyramid , which in this case is apply and you're going to come up with a task for your students that will be enrichment right , they're ready for something a little more challenging . So , again , the target skill still remains the same for all your students .

It's still going to be about the stories plot unfolding . But the task that you're giving your students is what's differentiated . So I want you to check this out and think about how you could quickly do this on the spot in the classroom . So , on level again is describe how a particular stories plot unfolds in a series of episodes .

For support , I'm going down one level and I'm going to pick the verb identify , and I might tell my students that I want to focus on this identify the main parts of the stories plot .

Then , for enrichment , I'm going to go up above the next taxonomy level and I might choose the verb illustrate Illustrate the climax of the story's plot and explain why it's the turning point of the story . Again , all about plot , but you can see the complexity of the tasks that you're giving your students are different .

All you're doing is coming up with a different verb from that taxonomy period , when I was saying back in college , we learned all this great stuff and we were implementing it in all our lessons . It's wonderful , but how practical was it ? This is the practical side of that that you can quickly do it on the spot . I'm going to throw in one more hack .

I know we don't have enough notes , sorry guys , but I think this is actually really cool . I actually learned about this yesterday from Pat who was just on the podcast . Let's say , you're struggling to even understand the standard . To begin with , you're like that's great , I'm going to break it down and all that . I don't even get what the on-level standard is .

You can look and see and go okay , if that's what they can be doing next year , how can I bring it up to that level ? Or how can I lower it Again ? If you don't even understand the standards , go check out Schmoop and then come back and use the taxonomy period pyramid to differentiate .

Then you can break down that target into different skills based on your students' levels . So it really doesn't have to be complicated , and that's what I love about this . You're just taking that same target skill but you're coming up with different verbs , which means you're giving different tasks to students .

So some of us might be thinking OK , but what if I have those students that are struggling at the remember level , Like they're stuck at the bottom of this pyramid ? How do I build in support for them so that you know I can get them to come up the pyramid Right , Because there's no level below Remember .

And that's where we suggest really focusing on that vocabulary and then prior background knowledge , because it's probably going to be necessary to spend some time front loading that information with students so that they can really successfully complete a task here .

think will help with moving them from even below the remember of the pyramid of Bloom taxonomy up into remember . So just again , another reminder that you got to get your top , your copy of the taxonomy pyramid . It's in the show notes for you guys . Go download it , go print it out , go keep it next to you .

And I think it's one of those things where it's like we're building a habit of a new skill for ourselves that we're bringing to the classroom and it ultimately becomes second nature . And I can't remember if we talked about this on the podcast Jessica , for it was a batch planning live , but the whole concept of subconscious incompetence Did .

Well , at least I'm aware now that I have this deficit , and I'm not saying like a deficit in a bad thing , I'm saying it like this is a way that I get to up level myself as a person , as a teacher .

So this might be listening to this episode , that conscious incompetence like hey , I now aware that I'm not utilizing this type of language , this type of differentiation , into my classroom . Well , so then you move into conscious competence when you start practicing it all the time , right , you're aware of it , you're consciously doing it , right , all of this stuff .

Well , then , ultimately you move into subconscious competence , meaning it is so much a part of who you are and how you operate in the world that you just do it . It just becomes second nature to you .

And so I like to think of that as a way for me , when I'm learning a new skill , that these are just the , the levels of which I go through and that we all go through when we're learning something new and that ultimately it just becomes a part of how I teach and so I think about , if you put this into practice for a month , it's going to become so

second nature to you that it's just a part of what you do in the classroom on a daily basis . So , yeah , it might be hard in the beginning , where you're learning , to make it work at first , but if you stick with it and you consistently practice this with your students , just like we tell our students , you got to keep practicing , right .

You got to go over those standards and those skills time and time again , you are no different , right ? We're all humans learning new skills and new things to use in our classroom .

So definitely make sure that you check this out and ultimately bring it into your subconscious competence and you just crush Bloom's taxonomy and being able to differentiate for your students . So thanks you guys so much for joining us this week on the podcast .

Next week , megan will be back with her interview with Dr Deanna Smith talking all about intentionally bringing joy into your classrooms . Super excited for you guys to listen to that episode and thanks you guys so much for being here . Bye , everyone , bye guys . Have a good week , you guys .