Tools to Differentiate Instruction: Differentiated Study Sessions

This is part II of my little mini-series on differentiating instruction in mixed ability classrooms. For this post, I want to discuss another little trick I’ve developed for using review time effectively in classrooms with many different kinds of kids. Some kids are probably in need of no review. They’ve sat through lectures, completed activities and homework assignments, and it all soaked in. Other students, might need some re-teaching or reinforcement of a few key topics. Other students may require intensive and comprehensive review work so they can solidify most of the content to be tested. How can we satisfy all of these different learners in one room all at the same time?

This was a problem that I’ve been meaning to conquer for some time, and I think I’ve pretty much done it. My school has a rolling laptop cart with a dozen computers in it. I break the students into pairs, hopefully in couples of similar ability / needs. Each pair gets a computer and I have them plug in their headphones (I have a few pairs to loan, but most kids have ipods in their bags).

Each pair of students is given practice problems / conceptual questions and the answers / explanations are all available to them on mrkadin.com. Students can work on the type of problem they struggle with the most. If they can’t seem to figure out the projectile motion problems, they can try samples and watch videos explaining the trigonometry and kinematics.

If they are struggling to understand the way acceleration and velocity chance when an object is thrown up in the air…

I’ve never seen the students more engaged. I’ve blurred their faces to protect the students’ privacy. They are all working, either watching the screens or completing math problems.

Making the videos was really easy. First, you make power point slides that serve as the visuals for the video. Then you add an audio narration. See this post for tips on doing that. Then, I uploaded the slides to authorstream.com, a really great tool that converts narrated power point slides into embeddable flash videos. This makes the videos watchable by anyone with a web browser; no power point needed. Word up.