5. To accomplish anything in juggling, if you want to do it correctly, which means with good form and technique, you’ve got to break every skill down to it’s most primitive level- and then master it. With three balls, that means starting with one ball.- Jason Garfield
7. In order to differentiate effectively, you have to plan for it. This means knowing your students and what they can do.
8. Technology for learning about your students: www.surveymonkey.com is a free online program that allows you to create surveys that are taken online. The program stores and analyzes the data for you. http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/questions/choose_lang.cfm is a free, 40 question, online multiple intelligences survey that creates a graph of a student’s preferences in each of the intelligences.
9. http://www.thatquiz.org allows you to create and access quizzes that other teachers have posted. You can assign quizzes for your students to take online. The website scores them for you. For districts using the Scott Foresman math series, they can access www.pearsonsuccessnet.com to create assessments with standards-based questions. Students take these assessments online and the program scores and analyzes them for you.
11. Content differentiation is often done when students have already demonstrated mastery of a particular skill or indicator. You can access many different curricular resources from my portaportal website- http://portaportal.com/guest/renegar I have folders of links available for math, language arts, science, and social studies, as well as links for thinking skills and art / music. www.ohiotreasurechest.org provides links to online activities and lesson plans on Ohio grade level indicators. Links are available for all subject areas and grade levels.
12. http://www.ohiorc.org is the Ohio Resource Center. They provide links, lesson plans, and online tutorials for Ohio indicators for math, science, and language arts. Spelling http://www.spellingcity.com is a website that allows teachers to create and post spelling lists online. Students can then access and complete activities on those lists, as well as take tests on them. The program will score the tests for you.
13. Score Cyberguides has online literature units available by grade level. http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html
14. Making Content Differentiation Easily Accessible to Your Students http://www.portaportal.com is a FREE online bookmarking service. You can organize links in a user-friendly folder system for your students to access with a guest password. For $15 a year, you can upgrade your account to remove ads and include space for file storage. Use the Google search function to search within portaportal for links that other people have posted.
16. Differentiating the process of learning can increase student engagement and allow students to learn at their own pace. Allow your students to make choices about how they learn with a variety of links to websites on the same skills. Use tools such as tic-tac-toe boards to allow students to choose activities that appeal to varied multiple intelligences. Use templates on www.toolsforeducators.com to create choice boards.
17. Online Tools Manage time with a virtual timer at http://www.timeme.com. This website allows you to choose different timer alarms and fonts. Give students quick access to math manipulativesat http://www.nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html. Use virtual dice to randomize groupings or activities at http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/maths/dice/ http://www.readwritethink.org has a variety of graphic organizers and activities to help students develop literacy skills.
18. Change the Way Students Access Instruction http://www.slideshare.com is a website that allows you to store and access your powerpoint presentations online for FREE. Access this presentation and some of my other presentations by going to http://www.slideshare.net/Renegarmath . Use webquests and virtual fieldtrips to allow students to work at their own pace. http://www.webquest.org allows you to find webquests for a variety of topics and levels of difficulty.
19. Find podcasts on ItunesUfrom many universities and other educational organizations. Create your own podcasts (or allow students to create them as products) to provide another way for students to access information. Http://www.teachertube.com is another great website for finding podcasts and videos for your students. Help your students find AR leveled books at their own level. Http://www.arbookfind.com allows students to find books at their level which may not be in the school library.
20. More Great Links http://www.adifferentplace.org is a website that is geared toward providing activities to differentiate for gifted students. It has many units of study that complement a variety of curriculums. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org has a great variety of links for students in different subject areas.
21. Options for Schools Moodle is a FREE program that you can use to design online courses for your students. Manage assignments, create discussion boards, post tests, and much more. You can control access to your class and can monitor discussions. Your school district must be able to host the program on its server. Study Island and Education City are programs that are available for schools to purchase to provide activities for students to work toward state indicators. These programs can be used to allow your students to work at their own pace and level.
23. Allowing students to express their learning through different products gives them the opportunity to demonstrate what they know beyond what a test can measure. Microsoft Word- use templates to create brochures, advertisements, etc. PowerPoint- create presentations, make games by hyperlinking between answer choices and feedback, create scrapbook pages, make music videos. Excel- create spreadsheets to manage data and create graphs.
24. Create podcasts using a webcam. Make timelines at http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/timeline/ Record and edit audio files with audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Make puzzles with http://school.discoveryeducation.com/ Use google docs to collaborate online on projects with others. http://www.google.com/docs (requires registration).
25. Microsoft Office offers a variety of templates for all of its programs. http://www.office.microsoft.com just click on the templates tab to find templates for any number of products. Create and print mini-books with http://www.pocketmod.com and http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php
27. Assessment Consider using some of the links mentioned in the preparation section to assess student mastery of indicators. Create FREE custom-made rubrics for student products at http://www.rubistar.com
28. Managing Student Data Microsoft Excel- keep track of student progress in spreadsheets. Use formulas to create an item analysis of assessment questions to see which questions are missed most often. Microsoft Word- create merge documents to generate reports of student progress from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
29. Remember, Start with ONE Ball Choose one area, try one thing. By using technology, you can differentiate in your classroom, limit your prep time, maximize student learning time, and provide a wide variety of resources to meet your students’ learning needs.
