Article published by Ashley Lopez, Jane Long ELA Instructional Coach
Melissa Myles teaches 6th grade Language Arts for the Inquire program at Jane Long Middle School. This is her first year working in the Inquire program with this group of identified gifted and talented students. A week prior to the implementation of the activity shared below, Kelli Armstrong, our Advanced Academics IC, visited with our Inquire teachers in regards to differentiation for gifted students. Following this training, Ms. Myles decided she wanted to implement the strategy of pre-assessment for the next unit of study.
Melissa began to develop the pre-assessment by focusing on the readiness standards, along with the recurring supporting standards for the informational text unit they were to begin second six weeks. With these SEs selected, she found an informational text with aligned questions and made the assessment in Eduphoria.
Using the pre-assessment data and student observations from the school year, Melissa created three groups: high, middle and needing more support. She knew that the independent group (high) would not only need to have scored at the mastery level but would also have had to demonstrate the ability and initiative to work independently in class thus far.
Melissa continued into the unit on informational texts with her three groups. Her high group was tasked with a project that was done primarily on their own with the use of video lessons to facilitate any direct support they might need. She was able to use these videos as well with her middle group by simply adding in additional scaffolds. The group identified as needing more support, worked with Melissa through aligned activities to develop a deeper understanding of the SEs within the unit.
Melissa was very pleased with how the unit went and how well the three levels worked in challenging each student based on his or her level of mastery. This strategy also allowed her to see growth in each student because they were working at a level that pushed them individually versus working at one level as a whole class.