It’s so difficult to cater to the huge difference in learning abilities that exist in each classroom. To plan for and develop all the differentiation and the tools required takes up so much teacher time, but it’s so important. This is so much of the reason why I set upon this little project to develop mathematics curriculum content for primary teachers; to help my fellow colleagues. ‘Let’s Go!’, ‘Strive For Success!’ & ‘Mathematician!’ are the names I’ve assigned to a 3 level differentiated learning task, provided in each maths lesson, to support diverse learners. Head to www.mrsrowntree.com.au to find the direct link to the resource on Teach Buy Sell. ‘Let’s Go!’
‘Let’s Go!’ is the entry point for kids who are not confident with the topic. This level is generally working below the level. ‘Let’s Go!’ allows students to get started on the transferable skill after the explicit teaching introduction. When I talk about the levels with children who begin at ‘Let’s Go!’, they so often strive to get to the next level to complete it. Mind you, they require the time from teachers to work through the levels. ‘Strive for Success!’
‘Strive for Success!’ means working at the level standard and if students don’t start at ‘Let’s Go!’ the rest of the students start at ‘Strive for Success!’, generally. The only time I let students begin at ‘Mathematician!’ is if I am confident they will find the ‘Strive for Success!’ level really simplistic and I know they are very capable. This is rare!
‘Mathematician!’ is the Holy Grail! It is the celebrated level that when achieved successfully, one can’t feel anything but complete triumph! I have many students who come to me at that level and say, ‘Mrs Rowntree, I need your help’ and often I am working on the floor with the ‘Let’s Go’ group so I just have to respond sometimes with ‘What an achievement that you got there, it’s designed to be tricky, so now you are going to need to work through it with your peers’. You should see the achievement, once they start to experience success with figuring it out. Or, the joy it brings me when they come back the next day and they have drawn mum or dad into the learning process to divide and completely conquer the task!
For all levels, I always encourage kids to work together to collaborate and explore their ideas when working on maths tasks. This can make for a noisy classroom at times, particularly with the loose parts on each table, or on the floor, and the discussions going on, however there is often much rich learning taking place in this environment. It is no longer an option to work collaboratively, but a necessity, to support developing social skills, social awareness & maths. The collaboration, experimentation, reasoning & justification all adds up to an active but rich learning space, where mistakes are ok, kids learn from each other and we end up with many opportunities to learn from, broaden our thinking and grow.
These are not the only ways you can work with these levels, but please try it and enjoy the process. I’ll talk about the other ways another day
Good luck and enjoy the differentiation!
***To access the first lesson as a free download to try, please head to www.mrsrowntree.com.au and you’ll find the link to download it via Teach Buy Sell, under the Resources tab.
Mrs Rowntree 