Scenarios

Example Scenario

Mrs. Purcha has decided to try differentiating instruction in her classroom. She selects a favorite unit that she has used successfully for many years. Students always seem to love it, and it yields culminating projects that parents consistently comment about positively. She spends time carefully adapting the reading materials to accommodate three reading levels in her classroom and feels pleased that her students seem to enjoy the unit even more than usual. When scores from the new state-mandated tests come back at the end of the year, Mrs. Purcha is surprised that her students have not performed well.

 

Analysis

What did Mrs. Purcha do well to differentiate?

• She modified the reading material in her unit, based on her current students’ reading levels. In other words, she based her decision on some type of assessment.

• She used activities that she knew would be interesting and engaging to her students.

What could Mrs. Purcha have done to improve her unit?

• She didn’t make sure that her unit met the K-U-Dos that her students were going to be tested on. She should have identified the K-U-Dos and aligned her unit with them.

• Even though her unit worked well in the past, she should have modified it.

Sample Scenarios

Scenario No. 1

Keisha Umboto has just finished planning a unit of study that she is confident will be just what her students need. She spent serious time examining the standards for the grade level to design a unit that incorporates standards from several subject areas, and is pleased that she can help students achieve proficiency in multiple standards. She’s confident that her unit will be useful in helping students prepare for the state exams they’ll take in March, and made a point of checking the K-U-Dos of her unit against the K-U-Dos of the test. But despite her careful planning, students appear to be disinterested and unwilling to engage in her lessons. She discovers after several weeks that most of her students already know the content she’s been teaching them.

Scenario No. 2

Jimmy Su has become very dedicated to using differentiated instruction in his classroom. Last year, he differentiated one unit with great effectiveness. He enjoyed it as much as his students gained from it. Happy that he won’t have to put so much preliminary work into it again, he makes plans to use the same unit with this year’s batch of students. Thinking that he has spent enough time planning the aspects of differentiation, he assumes that what he has already done will also work well with this group of students. He decides not to take the time to pre-assess.

 

Scenario No. 3

Sue Johnson designs a pretest for her math group on the next unit but decides she doesn't want it to take up too much class time.  She reviews the content standards for her grade and comes up with a test that covers each skill she will be teaching.  Sue is delighted that the students are finished quickly and determines who shows understanding and who doesn't.  A unit is carefully designed with tiered lessons to meet the need of the various levels.  As Sue presents the lessons she is surprised that students seem to be misplaced.

Scenario No. 4

Tommy Tracey is a high school teacher that has planned a dynamic unit based on the readiness of his students.  He used a learning styles inventory to assist him in designing a variety of activities that would meet the needs of his students.  He is thrilled that the students are engaged and decides he does not want to interrupt the flow by giving any quizzes or mini-assessments.  As the students complete the unit, Mr. Tracey announces that the test will be on Friday.  Over the weekend Tom checks his tests and finds that the students did very poorly on the test.  He is perplexed with his results.

 

Scenario No. 5

Carla Bellaro has worked hard on designing centers for her music class. The materials are laid out in various areas of the room, with directions carefully displayed.  As the students enter the room, each is given a number and assigned to a center.  Carla is excited about this new venture and explains that each group will complete the activities at the center and move to the next center on her signal.  She gives a signal to start and the students begin.  As the students work on the activities, Carla realizes that she is losing control of the class. The behavior of the class has quickly gone downhill and Carla decides that centers are not for her.