Rick Wormeli

I loved being able to watch the short video we were able to in class. Rick Wormeli is truly one of the greats when it comes to differentiation. He makes it look so easy, which is sort of stressful for me, but I know with practice I can become just as great! I loved hearing him talk about how he approaches differentiating for his students and I think the way he split the groups up was so great. Even though the students knew they were in different groups, there didn't seem to be any competition in the classroom, one group didn't feel less than the other. This is something that I feel is extremely important and essential in a differentiated classroom. To get that, I think that you definitely need to build a classroom community where all students feel safe and accepted for who they are. If you can do that in a classroom, whether it be elementary, middle, or high school than you already have a battle won. Once you have done that you can move on to actually differentiating your students and it is so important for you as the teacher to be extremely clear on what you want your students to learn. Just like Mr. Wormeli, you need to sit down, look at the curriculum, and decide what essential understandings you want your students to get out of your lessons. This is a list of things that YOU need to become familiar with, memorize. It needs to be second nature, because if you don't know them, than how are you going to teach them and expect your students to get anything out of your lessons. One other thing that I really liked from the video clip is that Rick continuously assessed his students to see where they were and actually USED those assessments to tailor his instruction. His 3, 2, 1 exit slip at the end of his class was so fabulous and something I would LOVE to use in my classroom. It gives you an idea of where each student is standing, in a way they aren't embarrassed, and gives you useful information to structure future lessons. LOVED it!

Informal/Formal Assessments
Pre-Assessments