Student-Driven Differentiated Instruction with “I Choose” (Transcript)

Jamy: It’s all about time. Good teachers know that they need to differentiate. It’s just something that we have to do, but finding the time and carving that time out of the day to meet with those small groups can be very, very difficult.

Jamy: So to have it actually built into our day where there’s a set time for half an hour to pull those small groups, it’s wonderful. So I know that it’s working and I know that there’s so much growth going on in this class. We’re seeing huge gains, gains that we wouldn’t normally see with just a whole group lesson once a day.

Cole: Teachers kept coming to me and saying, “Cole, we need to have time to be able to work with these kids in small groups, but I have classrooms of thirty-two to thirty-seven. How do we do that?

Cole: We put our heads together, we started looking at the schedule and providing opportunities where kids were going to other places while leaving some to do some response to intervention or small group differentiation with. We have our fourth, fifth and sixth graders who have the opportunity to, if they did their homework, they were doing well, they got to choose. This is where the I Choose comes from. They got to choose between going to PE or computer lab or library or music. Now where the teacher had the I Choose, they get to take a small group in which she’s identified or he’s identified as needing a specific skill, then being able to work with those students during that last 30 minutes, where they have specific skills that we’re trying to progress monitor, benchmark and move them forward with.

Jamy: So in my classroom, the kids at the end of our math lesson have formative assessment and it’s usually four questions, and it covers the concepts that we did that day. And I grade them very quickly and I’m able to determine who understood what we were doing that day and who didn’t. So the kids that got usually an eighty percent or higher, they go to their I Choose for that day. The kids that didn’t will stay here with me.

Alyssa: We do a pretest and sometimes if you get one wrong, she helps you on it.

Jamy: Okay, so I’m here to help. We’re going to play some blackjack. And we usually just go over the same lesson over again. I take out the manipulatives, we play games. It’s visual for them and kinesthetic.

Alyssa: Last time ’round I didn’t get the decimals right. She helped us on the homework part and she taught us how to do the decimals in an easier way.

Cole: The teacher I Choose is actually a great time to close those skill gaps and make them proficient and make them successful, which makes everyone happy. The ebb and flow of I Choose changes every single day based upon not only the performance, but how they did in class and what the teacher feels is best for the child. We even have kids in fifth and sixth grade who take their half an hour and their I Choose is going to help out first graders in the RTI process, whether that’s doing flash cards to help them with their sight words or letter names or whatever it may be. The teachers are happy because they were the push for it. They were the ones that wanted the time. We were able to find it for them. What we’re hearing from kids is they absolutely love it. Byproduct is, they’re paying attention more in class, they’re pushing themselves to make sure that they get to choose where they want to go. Those kids that are struggling, we’re able to now create proficiency, move them forward. That’s what lets us know it’s working.

Schools That Work

Humboldt Elementary