gabeschoolblog

  The program that our school uses, Progress Learning (formerly USA TestPrep) aligns itself with the state standards, and the content is easily separated into manageable chunks covering the sub-standards. It automatically assigns remediation if the student scores below a 70. The remediation consists of a short video, and flashcards with vocabulary words built into a game, followed by a reading with several pictures to reinforce the lesson. Then they are re-tested, if they score above 70 they move on and if not there is an additional level of remediation in the program which is set at a lower Lexile level. The program can be set in different languages to assist the ESOL students. Every Friday, the students are given a three or four-question quiz covering the weekly material. For the students who are not in need of remediation, they are able to peruse ScienceWorld Magazine, part of the Scholastic family of magazines. These always contain an interesting article on a world issue from...

I use learning stations because I think they offer a lot of opportunities for differentiated learning and they are good tools to engage the diverse population of students that we deal with on a daily basis. A student's entry point into a certain concept or ability at a given time is determined by their level of readiness.  All groupings must be flexible so that students can move to different groups at different points in time and that readiness for one concept or skill is not always an indication of readiness for another. It is also crucial that all students have the same learning targets or goals that they are working toward, that students are matched to tasks based on some type of pre-assessment data, and that all learning targets or goals are shared by all students. I planned for different learning styles by engaging students in conversation and questioning them as well as asking them to summarize lessons in their own words. This supported the auditory learners and the visual le...