EVERY STUDENT WORKS HER/HIS LEARNING EDGE
To expect every student in 2G to lock-step march, shoulder-to-shoulder through an etched-in-stone curriculum is unrealistic — and far from fair to students, especially younger students.
The completely-normal Normal Distribution Curve of 7-and-8-year-old competencies is WIDE! In some Scandinavian countries, reading isn’t formally started until age 7!
The answer?
In jargonese: Differentiation.
In plain English: Working each student’s current learning edge.
If a student’s reading/writing brain module is developing at a higher pace that peers, challenge that student with reading/writing activities that match her/his current brain-module state.
If a student’s module is coming together COMPLETELY NORMALLY FOR 7 or 8 but a little more slowly than her/his peers, challenge that student with activities that match her/his current state.
Current (not “forever”) math competencies are the same.
Current (not “forever”) science knowledge — really “background knowledge” at this age — are the same too.
To support differentiation in math, language arts and science, we make frequent use of IXL. We like IXL for many reasons, but primarily:
It is based on state and core-competency curricula
One problem at a time is presented to students, thus not overwhelming students with “a whole page of problems” — intimidating to many
No dancing dinosaurs or “video game” rewards for progress, just an animal square to fit in your grid! Then back to work!
Most important: it allows us to differentiate effectively.
A student who has mastered a skill (adding/subtracting with regrouping) can practice that skill to proficiency, largely by her/himself
The student who is still sorting through the various steps of adding/subtracting with regrouping can work one-on-one with the teacher, focused on a problem matching her/his current math skill set
Students with rich science background and a keen interest in science can explore to their heart’s content — one student has all finished all of the 2nd grade science curricula — in but a few weeks!
All students who are new to a domain can work one-on-one or in small groups with a teacher
More fun — and freeing teachers to work one-on-one with students (of all current competencies) who need it — is students working with each other
The result is a rich, on-going, ever-changing conversation involving teachers and students.
A student currently learning about magnets overhears a peer’s question about “metamorphosis” and eagerly shares her/his knowledge about frogs and butterflies
A student who’s learned how to sort data into “A Only,” “A and B,” and “B Only” explains this to a friend, with a couple of onlookers who know they’ll need to know this soon enough
Meanwhile, the teacher can help a child who doesn’t yet know about magnets experience the pull and repulsion with real magnets, or help a student with tough vocabulary or comprehension challenges
For whole-group learning, be that at Morning Circle, during out whole-class periods, or before sharing, it’s easy to pick up on common math, language-arts or science issues to clarify, reinforce, or “test.”
More—
When students travel or Zoom in, they have ready access to much of what we’re doing.
Those student who want to “keep learning” — always true for budding mathematicians, true for many keen 2G scientists too — there’s no reason not to “keep going,” during breaks and over the summer.
And— it’s easy for parents to support their student’s learning at home: “everything”
is right there (especially the wonderful “explanation” pages should parents forget the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers, or the precise definition of “pollination,” or the most common ways a long vowel is represented in English) tied right to the problem at hand.
2G 2020-2021 has made enthusiastic use of this resource — and learned a ton!
They’ve had fun doing so too!