Differentiated Structures

Resources:
For a Grade 6 Science, Drama, and Career & Technology Studies Cross Collaboration

When things don't work out in class, I'm often excited because I usually get a chance to try things twice.  In drama I am always harping on the potential of failures as the best learning experience, and the most amazing fun is had in improvisation games when people "play on the edge of losing".

Problem
How do you give Grade 6 students an inquiry project that involves group work, each task allows space for differentiation and the whole thing takes place in a huge open auditorium without the whole group descending into a scenario which might inspire a story along the lines of, oh, let's say, "Lord of the Flies"?

The struggle is allowing them to complete tasks and objectives at differentiated speeds, and keeping group members accountable to each other, when the maturity level to keep numbers of tasks, and impulse control in check.  The first time I tried this, no matter how much structure  I hoped to create, the structure would break down within minutes.

The solution came today:  Task oriented assignments, where individuals in the group are responsible for ensuring that the order of tasks are kept in place, that no one is allowed to get ahead of the group, that the sequencing is constructive, and that the objectives are given in simple, easy to remember language.

I know, not that revolutionary, but for a teacher of older students it came as somewhat of a shock when the results came in so easily.

To Begin:

• Five students in a group.
• Four groups.
• Two different assignments in the room.
• One assignment per group.

To Solve:

• Five objectives.
• One per group member.
•  Each designed to accelerate the brainstorm process, but also support the structure of the activity.

Observations
Each group met the objectives at a pace that worked for them.  Though the assignments were different, the structure for completing the assignment was left intact which allowed for easy guidance as students ran into road-blocks, or had questions.  Students who had the responsibility of guiding the first objective were being prodded by the student who had the second objective to do a good job and complete it quickly because they were waiting to take leadership for the next objective.

There was evidence of strong intrinsic motivation in the students, there was less disruption in the large room. There was more focus on the work in front of them and consequently there was more success.  Each student was granted space to be creative and work in ways that brought their personality and strengths to the group, but there wasn't so much room that they had no idea where to start, or became "overly creative".  There was accountability to each other, and I'm pleased to say that I was able to do this all in half the amount of time the second go-round.




Mystery Tales by Thomas Currie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at docs.google.com.