Differentiating Products to Provide Access and Choice
In our first year opened at High Tech Elementary North County, my 2nd grade students came from various backgrounds and learning experiences. All twenty-four students had experienced different teachers the year prior, and thus, developing curriculum to fit their needs and interests was a challenge.
One method I found useful was to incorporate opportunities for student voice and choice throughout the day. In creating moments for these discussions and activities, I was able to acknowledge student needs and interests and differentiate curriculum to provide access within my pedagogy. In a discussion from the book, We Make the Road By Walking, Myles Horton (1990) states:“our job is to try to figure out ways to help people take over their own lives…[it] grows out of caring for people and having respect for people’s ability to do things, and that is that you value their experiences.” (p. 177). I do admit that these endeavors can be challenging as it requires that I let go of control and trust in my students’ choices. However, I have also seen the importance and value of this piece in empowering my students and providing them ownership over shaping their own education.
Every trimester at HTeNC, classrooms hold public exhibitions to showcase their process and learning of the trimester long projects. These exhibitions are a way to celebrate student work and individuality in an authentic context. For our first project of the year, we studied the driving question, “How do Members of our Community Show Care and Perseverance?” Throughout the project, students interviewed, read about and studied various community members and historical members who showed our Habits of Heart and Mind (care & perseverance) Additionally, the 2nd graders engaged in their own field work to give back to their community; such as hosting a canned food drive for the Ronald McDonald Charity House, adopting and cleaning Carlsbad Frazee Beach, and singing to seniors at our local Sunrise Senior Center. For the final product of the project, each student chose one community member who inspired them, to illustrate on canvas and highlight in a creative biography.In considering our final product, I wanted to incorporate voice and choice however I struggled with how. After reading about inclusive practices, I learned that I could provide differentiation within my final product that would give access to different types of learners and allow them to shape their own product.
In order to offer these differentiated choices, my professor showed me a method called the “Tic Tac Toe” which follows Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Sternberg’s theory (1984) suggests that students learn best when their dominant intelligence is addressed. He posed three intelligences: Creative Intelligence, Practical Intelligence and Analytical Intelligence. This “Tic Tac Toe” method allots choices for the analytical, creative and practical sides of three products. (Appendix A) I altered the method slightly so that it was more developmentally appropriate for my 2nd grade students. Instead of a 3 x 3 grid of choices, I created a 3 x 1 grid which focused only on one product; biographies. (Appendix B)Now that I had a place to start, I wanted to incorporate student voice. I asked the students to share with me the types of writing they enjoy doing. Alfie Kohn (1993) states, “there is no substitute for giving them [students] the chance to become actively involved in deciding what kind of people they want to be and what kind of classroom or school they want to have.” (p. 5). This discussion brought up varying ideas. Most students described their interest in creative writing, (We had just finished publishing creative writing pieces.) however some discussed a book report, poem, and magazine article. This co-design opportunity also gave me the “Aha” to differentiate our biography assignment. After our class discussion, I used students’ ideas and Sternberg’s three intelligences to offer three different ways to write a biography: 1.Creative Story, 2. Poem, 3. Formal Biography. Within each choice, there were also differentiation amongst the drafts and options for additional supports such as sentence frames and word banks. (Appendix B)
When I provided these choices, I was very curious to see what students would be more drawn to. Although it’s pretty easy to excite my little ones, when I showed them these options they were very excited to be given a choice in their product; especially knowing their ideas were incorporated. I could hear whispers of, “Oh, what’d you pick to write?” “I chose that one too!” Overall, it seemed that most students were interested in writing a creative story and a poem. There were only two students who chose to write a formal biography.
In the end, it was tremendously rewarding to hear their excitement for writing and to provide them a venue to express their own interests.Providing voice and choice, as well as differentiation in our final product allowed me to learn about my students interests and learning styles. Additionally, it allowed students to showcase their writing in a form they felt most comfortable with. They had choice in their final product as well as a voice in how they wanted to represent their work. For future projects, I would love to co-design with students to differentiate products in other projects. Although it posed more work to differentiate curriculum and create scaffolds within each piece, I had never seen the kids so excited, engaged and focused on their writing. Thomas Jefferson once said that, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” For me, creating equitable and inclusive practices that empower our kids is always worth it.
References:
Horton, M. & Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking. Philadelphia, PA: TempleUniversity
Press.Kohn, A. (1993). Choices for Children Why and How to Let Students Decide. Phi Delta Kappan, 75 (1), 8-16,18-21.
Sternberg, R. (2005). The Theory of Successful Intelligence. Journal of Psychology, 39 (2),189-202.
