I’m going to share a differentiated lesson plan from start to finish. In the article Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind I promised that I would share the process, and here it is.
I decided to do a 5th grade lesson on landforms. To be more specific, I decided to create a summative activity for the end of a unit on landforms. While most people choose some kind of test, I like to have the end-of-unit activities be a little more varied.
If you don’t teach landforms, no worries. It’s the process we’re looking at here, and that is not content-dependent.
In this activity, students will create a salt cellar to apply their understanding about landforms. A salt cellar is another name for a cootie catcher (sometimes called “fortune tellers”).
I find the term “cootie catcher” awkward in classroom use, so I use the term that was first used to describe them in English, which is salt cellar. A salt cellar is something that holds salt, and if you turn them upside down, that’s what they look like.
What I Hope You’ll Get Out of This
I hope that by looking at this, you’ll come away with four things:
- a clear understanding of the process
- a sense of how little time it actually takes
- a belief that you can do it
- an idea of how to integrate preassessment
If you teach landforms, you also get a great lesson plan!
Beginning the Lesson Plan
First, I need my objectives. I have to do that whether I differentiate or not.
I also need to list out what background/previous knowledge/already mastered skills the students need to have and what pre-assessment I will use.
I would do all of this whether I were differentiating or not. This will change as I work on the lesson plan, but I start with what I know and add to it as I develop the plan.
You may say, “No, you wouldn’t preassess,” but I think it’s best practice to preassess all learners, so, yes, I would.
When I begin the actual lesson plan, I start with my highest level learner in mind. For this lesson plan, I’m using the Depth & Complexity framework because that’s what I do. If you don’t use Depth & Complexity (Why not????), you can just leave that out.
Once I’ve got what I’m doing for my highest level learners in mind, I literally copy and paste it and then adjust it for my on-level learners, as I wrote about in Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind.
Next, I copy and paste this and adjust for my learners who need more support.
If you take a moment to compare the levels, you will notice the types of changes I made. It’s particularly important to see that they’re not necessarily doing much different. It’s the thinking that changes.
What Happens Next
After I create this part, I look at the plan and list what components I need to create. In this lesson, I needed:
- rubrics
- reflections
- the list of the landforms I want them to use
- the saltcellar directions and template
- the saltcellar reflection piece
- the Jeopardy! review game
They are all included in the lesson plan you can download.
Watch me! Watch me!
As I began to work on the lesson plan, I realized it might be helpful to actually show you what it looks like for me as I prepare a lesson beginning with the highest level learner in mind. I recorded a screencast of the process as I start it.
After making the recording, I worked on it more (you probably wouldn’t find a video of the entire experience interesting!), making it a full and complete experience.
You can get the entire Landforms Salt Cellar Lesson Plan if you would like to use it or even just see what a full differentiated lesson plan looks like.
It has the rubrics and the templates and lots of other goodness. I’ve uploaded it as a pdf to retain formatting.
The Time
As I was working on it, I kept track of how much extra time it took because I differentiated for gifted learners. I believe I had a net savings of 43 minutes of time.
Here’s how that broke down:
- My high-ability kids are creating the flashcards, which will save me about an hour.
- It took about ten extra minutes to create the level for them (this is actually a very high estimate, but I’m trying to be fair).
- It took about two minutes to come up with an idea for an extension experience for them and type it.
- It took about five minutes to create the extra reflections for them.
If I planned it well, I could have had my high-ability students create the Jeopardy! too, which would have saved even more time.
Even if you take out the time savings, the time extended was only 17 minutes. Divided by the number of high-ability kids in the class, what is the time cost per child? Please look me in the eye and tell me they’re not worth it.
That doesn’t even count the time savings involved in having appropriate lessons for students that I mentioned in the article
Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this glimpse backstage to the process will help clear up misunderstandings about the time and effort involved in differentiating instruction.
You may also like:
- Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind
- Differentiation Advice: Teacher-to-Teacher
- Explaining Differentiation to Parents: The Letter Home
I like the way the lesson plan is set up. I am going to be trying that next year. Thank you so much for detailed lesson plan.
I love the idea of planning lesson plans this way. I will try it! 🙂
I like the idea of using a Jeopardy activities to do the pre-assessment and categorize my students in TIRS and plan accordingly by increasing the thinking level and the rigor.
I agree with Scarlet 100 % that grouping student in tiers and differentiating accordingly will increase rigor and student engagement.
I liked the idea of using the jeopardy activity to pre-assess the students background knowledge and the idea of having the higher students making their own jeopardy activity. Thank you sharing how you do your lessons.
I love seeing how other teachers do stuff!
The jeopardy an also be done virtually, which is great for today!
Yes!
I like the idea of using jeopardy as a pre-assessment. Did you create it? or taken online? You give an idea that I can use in my planning this school. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! I made it online at Jeopardylabs.com. It’s free (although I have a paid account that gives me a lot of extras – it was a one time $20 fee).
Great lesson plan format!
I love using Jeopardy as a pre-assessment and having students create their own questions. I will definitely be using this concept this school year.
Love the jeapardy idea to pre-assess the students! I will incorporate that into my planning in the fall.
I agree as well! Such a fun way to see where the learning is in the class.
I like the idea of using activities to do the pre-assessment to increase their scaffolding.
I also used jeopardy and other games like bingo in my classroom.
I love the jeopardy idea as a pre-assessment; we’ve only used them at the end of a unit in the past. I also love the salt cellar/coote catcher idea – students would love that hands on component and they can each have their own.
Thanks! Even virtually the salt cellar/cootie catcher can easily be made at home with just a piece of paper (no printing necessary).
I love the way you explain the lesson plan. Iwill try to do that like that.
Thank you so much for all the important information about differentiation
super informative and a great new resource. I have taken a variety of differentiated plans and melded them together to work for me. This is another great tool to add in there..
Very informative and will definitely be using this.
Good point finding it easier to create for the most gifted learners up front, then differentiating down for others needing a more on-level set of activities, and/or those needing modifications. Never thought of the Tier III, II, I idea, but it keeps the activities organized. Nice option for planning!
I’m glad you found it useful. It really is faster!
I like the idea, and now I have a clear understanding of the process.
I like the idea and have a clear understanding of the process. Great point finding it easier to create for the GT learners first, then differentiating for others. It’ll help keep the activities organized. Will share with my team.
I loved watching your process! Super helpful
Thank you for sharing all of your expertise!
I love the process you took to plan out the lesson plan and being able to address the needs of the students.
Thanks! I hope it’s helpful!
Great lesson plan format!
I love all these great ideas for lesson plans. Different apps that are being suggested and the different approaches are great!
You have a great process!
This is very helpful. Thank you!
I like the grouping of students in tiers I think its a great way to implement differentiation.