The GEARS You Need To Move Towards Differentiated Instruction

Are you interested in creating a classroom with more differentiated instruction? The acronym GEARS is a great tool to utilize. If you implement each of the five parts, you can reach the goal of creating differentiated instruction within your classroom that is accessible to all students. In order to best implement this strategy, you will need to have or be willing to do the following:

• Have educational/ personal preference information about each student
• Make time for planning appropriate, engaging activities 
• Continuously assess students in areas you’d like to see growth to see if goals are being met
• Frequent reflection on goals, activities, and assessment to see if there are changes needed to be made

Going forward, I will explain what each letter in GOALS stands for and how it pertains to differentiated instruction

Goals. You can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going. Your classroom or individual student goals will help guide your activities and assessments by identifying what you want your student(s) to be able to do in a certain amount of time.

One practice I used each day was to display objectives for each lesson each day. It is helpful for everyone to know what we are learning each day and why. We have found it beneficial to getting students more engaged and motivated about the lesson. Paolini (2005) states that “well-organized courses consider learning objectives as an essential component of each course’s design.” I would use these objectives for whole group as well as small group instruction. They would look like this : We will (identify the letter b) by (circling pictures being with the /b/ sound.) 

Like most of us, we’re more motivated towards something when we’re clear on what it is we’re moving towards.

Exploration In order for each child to learn in the way that is best for them, exploration by the teacher and student is key. You could use a personal inventory assessment to see how students prefer to learn, but there are much more fun ways to explore different learning styles.

Teachers can adjust lessons in the first week or so of the school year to reflect all styles of learning such as auditory, tactile, visual, ect. During that week, find a way to document what style each student seems to favor most. 

Students should also be given a variety of different media to show their learning. Some may prefer pencil and paper assessments. Other’s may enjoy putting together more of a creative project or report. Still other’s may enjoy using technology, such as computers programs and processing applications to demonstrate their understanding of a certain topic. While making these various options available takes a lot of planning a preparation and while each one may not be appropriate in every assessment situation, giving students options allows them the opportunity to give you the best access to their knowledge in a way they feel most comfortable sharing it.

Access to understanding. This area is mainly about anticipating barriers or problems that students may have when demonstrating their understanding of a subject or skill.

One thing I suggest to remove barriers is to differentiate activities, just as I discussed previously. For instance, if I wanted to do a cut and paste activity for a phonics lesson assessment but I knew there were a few students who struggled with that fine motor skill, I would pre-cut their pieces. In this instance, I am assessing their phonics skills, not their ability to use scissors. By removing that barrier of cutting the paper, I have better access to their understanding of the main topic.

Another strategy I would use during reading/comprehension is before reading a story for the first time, I would go over important vocabulary words so all students would have access to the prior knowledge needed to understand the story. Students enter the classroom with varying levels of background knowledge. Leveling the playing field by going over critical vocabulary words with everyone allows more students the ability to demonstrate the comprehension skill being taught.

Responsiveness to instruction. This area speaks to gathering data and using it to inform and adjust instruction. Tomlinson and Germundson (2007) state the following: “To assess for learning, teachers check more frequently to see where students are in their learning journey—and check with broader goals in mind.” In the following examples, I explain how I used assessment to monitor progress short term and long term goals.

I used many data tools to assess and progress monitor my students, especially in the areas of phonics, comprehension and math. My grade level team would meet at least two times a quarter to discuss student growth and strategies to help struggling students.

I would also use my own daily assessments to inform my whole group and small group instruction and well as to create intervention groups that would meet at least every other day to work on specific skills. 

Strategies. This area speaks to learning how to learn. Students can be students of themselves at any age. My thinking for a long time was that my students were probably too young to have so much responsibility for their learning. However I don’t think I gave them enough credit. Although I did give them strategies for success during specific lessons, I did not consistently give them multiple strategies to chose from with each lesson taught. Students, even at the age of 5 and 6, know what they like and what works for them. Some of them may have even been able to develop or explain strategies that I may not have even thought of. Allow your students to be active participants in their learning and they might just teach you and the other students a thing or two.

GEARS is a fulsom plan to helping any classroom become a more differentiated learning space. Any teacher can put these strategies in place in their classroom. It will just take some time, energy, intention, and continuous reflection and revision. But believe me what I tell you the benefits far outweigh the effort. 

References:

Gurmundson, A. & Tomlinson, C.A.  (2007) Teaching As Jazz. Educational Leadership, 64(8), 27-31.

Paolini, Allison. (2015) Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness and Student Learning Outcomes. The Journal of Effective Teaching,15 (1), 20-33.