May 2005 — Features

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Technology for All

For students who need more support in learning the skill, I can provide PowerPoint tutorials, examples of other students’ work and guided practice of the skill. If the student needs assistance in demonstrating mastery of the skill, I can also provide a slide-show template or publication from which they can get the information or a visual model. This technology allows for more or less structure depending on the students’ skill levels.

Assembling Work Groups

In planning my lessons and group work, I begin with an assessment of what my students already know. Using technology as a productivity tool myself, I create a spreadsheet of skills to be mastered by each student. I can then sort by skill to break students into small work groups at learning centers around the classroom. In math, for instance, I can easily determine who has mastered rounding to the tenths place, who is ready to move on to the next assignment, and who needs to continue the rounding activities for reinforcement. Having a fast, easy way to group my students by skill means more time can be spent on developing actual lessons. Skill-sorts let me set up an optimal number of learning centers with the right mix of activities to keep the range of students on task and progressing.

Students are often paired or grouped in threes with a mix of skills to complete a project. Each student has a lead responsibility, and every student is accountable to one another. Roles vary so that each student has the opportunity to try new things. Often, natural talents emerge and students of all levels find roles in which they can contribute something of value to the group. In fact, one autistic student has become the class expert on adding graphics, transitions, builds and sound to PowerPoint presentations.

As students work at the learning centers, I move around the room posing questions and getting to know who still needs to work on a particular skill. There are also times when everyone comes together and students take turns demonstrating what they’ve learned. The presenters take pride in sharing, while the other students learn from hearing their classmates’ explanations. One student who experiences language delays has been able to use the interactive whiteboard to highlight examples of parallel and intersecting lines seen in geometric shapes. Because the terms are listed on the board along with the examples, the child is able to verbally and physically identify the types of lines in the shapes.

I have had my more advanced students prepare tutorials on reducing fractions for learners who were just beginning to understand this math concept. These students first developed a storyboard of the steps for accurately reducing fractions. Then they worked together to determine what details they missed or needed to add and what wording to use. They created the PowerPoint file and gathered feedback from small groups of peers to ensure they were stating the steps clearly and using the program’s features appropriately. Even for advanced students, going through a small-group peer-review process prior to presenting to the whole class reduces their anxiety and builds confidence in their presentation skills. I’ve also repeated this process with other groups to develop tutorials for math and reading.