Everyone is a genius.... A little bit of differentiation

This year as a staff we are looking at differentiation, what we currently do and sharing good practice on staff days and in departmental meetings. I personally would say that I struggle with the challenges of differentiation in the traditional terms of multiple worksheets to choose from, etc.  However I am enjoying the different ideas we are coming up with and seeing how pupils respond to them.

A fairly recent arrival to the Spanish Department is our Challenge Grid. I first spotted a tweet by Jake Hunton https://twitter.com/jakehuntonMFL and Jake kindly emailed me his template to use and adapt. The basic premise is that pupils should see how many points they can accumulate in 15 mins. This is one for our Form 1 pupils on the topic of physical description (obviously when it is displayed as a powerpoint, there won't be underlining)



Another option is to give them a worksheet with sentences with different points values and tell them they need to score a certain number of points, as demonstrated here by my colleague's worksheet.
                     

A third idea we are trialling around choices is an Extension PPT. My colleague has made this first one and I have then made another for the Form 3 topic of clothes.


Another staff focus this year is marking for improvement. And surely there is no greater differentiation than tailoring the learning to suit the individual pupil. As part of this, I am looking at feedback inc highlighting the correct work in A level essays rather than showing what's wrong and witholding their score until they have had DIRT time. The pupils have really liked the positive highlighted marking and they are now learning to apply the mark scheme better as they look at what they have done well and write their own www and ebi


I am building DIRT time into lessons at all levels, including using our purple pens for self-reflection. It is enlightening and rewarding, for the pupils and for me.

Another marking and feedback idea I am excited to try out is LIFT, one of many ideas I have magpied from the great Gianfranco Conti https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/six-things-i-tried-out-this-year-which-really-enhanced-my-teaching/
"LIFT, or Learner Initiated Feedback Technique .... consists of questions about linguistic items they are using in their written pieces that they annotate in the margin of the page they are writing on. For example, if they are not sure whether a clause requires  the subjunctive or  conditional mood, they will underline or circle the verb and write on margin: “Is this verb supposed to be in the subjunctive? Why/Why not? This year, I have used it more consistently, extensively and, more importantly I have insisted on higher quality questions. It has made me enjoy giving feedback more and my students have reported benefitting from it"
Further reading I've really enjoyed on marking and differentiation can be found at https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/five-things-you-should-do-when-you-correct-your-students-essays/ as well as  http://justtryingtobebetter.net/marking-is-feedback-is-differentiation-is-planning/

As well as these newer ideas, there are strategies that I have been using for months or years that are also individualising the learning and hopefully therefore differentiating. By creating iBooks at A level and some at GCSE, I am allowing pupils to work at own speed and choose their activities. The drawback from the pupil perspective is that some pupils may not be good at timing and pacing themselves and I have found that some don't cope so well and need more of a guiding hand to stay on task. The same has happened with setting their own HWs at A level. It has been excellent for many pupils but I need a better system for checking what pupils have done and some don't want to choose their own homeworks or don't do it and try to get away with it. At the moment they have a choice of a Learning Log or a simple tick grid.
                   

We also have Challenge Corner with Challenge Cards,  Jenga with accompanying Spanish sheets, Spanish novels, translations of books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Harry Potter, magazines and comic books. This year I've also brought in the idea of Cushion Corner, so that pupils who finish first aren't 'penalised' by being given another worksheet but can choose what they would like to do from any of the above to extend their learning.

An idea that is bandied about a lot now on Twitter is Takeaway Homework or giving pupils a choice when it comes to CATs and that's something that we would like to look at as a department. For me the difficulty is balancing the choice for the pupils (which I love) with the need for CAT scores for report cards, so we'll need to look at that.

Finally if you haven't seen it, check out https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/the-differentiation-deviser-6233159, 81 slides of differentiating ideas for the classroom.

Self reflection board

Thanks as usual to Twitter, I have found some cool ideas I have merged into one. 

Each envelope has a different evaluation of learning tool in it eg call my bluff, tweet for help, text what you have learnt, gimme 5 (new words etc) for kids to lift out and stick into books as they choose to reflect on learning. The silver board is called el espejo de reflejo (the mirror of reflection) of what to stop doing, do more of and do less of, either for me or talking about themselves. You can get the resources for the small envelopes here http://ukedchat.com/wsr00010

#ILILC2 BERTRAM RICHTER “Can we put that on the blog please?” Getting students blogging

This was a really interesting session by Bertram who gave us the reasons why he decided to start blogging with his pupils first of all:
 Learning community feel
 Authentic audience
 Differentiation
 Reading and listening
 Reflection and debate
 ICT skills
 Creativity showcase
 Authentic material
 Multiple feedback loops
 Outside expertise
 Vokis have really helped with punctuation
There were a lot of interesting tips given by Bertram re blogging. He pointed out that the threaded comments tool parallels mark schemes at A level – the pupils respond to comments. Blogspot has just introduced threaded comments. In terms of choosing where to put your blog, he commented that email blogposts are easiest to manage as they are low effort and high impact.

Bertram started by publishing their work for them where ‘work’= anything embeddable eg Worldes, tagxedo, storybirds, vokis, tripline, linos. He recommends that you teach the pupils to find the embed code, thereby training them to do it themselves in the future. Other tips included setting challenges such as "First three to email it get on the blog" and having a class vote for the best three to go on the blog. Give them the criteria and use Poll anywhere for the vote. 2 stars and a wish is a routine feedback system in their school so the pupils were very comfortable with this feedback.

Bertram has a GCSE Controlled assessment blog where a checklist for AfL is a sidebar on the blog. Pupils put their year group and first name as the blogpost title. Feedback was done in class so Bertram moderated as they went.

The A level wordpress posts were posted by email. The pupils write a comment, the teacher comments, they correct and comment back. Bertram notes that there is a pride in belonging to that blogging group.

Posterous is perfect for speaking posts. The pupils use a phone, etc to record then the language assistant marks the speaking work.Bertram gets previous assistants to leave feedback too.

Bertram's summary comments were as follows:
• Start small and with your best class
• Make the most of email publishing and threaded comments
• Blog their work for them, they do the assessment
• Get parental permission – check school policy. First names only etc. School email

This was a really useful and enjoyable session. Whilst we do have a departmental blog and wiki, we are still a long way from the independence that Bertram's pupils are showing and this session inspired me to look at where we go from here.

Creating a buzz

Pupils in various year groups have been using ICT in a variety of ways over the course of this year, and there is definitely a bit of a buzz about the place. They have been given the option for several homeworks of choosing to create a Voki, Toondoo, Goanimate or voice recording. Some of the results can be seen at http://spanishingrosvenor.wikispaces.com, on the various class pages, as well as the Voki page.
What are the benefits to the pupil and to me? Well, there is the enjoyment factor, which can never be overrated, in my opinion. Pupils are enthused and are charging off home to do homeworks which they then email to me or embed directly into the wiki. Many of these homeworks come in early, and there is a definite improvement in terms of getting the homework done, and on time.. One of the great success stories of my year has to be the boy who showed an open dislike for Spanish last year yet has sent me the last two homeworks (created on Goanimate) early, and is visibly more relaxed in class.
The latest ICT project has been through the Virtual Voices programme we are engaging in, with podcasting being the focus of the Spanish department. In Second and Third Year (ages 12-14) pupils have been working in pairs or threes to create podcasts at the cafe, with an accompanying worksheet. Form 4 have recorded dialogues 'At the tourist information office' and again, have made worksheets to go with them. In all three year groups, we have then gone to the computer room for a period and worked individually listening to the various podcasts and doing the associated worksheet. Pupils have been engaged both at the creation stage and in the final process, which is a form of peer evaluation.
I am delighted with the efforts that have been made, both recording and creating the worksheet. The benfits are that every pupil has their turn in the spotlight without the pressure of performing tlive to their peers, and they are much more focused on pronunciation and grammar than they would be ordinarily.