Table Topics Activity
Differentiated Instruction
One artifact that displays my competency in using differentiated instruction is the activity I called Table Topics. Like the anchor chart, this was another lesson activity to teach the students how to describe the topic of a reading passage. I broke the students into small groups of 4 and provided each group with a different reading passage. Then I gave the groups a blank index card and a set of 4-5 Jenga blocks, each with a sentence from the reading passage taped to it. The students had to think about the passage, determine which blocks contained key details, and then write the topic on the index card. Then they assembled the jenga blocks into legs of a table and the index card on top acted as the table surface. The concept of key details supporting the topic correlated to the anchor chart with stool graphic I used in another related lesson.
This artifact displays my competency with differentiation because I differentiated the content and also the process. The content was differentiated because each group received different reading passages. The groups were formed by skill level, so the groups were given a reading passage appropriate to their group. There was also differentiation of the process. The lower level groups were only given four key detail sentences. The higher level groups were given five sentences, where four were key details and one was a sentence that did not support the topic and did not belong. In addition to describing the topic, the higher level groups also had to remove the sentence that did not belong. I informed the students at the beginning of the activity that some groups would get 4 and some would get 5, and it was just mixed up so they wouldn’t know which group gets which set. Despite the differentiation of the content and process, the result product of a completed Topic Table remained the same for all groups. By keeping the product the same, it wasn’t apparent to the students that they were singled out as higher or lower level learners.
Impact on Learning
The effect this Table Topics activity had on student learning was that it was a fun, hands-on activity that the students really enjoyed. They were still reading a passage, parsing the information, and determining the topic, but doing it in a way that was different from just traditionally reading a passage and writing the topic down. They were able to work together, so an additional impact is that the students could learn from their peers. The enrichment of unneeded details also impacted student learning for the gifted groups because it allowed them to practice the additional skill of ignoring information that does not support the topic. I also could walk around the class and see in an instant what each group’s selection of topic was. This allowed the activity to serve as a formative assessment, which impacted student learning to allow me to consider next steps in lesson planning and direct instruction.
Future Modifications
Based on the impact on student learning, one thing I might modify about the activity in the future is have the students write down each one’s individual guess of topic after reading the passage, and then compare their notes to reach a group consensus. I might also ask them to explain their reasoning with the group when they shared ideas. This would be a way for me to assess how each individual did and not just assess by the group. It would also encourage verbal discourse in the group.