Meeting the needs of diverse populations

"In your classroom, how do you help students who are struggling to achieve?"

In my classroom I would focus on growth mindset with my students, especially in the first few weeks of school. In those first few weeks, I would focus on building up the community in the classroom and teaching the students about growth mindset. Students who are struggling tend to feel embarrassed and therefore afraid to try because they are afraid of looking stupid in front of their classmates. This is why our classroom community needs to be fostered from the beginning of the year. I would set the expectation that it is unacceptable to laugh at another student’s mistakes and by encouraging everyone to participate. When in a group lesson, I would strategically ask questions that are at each students’ level so they are capable of answering. Moreover, with the growth mindset attitude, we accept that is okay not to know something because we have the capacity to learn.

Once the positive classroom climate has been developed, there are several different strategies that I would use to meet the needs of all students. First off, I would differentiate my lessons so that all types of learners can access the information. One strategy I use is choosing activities with multiple entry points. For example, a project you could do for area, perimeter, and volume would be to have the students design the floor plan of their dream home. This project can easily be simplified or expanded based on the student. Another strategy is using hands-on group activities. You can either use homogeneous groups or heterogeneous groups depending on your goal. Collaborative learning can be extremely beneficial for all students. An example of when I used homogeneous groups and it worked really well was when I created a bunch of tiered math stations. Each station was at a different level of difficulty and not every group did each station. They were all working on the same concept but at the level they were currently at. Moreover, because the students in their group were at a similar ability level, they were able to discuss and share ideas more readily. Sometimes when using heterogeneous groups, the strongest student will simply do all the work and the weaker student will just fade to the back. For this reason, before doing any type of group work I would make sure to teach them how to effectively work in groups. Furthermore, I would assign roles for each group member when doing group work to ensure that everyone is participating.

Another important aspect is goal setting. I would help this student create individualized goals with pre-determined checkpoints where we can reassess. When creating the goals, it is a good idea to take into consideration the student's zone of proximal development. I would set goals for them to be able to do independently what they are currently able to do with support and then set a new goal once they have reached the first one. This way the goals are achievable and they will able to feel successful. It is especially important with students who are struggling to scaffold lessons and assignments. In addition to guided practice, I would use some pre-teaching strategies to help this student. An example of this would be to go over the main concepts and vocabulary with that student in advance; this way they will be more confident when they are learning among their peers.

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An example of a differentiated assignment:

This assignment can easily be made more difficult or simpler. Ex. to increase difficulty, have the students make rooms that are irregular shapes, have students determine what volume of dirt would need to be dug in order to build the house, what volume of paint is needed to paint the house, make their diagram to scale and determine the conversion rate, etc. To make it simpler, you could have them work with fewer rooms, only focus on the measurement of select rooms, etc.

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This assignment can be adapted for grades 4-7 (from the Ontario curriculum)

Overall Expectations:

Grade 4:

• estimate, measure, and record length, perimeter, area, mass, capacity, volume, and elapsed time, using a variety of strategies;

• determine the relationships among units and measurable attributes, including the area and perimeter of rectangles.

Grade 5:

• estimate,measure, and record perimeter, area, temperature change, and elapsed time, using a variety of strategies;

• determine the relationships among units and measurable attributes, including the area of a rectangle and the volume of a rectangular prism.

Grade 6:

• estimate, measure, and record quantities, using the metric measurement system;

• determine the relationships among units and measurable attributes, including the area of a parallelogram, the area of a triangle, and the volume of a triangular prism.

Grade 7:

• report on research into real-life applications of area measurements;

Specific Expectations:

Grade 4:

• estimate, measure, and record length, height, and distance, using standard units

• draw items using a ruler, given specific lengths in millimeters or centimeters

• determine, through investigation, the relationship between the side lengths of a rectangle and its perimeter and area

• pose and solve meaningful problems that require the ability to distinguish perimeter and area

Grade 5:

• estimate and measure the perimeter and area of regular and irregular polygons, using a variety of tools

• solve problems requiring conversion from meters to centimeters and from kilometers to meters

Grade 6:

• estimate, measure, and record length, area, mass, capacity, and volume, using the metric measurement system.

• solve problems requiring conversion from larger to smaller metric units

• determine, using concrete materials, the relationship between units used to measure area (i.e., square centimeter, square meter), and apply the relationship to solve problems that involve conversions from square meters to square centimeters

Grade 7:

• solve problems that require conversion between metric units of measure

• solve problems that require conversion between metric units of area

• solve problems that involve the surface area and volume of right prisms and that require conversion between metric measures of capacity and volume