A Whack at Differentiation

I don't know about any one else, but there's not much more I dread than coming back to classes after I've had a sub in the room.

Scratch that, I do know what I dread more --

Coming back to classes after I've had a sub in the room for 2 days in a row.

Last week, I attended/presented at the MACUL conference in Detroit, Michigan.  I found it an invigorating and enlightening experience to learn from like-minded, enthusiastic educators who are doing nothing short of amazing things in their classrooms.

But, when push comes to shove, the reality of today was that I needed some lesson plans.  And regardless of whether or not those lessons were done on Evernote or in a spiral-bound notebook, they needed to be done.

After going through the practice problems my students worked through on Thursday during class, I wanted to take a decidedly differentiated approach to today's activities.

We are working on some basic stoichiometry for ionic compounds.  I want students to be able to take the mass of an ionic compound and convert that value to the number of formula units in that sample or vice versa.  This is one of those compounds that certain students pick up very quickly and others with struggle, slogging painfully through each problem and never seeming to really pick up the pattern.

Knowing that I would have some students who had done every single practice problem and thoroughly understand the concept and others who had done very few (if any) practice problems, and even those were done "collaboratively", I decided to go the following route.  I was extremely pleased with the results:

1) As students came in, I placed a single conversion problem on the board.  I gave them 5 minutes to answer this question on a piece of scrap paper.  I called it a Fake Pop Quiz (FPQ) -- and my students are used to these, as we participate in FPQ's fairly frequently in my class.  I asked students to work individually to work the problem to the best of their ability.  Here is the question I used:

"A sample of lithium hydroxide contains 1.26 x 10^23 formula units.  What will the mass of this sample be?"

2) I had a student read through the answers to Friday's practice problems as I checked the students' answers to the FPQ.  Based on their answers, I was able to group the students in the following manner:

*: Totally clueless -- needs desperate help from me

M: Okay on the stoichiometry set-up, but had errors in either the molar mass or the calculation of the final answer.

I: Okay on the stoichiometry set-up, but had an incorrect formula (resulting in an incorrect molar mass and final answer)

T: Totally fine -- everything correct.

3) Based on this information, the class "assignment" was different for each group. I gave one member from each group a set of directions for the assignment:

* : My totally clueless group stayed with me.  We worked through problems on whiteboards together -- each person with a whiteboard.  Then, I gave them each an additional set of 4 conversion problems to do at home by themselves.

M: These students did a set of additional practice problems as a group, with a key to check their molar masses and final calculations as they worked.

I: These students created a paper slide video tutorial about writing formulas for ionic compounds (there weren't very many of these students, to be honest, so I had some of my T's do this as well).  I left scrap paper, a set of markers, and an iPod out at their station and told them a video on the iPod was due by the end of the hour.

Here's an example of one of the videos made:


T: These students created a video tutorial about how to successfully complete a mole conversion problem in similar fashion to group I:



What I loved about today:

1) I got a chance to help the students who needed help, but also made them accountable for the work they didn't complete.  I worked with them, answered their questions, discussed what was causing them problems, but I made them finish the practice problems they didn't do after we were finished.

2) I gave the students who were fine the chance to do something different.  They were able to do something a little bit more creative rather than more practice problems that were unnecessary for them to understand the concept.

3) I killed two birds with one stone.  The videos the students made can be used as an additional resources for students who continue to struggle or were absent.

4) The students who made little mistakes (group M) were able to build confidence in their skills through just a little more exposure and practice.

This is one of the best days back from a sub I think I've ever had.  It really didn't take too much work on my part, and I think most of my students walked away from my class with more than they would've with a traditional approach.