It is that time of year...April....where everyone has to start reviewing for STAAR. While I am not on board with just cramming test info...that soapbox is for another time. What I am on board with, is differentiating and giving choice to kids. So with the biology STAAR test upon us, here is what we are doing to provide just that for our students. Get Your data!For this to work, you must have data. Our high school does a mock test about 2 weeks before the test to pull data on what the lowest categories are for our students. Each student is flagged with their two lowest categories. When the teacher gets ready to implement review, it is differentiated based on student needs. Giving students choiceNow the students don't have a choice on the subject matter, but they will be given some choice on how they practice the areas they are weakest in. The re-teachFirst, there needs to be a re-teach. So in the choice menu, you will see an area that is for re-teach. In our case we used EdPuzzle. Each student will login and get into our class using a code. Then they are given the list of videos that they must watch for the re-teach portion. Most content areas only have 1 or 2 videos. Here are some examples. When the students complete each video, they will get a teach initial. This shows that there is completion, but more than anything it is a time for the teacher to ask questions and check on progress. THE practiceThis portion of the review we want the students to have some choice. So here they are given anywhere between 3-4 options, but they only have to complete 2 of them. We tried to vary the options allowing for them to try online tutorials/quizzes, hands-on review like puzzles, reading passages, or summarizing. Some of the options allow for more creativity as well. Here are some examples. THE Assessment5 questions (mostly STAAR type of questions) are then placed in a Microsoft Form for easy grading. When the student is finished with the first 2 portions, then they will take the assessment. The pathway has a place for them to place their grade and get initials from the teacher. Again, this gives the teacher an idea of how much more help the student needs, or it can allow them to move on to their next lowest tested area. Here it is all togetherI hope you found this post helpful and easy to understand. But most importantly I hope you see how simple and easy it can be to differentiate and provide choice for your kids, even for something as cumbersome as STAAR review.
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April 2018
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