Valerie Diotte EDUC 5433: Elementary Mathematics Methods St.

Thomas University February 28th, 2014

Ensign, J. (2012). Teacher-Initiated Differentiation. Teaching Children Mathematics. 19(3), 158163 This article by Ensign examines two different math classrooms in Seattle, Washington and how the differentiated instructional practices became models for their entire district. Leschi Elementary, a k-5 school with 70% of students receiving a free or reduced lunch and 20% who being English Language learners, became a pioneer for a number of differentiation practices. One of the classes, a grade 4-5 split, included flexible grouping, ongoing assessment, and a multitude of different math tasks. Seeing the positive results of the practices in this classroom, one of the Kindergarten teachers developed a differentiated math workshop in order to meet the vast array of achievement levels in her classroom. Within two and a half years of this teachers implementation of the math workshops, every teacher within the school was using some variation of the program she created. The rest of the article provides readers with sample activities and lessons, not only for kindergarten classrooms, but for other grades as well. Ensign explains how students were put into three different groups based on their level of knowledgemore support, at level, and enrichmentand each group went through three rotations each lasting 15-20 minutes. During the first rotation, the group that needed more support would see the teacher for a focused teaching group so that they could have any concerns or questions addressed before starting the work on their own. During the second rotation the at-level students met for focused teaching, and during the third rotation the enriched students had their focused teaching meeting where they worked on extension problems for the lessons. I believe that the methods addressed and discussed in this article are extremely useful and beneficial. Allowing students to work with others at their own level and partake in discussions

with these other students has shown to be helpful based on other articles I have read, as well as research I have come across. Moreover, having focused teaching groups with students based on their level of knowledge seems like a fantastic idea. This would allow educators to better help students with their specific needs without having to spend an ample amount of time working with students one on one. Teachers would be able to address common problems and questions, and then determine which students need more one on one help; which they can provide to them at a different time.

Gearhart, M., Saxe, G.B. (2014). Differentiated Instruction in Shared Mathematical Contexts. Teaching Children Mathematics. 20(7), 426-435. The following article by Gearhart and Saxe describes how the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) stresses high expectations as well as strong support for all students. The authors provide techniques to help teachers integrate diverse learners in the classroom, while at the same time providing differentiated support and challenge when required. The techniques described throughout the article were created specifically for a project which was called Learning Mathematics through Representations or LMR. One of the main goals of LMR was to reinforce students knowledge of the number line as a key part of mathematics and to help students facilitate the connections between integers and fractions. The LMR lessons were designed so that there were five phasesor lessonsthat blended whole class, group, and individual instruction. Instruction was differentiated in each of the five phases. The partner work in the LMR project was beneficial to students as it allowed them to learn from one another as they discussed their strategies. Moreover, the activity sheets that were provided to the students ranged in level of difficulty and also included extension problems for

students who wished to do them. The LMR problems that were presented to students consisted of non-routine representations of the number line in order to facilitate and encourage deeper students reasoning. At the end of the lessons students were able to partake in a closing discussion with the teacher in order to discuss anything they may have found confusing, as well consolidate the information learned that day. Research that took place while the LMR project was being conducted (a matchedclassroom design) revealed that there were significantly greater learning gains for students who were in the LMR classes compared to those students who were not. Through the research it was determined that peers are an excellent resources for differentiated instruction and that partner work functions best when both peers are working on the same level work and progress together. The LMR project shows that peer discussion can be an extremely productive aspect of knowledge acquisition in differentiated classrooms.

Wilkins, M., Wilkins, J., Oliver, T. (2006). Differentiating the Curriculum for Elementary Gifted Mathematics Students. Teaching Children Mathematics. 13(1), 6-13. Mathematically gifted students are not frequently challenged in the classroom. Instead of being given questions and problems appropriate to their skill level they are commonly provided with extra work sheets of the same question, or asked by the teacher to help other students with their work until the class is ovcer. The following article examines and discusses the Mathematics Investigation Center (MIC) that provides resources to help teachers differentiated their classroom instruction for gifted mathematics students. Teachers are able to provide students with material that follows the same themes and topics as the rest of the students in the class, however, the

activities provided to the gifted students provide more depth as it shifts the math problems from simply computational to a problem solving level. The goal of the article is to teach teachers how to set up a Mathematics Investigation Center in their classrooms to make it easier for teacher to provided challenging work for students who are functioning at above grade level in mathematics. For any given unit, an MIC might consist of nine different activities kept in separate folders; each activity having its own manipulatives also stored in containers with them. Gifted students would be allowed to work at the MIC a couple of times a week with the teachers permission. Students were still expected to complete a number of their regular assignments, however, they were never asked to complete any of the work from the MIC on their own time so that they did not feel that they were being asked to do more work than the other students. The article closes with discussion on how gifted students require activities in the classroom that are both teacher directed and independent. Often teachers will make the mistake of perceiving gifted students as not needing any help in the classroom. If these students are going to be challenged and expected to take concepts in new directions, it is not reasonable to expect them to learn all on their own. Furthermore, an important area where gifted students might need help is with motivation. Gifted students are known to struggle with perfectionism as well as have a fear of failure. A teachers assistant might then prove to be beneficial to help students stay on task and apply themselves fully. Differentiating the mathematics curriculum is a challenging but important task for teachers, and complex problems are an important aspect of teaching gifted students in the classroom.