We have already talked about setting up your digital classroom, exploring technology tools, exploring both digital and paper formats for teaching resources, building up a communication system for parents, digging deep into your standards, making prerecorded teaching videos and having a classroom management strategy prepared. Today we will discuss something else all teachers should do to prepare for next school year:

You can consider differentiation options.

Differentiation was a very challenging part of distance learning. At my school, we used Google Meet for our live lessons, and there were few ways to have each student working at their own pace. However, all of my students still had individual learning needs. One way that I was able to provide differentiation was with a To-Do list. I presented a list of possible math problems. Students start at the top of the list (with the easiest problem) and then work their way down as they get each problem correct. (I presented the list on Google Meet and then watched their work using Whiteboard.fi.) This allowed my quick finishers to move on to harder problems and I could attempt to support my struggling students with guiding suggestions. Since I couldn't pull those struggling students into a "small group" like I would in class, I would then create a video mini lesson on any topic that I saw them struggling with and post it onto Google Classroom.
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This tweaked version of the To-Do List differentiation strategy (which I used in my brick and mortar classroom regularly) worked well in a distance learning environment. Another differentiation strategy that works well with distance learning is tiered assignments. In my math lessons, all students were working on similar problems, but at a range of difficulties. I generally had 3 or 4 different problems. Students are told ahead of time which level they should work on. All students worked on the 1 problem that was closest to their level. Then we reviewed all of the problems as a whole class, so all students could benefit from the review. This could be done with reading comprehension questions as well.
How else could differentiation look in a distance learning environment? Some of that will depend on your particular school's rules and expectations. We weren't allowed to do breakout groups because of technology issues and equity concerns, but small group instruction might be a differentiation strategy that works really well at your school. No matter what, differentiation needs to be at the forefront of our mind. I suggestion looking at the different strategies that I line out in 10 Differentiation Strategies - How and Why to Use Them, and asking yourself: "Is this something I could tweak to work in a digital environment?" and "How can this work if I need to go back and forth between bricks and mortar and distance learning?"

FREE Resources for Your Classroom

As you take some time to think about differentiation, here are some free resources which may help you out:

Subtraction with Regrouping Tiered Activity - This activity gives you 3 leveled sheets for subtraction with regrouping, as well as a quiz for pre and post testing students.

Shape Words Self Correcting Puzzles - This puzzle allows students to work on reading shape words. They know automatically if they have the correct answer because each word only fits with one picture. Once students have used this puzzle at least once, give them a set amount of time to see how many they can match. (Different groups can have different amounts of time.)​

The Tortoise and the Hare Fable Response Packet - This packet has multiple pages at multiple levels. All of your students can read the same fable, while filling out different pages in a form of jigsaw differentiation.

At the end of the year, when we talk about everything we have read during the course of the year, my students are always amazed at how many books they have "consumed". Then if we add in research we have done and videos we have watched, the information they have learned gets bigger and bigger. Last year, I started having my students record that information on "Text Consumption Recording Sheets". We started with whole group books and then by a student suggestion we added them to guided reading. Eventually we realized we could use them for center work and even with videos that we watch to build background knowledge.

By the time we got to PARCC testing, my students had a whole notebook of these sheets. We used them to compare and contrast different books we had read and check back on our understanding. Towards the end of the year, we even did some re-reading of books we had already read. Then we added new details we learned using colored pencils or markers so that they could visualize how re-reading texts helps them to learn new information.

These sheets are very simple, but they help my students to work on a variety of skills and standards with each book, article, story, poem, recipe, or website that they read. Or any videos or songs that they watch. Since these worked so well for me, I decided to share them at my Teachers Pay Teachers store as a simple freebie for the 2017/2018 school year. I hope they help your class as much as they helped mine.