What are we going to do here?

Well, Vicki, I don't think it's about us having to do more.

I actually think it's about having students do a little bit different.

And I think that we can really lay out the attention we're kind of in two buckets.

One bucket I would call is building the learner.

So this is helping students with ideas around clarity.

So I like to use the fundamental question, like, as you're doing great things as a teacher, are kids with you? Like, I know you're clear as a teacher.

What would that look like in a 50 minute class period when you were teaching something? Like, could you give us kind of an example?

What are we talking about here?

There's kind of a general approach that I think we can take.

Who are the students that are below, at, and above the instruction? And so for me, if a student is below, there's gonna be more specific corrective feedback that I'm going to be giving that student.

There might be specific questions I ask that student versus someone that might be right at grade level.

So at an advanced level, I might give them a, "What if?" I might say, "Well, what if we change this variable?" Whereas the student that is right at standard, I might ask, "Well, why? Why do you think that might be?" And a student who's struggling, I might say, "So this is the right answer, or this is the, is, this is the incorrect answer, but I want you to walk me through why I just told you that." I can differentiate but still keep the students together, and they don't really recognize that I'm pivoting and just changing a little bit of my questions.

I hear you about the benefits of differentiating in ways that don't separate students, but what about reading? Given all the reading levels you'll have in one classroom, what's your advice for good differentiation?

The first thing I would do is to sayI want to find out from my students how much background knowledge they have to access the reading.

That would be one.