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Successful Differentiation

Today I felt really good about the differentiation I did so I thought I would blog about it. After going over new material, I gave all the students 2 problems to do individually. I had two options so kids sitting next to each other had to try different problems. They handed their problems in when finished and worked on homework. As I collected the problems from students, I put them in the back of the pile if they were correct and the front of the pile if they were incorrect. I thew away all the correct papers so I could just focus on the students who needed my help. I split the incorrect papers into a few piles. This only took a minute, and they were working on homework while I did this. I made one pile for students who made one very common simple mistake. I made another pile for kids who missed both problems. Then I made a pile for kids who didn't know how to do problem 1 and a pile for kids who didn't know how to do problem 2. I called up the kids by their groups, and it felt like a very effective way to address their mistakes. For some of the groups, I had them go back to their desk and try a second similar problem after we went over one together. I'm going to give the students two more almost identical problems tomorrow to see if what I did today worked.

On a totally unrelated note, Chuck got to go to his one free day of day care today, and it's his birthday! The doggie day care has a live web cam so I got to watch Chuck playing with the other dogs between classes : )

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