Pre-assessing your class and differentiating your lesson plan based on pre-assessment results

 Pre-Assessment and subsequent Differentiation

I am struggling to get my head around this activity; my lack of practical teaching experience is compounding my troubles.  I think I understand what pre-assessment is all about; a quick check on student knowledge, what are their abilities, understanding, preconceptions, misconceptions etc. 

My preference is teaching an English class in high school and so that is my starting point. The scenario is this:

I am to create an innovative differentiation strategy, for a class consisting of the three groups of students below, and identify the assessments I will use to track students' learning throughout the lesson:

1. the 5 students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly
2. the 12 students who have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills
3. the 5 students who appear to have limited knowledge about the topic, of which 3 are struggling with language and are at different reading levels and 2 students who have little to no comprehension of the the topic and need to be tested further for special needs

Pre-Assessment

If I imagine a class focussed on English language reading comprehension and analytical skills, my pre-assessment will be a written passage in English ( I really can’t see a way to ‘innovate’ around this; if English language skills are the subject then I need to see where my students stand in relation to that particular skill). 

A pre-assessment is meant to be quick - both in the time it takes for students to complete and for the teacher to analyze. So, whatever text/passage I select, it must be brief.

If I pick a passage, from the selected text, and do a simple KWL exercise based on it, I achieve two things - an understanding of reading levels and reading with comprehension. It should be only a paragraph or two. After reading it, students are asked what they know about a character, what they want to know about the character and if they learned anything else about the character’s goals etc.

However, innovation can occur if you are trying to tease out English language skill levels in individual elements: writing, reading w/ comprehension and analysis. For instance, if the passage selected is fairly famous it my have been interpreted by artists in different mediums. A poem or song might serve or perhaps an excerpt from some larger popular work. What I hope for is a passage that has been interpreted in different mediums - visual and verbal/oral which might allow emerging and developing learners to demonstrate understanding of the words, while also granting advanced learners a different medium through which to access a passage’s meaning. A famous poem like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” might be suitable as it has been interpreted in visual mediums : https://youtu.be/yGB_K_xlHdI  and analyzed a few times (lol). A famous or popular song would do as well. Personally, I find music is a good way of connecting to language and meaning.

It appears there are students in the example class who are not strong English readers (certainly not with comprehension at a level at which insightful analysis or complex linking of ideas may be expected) and this is troubling to me. How did they get there?

My practical instinct would be to determine if there are any records from those students’ previous schools to review or the possibility of having a discussion with their previous teachers (if they have been in the same school for some time) that might provide me with insight into their learning styles, backgrounds etc. If these background  gathering options are not available, a one-on-one “get to know you” meeting with each student would be helpful. Such a meeting is beneficial with all students in order to build up a relationship and trust. It is however time consuming. If this can be done in advance I would do it - but I suspect teachers often do not know who will be in their classes until the classes start.

Differentiation:

I understand that students in the same class often have widely different levels of skills; I must be prepared for such an eventuality.  So does that mean switching the planned text for those students to something completely different? This would run contrary to the goals of the course; in effect permitting students, within the same class, to be assessed based on different measures of achievement yet within the same rubric. It seems unfair. How do you finesse such a situation? Do you adhere to the expected achievement goals, knowing that they are completely beyond the reach of some students? Or do you lower the goals, and thereby risk having the advanced and average students stop learning due to crushing boredom?

If you are careful, and select, for study, a well-established piece of literature, you might be able to use annotated versions for the lower level students to assist their understanding. This is akin to allowing ESL students to use a dictionary, or other gramatical resource, during a test, so that they have the same opportunity for success as native speakers.  Still, emerging learners would need fairly sophisticated reading comprehension to understanding the "themes" and literary devices being high-lighted in the annotated text.

A peers’  suggestion of studying a graphic novel makes me think graphic novels might be a good way for a differentiating for  ESL/disabled learners - but it would require careful research to see if there is a graphic novel version of your text, is it faithful to the original etc., etc. Such a differentiation, as is often the case, could enhance understanding for all levels of learners in the class. I mean, at this level, we are not going to be concerned about reading a text in its original language like Greek or Latin or French -  a graphic novel uses a visual language and I think that is no different from an English translation of a text original presented in Spanish or  Russian etc. Each, unavoidably, involves an artist’s or translator’s interpretation of the original work.

Here is a link to a MindMeister map of my proposed differentiation:

MindMeister Map

In case the link does not work, here is a screenshot: