Differentiated Instruction in the Regular Ed Classroom: S2 E17

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey everybody, it's Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach. I am here today at tier one interventions podcast, my sister podcast is the writing glitch, and this past week, we offered some really amazing things on both podcasts. On Saturday, math, we it was such a powerful conversation that we aired the entire hour and a half episode on Tuesday and on Thursday, we aired impact Wednesday, which was a follow up to that session. The conversation on in Saturday math was about cognitive science of math, and what are some of the terms that Jonily And I use when we are teaching the instruction methods that we are teaching, And that is spaced repetition, interleaving,

Unknown Speaker 1:00
space practice and cognitive feedback. I hope I got them right. The biggest component of improving number sense is counting. The foundational gap filler for any math deficit is counting. So we're going to take counting to the extreme today, we can do that in many ways, but today we're going to take counting to the extreme with staircase. I'm going to back up and layer two other intros before we answer that first question with staircase, the tier one interventions topics, is staircase. I want to go into what staircase looks like in season one, the staircase,

Unknown Speaker 1:50
which is the counting and the number sense, tier one, math interventions, reference task number eight of the Dirty Dozen is the staircase, and the staircase is like a quick dot. The quick dot module is another module. If you want to watch and listen to that before, if you're watching the recording of this, you might want to pause the staircase recording and go listen to the quick dot module, because you'll get the foundation of what a quick.is I'm not going to re explain that here, but I want to make that connection

Unknown Speaker 2:25
also in this staircase chunk, I remind us of all of the Dirty Dozen, the 12 reference tasks that are exactly the same from preschool through high school for every grade level and Every course, they're the exact same task, but they vary depending on the standards of the grade level and the ability level of the students in that grade level that we are exposing the task to.

Unknown Speaker 2:53
And for our non math and our non academic and our support staff, and really for our parents and our interventionists and those of us that are trying to improve executive functioning with kids, improve fine motor improve visual processing, for those of us that are trying to Just help kids function, and that is our main objective and goal for our students, not necessarily the math. These four focuses that we're going to go through today in presenting the staircase problem are exactly what those stakeholders need. The executive function parts of the brain go around these spots that are getting turned on. It's the center of the frontal lobe gets turned on and the outside gets turned off.

Unknown Speaker 3:52
The outside is what is controlling executive function, emotional connection.

Unknown Speaker 4:02
There is couple parts there that, depending on what the situation is, may get turned on or off. But the idea here is the the brain is looking for automaticity, which is one of the foundations of counting. And now we talked a lot about, when we were talking about the locker problem. It's that automaticity and counting, which is what we're trying to get to today with the staircase, is automaticity and counting.

Unknown Speaker 4:33
Don't let kids engage too long during the first interaction. Here is the key to focus and flow. And then here is the key to building independent problem solvers, which is our next question.

Unknown Speaker 4:49
How do we individualize so that kids can work independently? Let's think about that through the staircase. When I bring this back.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
To kids because I want kids to be able to do things independent. I want them to be able to go exploratory, but they can only do that if I'm if they're at the just right level. The Goldilocks principle in mathematics is I can't give kids something that's too difficult. I can't give them that something that's too easy. I have to give them the just right prompt. The issue is, in my class of 28 students, there might be

Unknown Speaker 5:30
16 different just right prompts. So I give all of these prompts to everybody, so that everybody can work independently. And I'm actually individualizing with a whole class lesson, and not stations or centers. When I bring I stop you there. Yes, go ahead,

Unknown Speaker 5:51
before you get into the mathematics, I also want to indicate that there is a just right level. As far as the neurological system goes, we have inhibition, and we have excitement, and we have these kids on this continuum, and there is a just right neurological engagement, and that will have them just right to learn. So thinking about a neurologically a just right to learn. There is a position in the way the brain is structured that will engage them to learn, and it has to do with engaging into and out of flow. It has to do with

Unknown Speaker 6:37
challenge skill ratio. Are we going to challenge them just enough,

Unknown Speaker 6:43
or are they going to snap into frustration? So understanding that just right level isn't just mathematics, it's also neurological. Sorry. Jonily, oh my goodness, please keep bringing those connections in, because

Unknown Speaker 7:01
I think the beauty of Cheri and I's partnership is I could go teach on all the math.

Unknown Speaker 7:08
Cheri could go teach on all the brain. But if you learn those things separate without the connections, we are never going to make the movement happen just listening the math separately, and just listening to the brain separately is not going to fully move us forward and transcend create a path that hasn't existed. The reason that Cheri and I toggle back and forth is the only way that we're going to make this happen. I love it when I bring back staircase. I'm going to give kids some parameters. I'm going to explicitly tell them some things now. And one of the things I'm going to say to them is, in a moment, you're going to get blocks in play. And this first image that you see, this first image here, I'm going to actually call stage two, and the reason is it's two blocks tall and two blocks long. So I'm going to explicitly give kids parameters now. And then I'm going to say this next image is stage three, because it's three blocks tall and three blocks long. And then, Natalie, you were correct earlier, when you were saying, we're missing some stages. There's a gap in the pattern. Then I might say to students, I might now ask them an answer getting question, and I'm going to confirm it, because I'm trying to solidify the rules of this pattern. This is the toggle method between explicit and exploratory. I'm going to say what stage is this, and then when students answer now, Kirk, I might say no, here only because I want to confirm a wrong answer, even though I'm even though I've already validated student thinking right now, in my explicit instructional moment, I want kids to know that this is not stage seven and that it is stage eight. But I'm thinking now because Kirk, you have me thinking a lot, always what I probably could do if kids are like, Oh, stage six, I should just use my own advice. That would be the smart thing to do. Jonily, Jay Z and I should just say, Oh, tell me more about that. How did you know stage six? Instead of saying no, Kirk, I have learned from you today, and I will be better because of you. So anyway, when kids are like eight, then I'm going to say, Oh, tell me more about that. How did you know I'm going to respond the same way. Remember, we're at the poker table. When is she bluffing? And so then finally, I'm going to confirm and say, Yes, this is stage eight because it's eight tall and it's eight long. And see that toggle? See that toggle that had to have?

Unknown Speaker 10:00
Happened.

Unknown Speaker 10:02
Then I'm gonna say, now that you know those parameters, what else do you notice? And what do you wonder about? And what math questions can you create? Interaction two and interaction three? Actually, now move kids to the second phase of functioning, and that is, how do I get kids to work independently? The question that we really should answer is, how do we individualize for them? The bigger question is, in the tier one core general classroom, how do we differentiate for 16 different levels of learning. I've just shown you how to do that. And then when we get to what math questions can you create, when kids are creating questions and when I'm creating questions,

Unknown Speaker 10:54
those are the questions that are going to naturally differentiate the exploration. So now we have this big list of questions that we're going to solve and answer get, and I'm going to give kids blocks, and they're going to build blocks, sensory, tactile, hands on, and I'm going to give them grid paper where they're going to draw the staircases they build with the unit squares on the grid paper. This is where Cheri and Teresa come in with their occupational therapy adaptations, where we use grid paper that has thicker lines, or grid paper that has larger squares to adapt all of my struggling kids or kids that have learning disabilities can still be in the tier one General core classroom, but the occupational therapist can be in there, adapting through the types of graph paper, the thicker lines, whatever it is, those stakeholders can adapt so that kids can have access to the same mathematics, and we can individualize for them in whole group instruction in the same tier one, core general classroom, where the teacher is there, the intervention specialist is there, the special ed is there, and then the special service provider is there. All of the adults are in the same room at the same time, and every kid is getting what they need, that, my friends, is what full include. Inclusion is all about. We're trying that is go ahead, and that is the foundation of impact. Inclusion, metacognition, perseverance, adaptability, confidence and transcendence.

Unknown Speaker 12:45
One of the other things that I was thinking about as you were talking about inclusion and adaptations and accommodations, and that is some kids may have trouble find motor wise to pull those bricks apart, whatever those cubes are, you may need to get blocks that don't interlock. For some students, they're going to have to be laying it down, unless you get some bigger blocks that they can stand them up. So even those, one by one old wooden blocks can be used for staircase.

Unknown Speaker 13:26
But I love when I make adaptations out at the dollar store, and my adaptations are that silly sponge, and that silly sponge really does make a difference. So I gotta tell you a story about and I even make up the pieces smaller than that, but I have to tell you a story about my friend, Dylan. Dylan was in kindergarten when I was first learning about these reference tasks. So we have es y going on. So I made it my mission to try and problem solve how to work with a kid using the staircase. And I did the whole thing

Unknown Speaker 14:10
incorrectly, because I didn't do interleaving with it. But every week we came back to staircase for six weeks trying to help this kid understand it. So we got out the grid paper. We I sent him sponges, because this happened during COVID. So I sent him sponges in the mail that I had already pre cut, and we were trying virtually to get him to understand staircase and using the sponges, because I didn't have enough blocks to send through the mail. I didn't have mom didn't have enough blocks on hand. And we were trying to get him to understand it and look at it from a kindergarten perspective.

Unknown Speaker 14:55
He was able to make the associations to create.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Seeing the stage as I had a stage that mom was able to print out, and he was able to copy the stages using the sponges. He was able then to translate that copy onto the grid paper.

Unknown Speaker 15:18
However, I think if I would have been able to be in person with him, it would have been a different story. And if I would have tried interleaving and knew more about the reference tasks, I would have started at the locker problem.

Unknown Speaker 15:35
I want to point out

Unknown Speaker 15:38
in the tier one interventions course. And if you're here live, you have access to all of this in the tier one interventions course, if you go to this module reference task number eight staircase, there are many audio sessions that you can listen to from there should be kinder, yeah, kindergarten through algebra. Of me facilitating the staircase with these students at many different interaction levels. What you're also going to find here is my slide deck that I'm showing you. I already have that open, but you'll find that slide deck here. What you'll also find is

Unknown Speaker 16:23
a snapshot of all of the standards that relate to the staircase problem from kindergarten all the way through now in tier one interventions. Course,

Unknown Speaker 16:38
we are not scaling the mathematics as much as we will next year in year two. So next year in year two, we're going to come back to each of the reference tasks

Unknown Speaker 16:54
and up level it mathematically. So if you're a high school teacher or a secondary teacher, and you're like, Joni, you've been talking to us now for an hour and a half, and we're only like, I only have three minutes of lessons to do with my kids. Yeah, that's the point. That's the point, because all of this other stuff is so important for you to learn, to implement staircase

Unknown Speaker 17:19
that I'm not apologizing for taking the process slowly.

Unknown Speaker 17:26
If it's October and it's your eighth grader, second interaction with staircase and all we're doing is creating math questions. That's all we're doing

Unknown Speaker 17:37
now. What happens is, all of my kids have been exposed to this at least twice.

Unknown Speaker 17:46
Now. We now, after they've had at least two exposures to this, now we can begin to scale the mathematics. So if I go back to my math seasons, we haven't done a ton of mathematics, really deep mathematics in this, in these two exposures. Or maybe we have, because as you get better as a teacher, you can do so much more in exposure, one, without giving things away. And you'll hear on some of my audios. I was in a seventh grade classroom yesterday doing locker problem. It was the students first exposure, but we got to some of the questions that I usually do in the eighth exposure. So there's a lot of flexibility here, but when you're first learning this and first implementing this, please do not speed it up and do not push it. Do not push the mathematics. I want you to lay the foundation for the experiences, the thinking, the reason, the sense making, the emotions, the vulnerability. That's what we're building. When you first start implementing this as a facilitator, once you start to get better at it, then we can get more math done in less time. I want to point out another part of the five seasons, and that is one of my favorite seasons. Actually, when we're recording this we're in this season right now. It's January of the school year,

Unknown Speaker 19:17
and this January sliver when we come back from winter break, this January sliver is called math in a month. This is season three in our math year. This is the January sliver. It's called math in a month. It is a replication of the first 15 days, the very day we came back from winter break in two of my schools I launched and implemented in my third grade classroom and seventh grade classroom in two different schools

Unknown Speaker 19:51
every single day in January, another new task that they've seen in the first 15 days. So if they saw law.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Locker problem here. Maybe they saw locker problem in November, and now they're going to see locker problem again here. So this might be the third interaction if I go back to green staircase. Hopefully my kids would have first been introduced to staircase here we created math questions for staircase here now this month, here's what my kids are doing with staircase. Now I'm going to go back now I didn't want to stop sharing. I'm going to go back now to my slides, and we're going to go back to our focus questions today. How do we make Oh, we've already answered this. We've already answered this one. How do we make math accessible? We just talked about all of those adaptations. So we actually, I got ahead of myself on here. How do we make math accessible? Sponges, blocks, grid, paper, thicker lines. Have a great weekend. Love y'all. Bye, everybody. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai