Differentiating Based on Pre-Assessment

If there's one thing I've learned a lot about in this teacher certification program, it's differentiation. I've learned to differentiate based on disabilities, language abilities, learning styles and even interests. For today's task, however, I'll amaze you with my ability to differentiate based on pre-assessment.

Pre-assessment is measuring students' knowledge on a given subject before you start teaching them, with the idea being that you don't waste time covering things they already know, so that you can delve into deeper subjects and cover more ground. It also helps teachers know where they need to focus the heart of their teaching, so kids neither feel lost or that we're beating them over the head with the same tired material.

Since I'll be teaching English Language Arts to groups of sixth graders, I developed a pre-assessment for a unit that focuses on identifying theme, plot and setting in various genres in accordance with the Common Core State Standards.  Hopefully, these terms will at least be familiar with students who have been studying English Language Arts since kindergarten, but my 10 question pre-assessment built on Kahoot will give me a better idea of what my students actually know. You can check out my quiz here.

Once my students have taken my quiz on their phone, tablet or laptop, I will group them into three groups based on their scores-- the top 5, the middle 12 and the 5 needing the most help. While all of these groups will be studying the same concepts, the texts they use, how they work through them and proceed through the unit will be differentiated based on their prior knowledge of the subject material. The key to differentiation is scaffolding based on abilities and needs and making sure that every student in the class has an appropriate challenge every day. I believe that the system I've created below is just what I need to implement to make my class successful scholars.