Differentiation to support Critical Thinking

This post is slightly different than most other posts because it is more like a lesson. This is a short Professional Development opportunity that I put together for teachers. Following the steps below one could easily use this as a self-guided lesson. I hope that the tools collected here are useful and the teachers of all subjects can find ways to incorporate them into their curriculum design and instructional practices.

Title of Session:

Tools to differentiate for students building Critical Thinking skills

Tech Skill You Will Teach:

In this session you will learn about free web resources that can be used to differentiate classroom activities for students with a variety of learning challenges.

Readability

• Intro: Why differentiate, the importance of reaching all students, possible barriers to learning.

• Find text online, copy and paste it into word document.

• Go to Tools, then Spelling and Grammar, then options, then check Readability Statistic.

The end output should give you Flesh-Kincaid grade level.
Video of how to use Spelling and Grammar tool for checking readability statistic

Summarizing and Synthesizing tool to help teach synthesis and to address different reading levels in the classroom

• Introduce Summarity
  

• Participants try with a piece of text that they use in their class.

Graphic Organizers help students structure thinking and highlight points of importance.

• IntroduceBubbl Us

• Participants create visuals for the summarized text they previously created using summarity.

• Bonus activity (time permitting) check out VoiceThread

Here is an example of a final product, created in VoiceThread.

• Bonus (for math / science folks) check out Wolfram Alpha

Measurable Outcomes:

Find tool to measure readability

Create a leveled text

Create a graphic organizer

I hope that this workshop taught you something new.