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Teaching with Purpose and Modifications 
By: Stefanie Ady

Purposeful centers: I have been so very fortunate this year.
I've seen some of the best center management techniques and some of
the (ahem...) not best ;). The best behaviors and completed assignments were in the rooms where students could tell me why they were doing something. No matter the age, they need to be able to do that if you expect your centers to function well enough to pull guided reading groups while they're happening. If your Kindergarten students can't tell you why they're sifting through the big bin of magnet letters for all the "b's" then the center will be a mess and the learning piece of it disappears, making it a waste of time. Conversely, if your Kindergarteners can tell you that they're looking for all the letter "b's" today because they're practicing the B sound and they're going to make a big B out of all the small B's-- that's purpose! There's your learning. And while you're pulling someone aside to go over sight words or make predictions about a text, that learning is happening at another table without you. How powerful! The power lies in the purpose at all levels of learning, and the students are doing most of the work.

Differentiating on the spot is ok: In the urban schools that I have often found myself,
there are challenges that seem impossible. It has been my experience that in public schools,
many of these behaviors are not tolerated more than once or twice without a new
placement for the child or some type of personal aide to keep them on task. In charter schools,
it's a different story. The schools in which I've worked have fought hard to keep kids in class
despite behaviors. The young boy pictured is known for shouting, talking out, not keeping his hands to himself, never paying attention, and never completing any academic activities--- like, ever. His teacher is a first year teacher faced with other students with similar behavior challenges, so how can she cope? 

Part of my job was modeling best instructional practices for new teachers. I made suggestions and
showed her how to differentiate "on the spot" for kids and document it later. If she can't even get
through part of the math lesson because he is still practicing sorting like objects, then allowing him
to do that while she teaches the kids who are ready for that concept, will open up the
chance for the teacher to conference with him personally later about his sorting, while the other
students practice the lesson activities. In other words, his practice comes before his instruction at his level. In the picture, he needed to sort out all the pink letters-- ONLY PINK!
And then tell what letters and sounds there were after he was done. Later, he had unifix cubes
that he needed to sort into groups of ten. Simple, tangible, and he knew why he needed to do it.

Sometimes students need to hear, "You're going to do math now. If you can't do my math,
you'll have this math to do", or similar teacher language. Later, to document changes or other
modifications, make a note on the work that they did accomplish during your lesson, even if
their topic was different.

Have you tried modifying on the spot? How does it work for you? What do you do when a need
for differentiation is apparent when you begin a lesson, but you didn't plan ahead for that?
Comment below to share!