Ep 68. Leveled Practice to Reach and Grow All Students

Johanna Kuiper 0:00
Recently, I asked you all what you wanted to hear on this podcast. And one of you asked, How can you level practice with low level and extension on the same page. So, in today’s episode, I will be sharing one of my favorite ways to level practice questions to meet and grow all of my students. Let’s get started.

Johanna Kuiper 0:21
Welcome to solving for the undefined podcast. I’m your host, Johanna, founder of Miss Kuiper’s Classroom, the place that equips teachers and creating a healthy math classroom where students can thrive, no matter their academic abilities. But it’s not always about the numbers. And that’s why I’m here, bringing you the formulas to solve your problems, math and otherwise, plus strategies on cultivating that necessary math mindset. And that’s what you can count on.

Johanna Kuiper 0:50
Hello, hello, welcome to a brand new episode. Today, we’re gonna be talking about leveling practice in your classroom to meet all of your learners. Because we know that when we come to our classroom, we’re not just going to have students who are on grade level, that would actually be kind of crazy. And our mix of students, we have students who are far below grade level, we have some on grade level students. And then we also have students who are gifted and talented and need that extension. So one of the great challenges of teaching is figuring out how to meet all of our learners needs in a single activity.

Johanna Kuiper 1:29
And to start off, I want to say that I believe that students in your middle school classes can test several grade levels behind and still do amazingly at the on grade level content. And it’s all going to be in that scaffolding. And I remember when I first started teaching, there was this thing called a menu. And I think I still have a TPT resource on it. And it was for linear reviewing linear equations. And it’s not like the math menu that we see today, or that we’ll see in a couple of episodes, actually. But that the levels within the activity, created a menu like at a restaurant. So like the first level was appetizers, second level was main course, then side dishes. And then lastly, dessert. But I don’t really see that anymore.

Johanna Kuiper 2:21
And I think it’s because the idea of leveling has kind of shifted. And some people when they think of the idea of leveling and activity, it’s you have like your lower questions, you have your questions for on grade level, and then you have your questions for your gifted and talented or your extension questions. And I want to challenge that a little bit and say that it’s not the idea of making questions specifically for a certain demographic within your class. But it’s making questions that require different amount of cognition to solve that problem. And that’s going to change based on the knowledge level of your students. So if you have a student in an eighth grade classroom who’s working at a fourth grade level, the quote unquote, easier problems are that level one problem is going to require a lot more cognition and thinking skills from them, then a student who is performing at that eighth grade level to complete that problem. And on the flip side, those higher level thinking questions that you might deem like a level three are not just for your gifted and talented students, that might be the students who end up doing those problems more frequently. But those are great challenge and extension and critical thinking problems for even your on grade level or lower level students. It’s not that they aren’t going to be able to use the skills that they’ve learned to complete those problems, just the level of effort that they might have to give is going to be a little bit more than someone who is going to be on grade level, or who is ready for that extension.

Johanna Kuiper 4:02
I wanted to share that piece because I think sometimes we get caught up in making different activities or feeling like we have to make different activities or practice problems to meet the different needs of our students like that they’re separate. So I’d have one worksheet for students who are maybe working at a lower level one for my on grade level students, and then one for an extension piece. But having them in separate places is going to create division among your students that it shows that you are leveling them and boxing them into whatever ability level they’re showing at this time. And then too, if I’m a student who’s on grade level, and I’m working on this activity and all of the problems are geared towards and on grade level student, when I come to the end of that practice, I’ve gained nothing. Yes, I’ve practiced the concept, but I haven’t been challenged in any way. So I’m not going to be able to progress further in my understanding, unless I go through and do a whole other second activity. And that’s, that’s not fun, like, no one’s going to enjoy that. So proposing the idea of putting all of the levels on the same page or within the same activity is going to be more beneficial overall, in allowing students to feel confident in the level that they’re at, as well as challenge them to think further and choose what level that they want to work at.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
So now let’s get into the logistics of how we can level practice with, quote unquote, well level on grade level and extension all on the same page. So the way I like to do it is in a mild, medium, and spicy, those are what I call the levels. And for some activities, you might see it called a stoplight activity. And the levels are green, yellow, and red. Either way, whichever one you want to use, it’s up to you.

Johanna Kuiper 5:00
So looking at that first level, we have the mild or green, thinking about how we can create problems for this section. The number one thing that’s important is to make sure that all the questions in this section, meet the standard. There’s a tendency sometimes to put questions in the mild section that are prerequisites to the standard, but aren’t actually meeting whatever standard you are working on. So for example, if you are an eighth grade teacher teaching solving equations, the standard is asking for students to be able to solve multi step equations. So in level one, if you are just putting one and two step equations, you are doing your students a disservice. Because if a student who needs that level, that first level practice is only getting practice with one and two step equations, you’re not giving them the equipment, they need to be able to meet this standard. So instead of just giving one and two step equations as that first level, that mild level, you want to make sure that the questions that you are giving them are the lowest level of complexity, while still meeting the standard. So for example, if I’m doing variables on both sides as my multi step equation, I’m going to be using whole numbers. Something that can be done with mental math, has easy calculations, maybe doesn’t have any negatives, and it’s all positive, things like that. So an example using the Pythagorean theorem of a mild problem would be solving for the high pot news where the two legs are five and 12. That’s going to result in the student getting a whole number as their answer for the length the hip hop news. It’s meeting the standard, but it’s the lowest level of complexity. Because it’s not using decimals. It’s not using fractions. It’s meeting the standard while using the lowest level of complexity.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Next up, or next level, we have our medium questions, our yellow questions. So again, we want to make sure that these questions meet the standard. But we want to add a little bit more complexity to it. So this is where you can be using decimals or fractions, you can add in negative numbers, you want to come up the topic, but from a different angle. So thinking about the solving equations, maybe you’re adding in negative numbers, or you’re adding in distributive property, or thinking about Pythagorean Theorem, instead of having a right triangle with the right angle in the corner, it’s rotated so that the right angle is the top of the triangle. And maybe the sides are still whole numbers, but the high partners will come to a decimal answer. So those are some ways that you can increase the level of complexity and challenge without going overboard. Because I think the tendency as we get into the medium and the spicy problems, is to swing away from what it means to meet the standard and give these really complicated, intricate problems. And this might not be the place for those. I see it especially when it comes to solving an equation that there’s multiple things that you have to combine on each side, and then you have to distribute and then you have to solve. And those are great questions for maybe your spicy or your challenge problems, but not as your medium. This is where you want to still meet the standard. But add that little bit of twist of complexity using decimals fractions and negative numbers.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Which leads us into our last level spicy or your read problems. And, again, these can meet the standard or extend a little bit beyond the standard. So you can use word problems, you can use problems that involve more than one step, meaning that they have to solve a problem to gain a number for the actual problem. Or you can add what I talked about before those multi step equations where you have to combine like terms, distribute and then solve, because that’s a little bit more than what the standard asks. And so those will be great challenge or extension, aka spicy problems. So thinking about an example using the Pythagorean Theorem, I have two, one, you can kind of use a real world Pythagorean Theorem problem where students have to then visualize what that would look like, and are these the legs or would this be the high pot news and then solve the problem, or one of my favorite ones to use after my students have learned volume is to use a cylinder as a swimming pool, and there’s a slanted ladder going into the pool. So students have the radius of the pool, as well as the volume of the pool. And then they have to solve for the height to then solve for the length of the ladder. And I just I love that problem, because they have to know both of those things in order to solve for the hypotenus. And those would be your spicy type problems.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
And now that we’ve discussed the levels and how to make problems that fit those levels, I want to give some cautions that I thought about as I was preparing for this episode of one. I know I said word problems is an example as a spicy, but I want to make sure that we sprinkle word problems throughout all three levels, we don’t want to make it seem that word problems are always going to be challenging problems that require a lot of thinking. So while I think that word problems help students or make students visualize the problem in their head and give it context that they have to think about, it’s important that you’re putting them in the medium and the mild places as well. So students are getting exposed to them at all levels.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
My second caution is to not call mild your easy problems, I think that can be very hurtful and demeaning for students who, that’s the level that they need to feel confident about their abilities in math, because if I’m a student who is working or tested at below grade level, and I’m doing on grade level work, and I need those mild problems to practice and to feel challenged, calling them easy, is gonna be hurtful, and a strike to their confidence. So mild problems are not bad problems. They’re just mild, they’re green. There’s nothing more beyond that, just in the same way that our spicy problems are not quote unquote, hard problems. They’re just spicy, there’s more to them than a mild problem. And that’s what makes them spicy, or that’s what makes them red.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
And then my last caution is when you give students an activity where there’s mild, medium, and spicy, students can choose which problems that they want to complete. Maybe you make it into like a choice board where students need to complete three problems or five problems. Or maybe you go up to certain students and tell them instead of doing all of the problems, just focus on these first five, and then we can go from there. I think that’s a great way to work with students who need to focus on those mild problems and not feel overwhelmed of like, there’s 15 problems on this page, like what am I going to do? Go over to them reassure them that let’s start with the first five and then we’ll go from there. And you can do those same thing with your medium or your extension students. You can go up to them say like, Hey, why don’t you start at the end of the worksheet first and work backwards. I honestly think that’d be a really cool thing to do. I’ve never even thought of working at the end and moving towards the beginning. That’s cool. So those are just my three cautions as you begin to implement some mild, medium and spicy problems in your classroom.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
The last thing I want to talk about is how you can use these problems in different activities. So one of the ways that I use them is in my notes, and we’ll talk more about my notes in an upcoming episode. But at the end of my notes I have three problems and there’s one mild one medium and one spicy for students to work on.

Unknown Speaker 15:07
Another way to use mild, medium and spicy problems is in your homework. Now I talked about everything homework in Episode 40. So go back and listen to that one first. But I use mild, medium and spicy problems in my check your understanding or your the problems they send home for students to do.

Unknown Speaker 15:28
And then the last way I use these levels is in practice, and that could look like a thin slice problem activity, or just working at our vertical whiteboards. It could also look like a digital self checking activity, or even in the games we play. So I think I mentioned back in the Cakewalk episode that I will do mild, medium and spicy problems in the problems that the students are working on for the game.

Unknown Speaker 15:55
And that’s it. That is how I level my practice to meet and grow my students in our practice activities, as well as in other places using mild, medium and spicy problems. If you have questions about what we talked about in today’s episode, please DM me on Instagram at Miss Kuiper. That’s MISSKUIPER I’d love to answer any and all questions that you have. And with that, I’ll calc-u-later

Unknown Speaker 16:29
Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. To find all the links and resources to things talked about in this episode, head on over to Miss Kuiper’s classroom.com and click on podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai