Rigor and Differentiation in the Classroom: Tools and Strategies

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the program my good friend, Dr. Barbara Blackburn. Dr. Blackburn is the author of dozens of books and is known as a full-time consultant who works with schools around the world to help raise the level of rigor and motivation for professional educators and students alike. And we're here today to talk about her book, Rigor and Differentiation in the Classroom, Tools and Strategies.

[00:42] Announcer:

And now our feature presentation.

[00:44] SPEAKER_00:

Barbara, welcome back to Principal Center Radio.

[00:46] SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you. You know I always have a great time with you.

[00:49] SPEAKER_00:

Well, it is always a pleasure to speak with you, and I think you have a commanding lead in terms of our all-time number one guest. With your many books on rigor and sometimes your co-authors have joined us, I'm very excited today to talk about the new book. on rigor and differentiation. So let's jump right into it. What is the relationship between rigor and differentiation and kind of what need did you see in our profession that resulted in this book?

[01:17] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm going to flip your questions and start with the need first. Certainly differentiation is a very commonly used strategy, very popular in terms of meeting students' needs. But no matter where I go, when people talk about the challenges with differentiation, they talk about two things. When they're talking about themselves, they talk about the challenges of having enough time to plan and coordinate, pull the lessons together, get the resources together. But when I ask them what is their biggest challenge with students and differentiation, what comes up over and over again is the fact that when they try to differentiate, particularly for lower level students, they feel like they lower the level of rigor, that they're just making it easier because they can't handle the grade level work.

[02:08]

And the more I have been in schools and observed classrooms and reviewed assessments and tasks from teachers, the more I realize that that's exactly true. Generally, we are not keeping the level of rigor up for students who are struggling in a differentiated classroom. And on the flip side, for those students who are advanced or gifted, we tend to just give them more to do, or we give them something creative, like a creative project, but the challenge itself does not increase. Does that make sense?

[02:43] SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And I think we've all probably wrestled with that dilemma in our heads a little bit when we think about differentiation. Either we don't differentiate and we have some students who succeed and some students who do not succeed with a particular task. And then we have to kind of figure out how to respond to that. Or we do differentiate and then we realize, uh-oh, we're widening the gap by giving the top students, the students who are already doing well, even more interesting and challenging work that pushes them even further and and giving our students who are struggling the most the fewest opportunities to close that ground, to close that gap. Right.

[03:18] SPEAKER_02:

And so, you know, the more I talked with teachers about this, you know, they would say to me, differentiation and rigor, you just can't put the two together. And I sat down one day and I said, you know what, I'm just going to sit down and look at this and figure it out. And the reality is they blend together so nicely because what differentiation says is, all students should learn at high levels. And what differentiation says is we're going to start with where students are. And what differentiation says is we're going to do what it takes to help them grow. Well, those are the exact same things that I say about rigor.

[03:56]

And so then I went back and took my definition of rigor and looked at it through a lens of differentiation. So when I talk about rigor, I talk about that it's creating a climate or culture in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels. So let's overlay that with Carol Ann Tomlinson's definition. She talks about varying the content, the process, and the product. So when I talk about having high expectations, that's the content. What level of content am I asking students to learn?

[04:38]

When I talk about the instructional support that is needed, that's what she talks about when she talks about process, how we teach. And then when she talks about product, which is the assessment piece, I talk about demonstration of learning. So they actually are totally in sync. And as I began to look at that, then I said, you know what, this really is a need. I continue to have teachers ask about this. It's probably in the top three of their questions to me.

[05:08]

And honestly, the book just flowed because once I had overlaid those two together, it was very easy to say, here's how you do this in a rigorous manner. And one of the things where I had the most fun was actually crafting some sample lessons that showed how to differentiate for three levels of students.

[05:27] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm glad you mentioned Carol Ann Tomlinson because I think one of the myths about differentiation that I've heard her address at conferences and other speaking engagements is this idea that to differentiate, we have to do something different for every single student, right? That we have to customize the lesson in some way for every student, which of course is an overwhelming task for teachers who have, you know, dozens or hundreds of students throughout the day. You talk in the book about learning portraits. Help us understand how learning portraits can help us understand what our students need in terms of differentiation.

[06:02] SPEAKER_02:

That's a great question. And while we're on the subject of Carol Anne, you know, I love her work. She has always inspired me since her first book came out. And interestingly, my publisher sent her a copy after I had finished. And I will have to tell you, I was a little nervous because she, to me, is just the guru of differentiation. And I wanted to make sure that she didn't feel like I had misinterpreted her work or that I was, you know, not doing it service because I admire it so much.

[06:33]

And she actually sent me a glowing response about it. So I was very pleased. She thought, that the ideas were very practical in terms of how it worked together. Now, having said all that, to me, the learning portraits are sort of the foundation of everything. That's can you get to know students well enough to know how to teach them and what to teach them. And I had a teacher a couple of months ago ask me, she said, why do you call them portraits instead of profiles?

[07:04]

Because, you know, in schools, we're all about profiles. Let's have profiles of students. And we were getting some pictures made with my stepson and the photographer took a profile and then she took some some standard portraits. And I was looking at the pictures and I thought, you know, in the profile, I just can't see the full picture. And that's when it hit me that what we really need to think about are portraits. So that's where the notion of portraits came from.

[07:28]

So when I talk about learning portraits, I talk about getting a very full view of all aspects of a student. And so we do a lot with identifying students' readiness levels. You know, where are they in terms of being ready to learn, whether that's an anticipation guide or a KWL or a pretest. You know, we do a lot with that. We also typically know what is considered to be a student's ability. And certainly that's a controversial topic with IQ tests and standardized testing.

[08:02]

But ability is one of those pieces we look at. So then sometimes, but not always, we look at interest. And the reason that that one has become a little less popular is that we're so focused on testing and academics, we go, well, that's sort of a touchy-feely thing. Well, the thing is, if I can tap into your interest, then I can activate your learning quicker. So it's something as simple as when my niece was in first grade, she just loved her teacher. And I remember talking to her about it one time, and Jenna said, you know, she asked me all kinds of questions.

[08:38]

And one day on our math test, she put the name of my dog in a word problem. And, you know, that just sounds so simple. But to her, it really made a big deal. And, you know, they're certainly comparables at upper grades. So I do think we need to know what students are interested in so that when possible, we can tie their learning to it. When my Stepson was in middle school and he was a skateboarder and he really was into videography.

[09:09]

And the project was pick an aspect of geometry and create a project that shows why it's applicable to real life. Let me tell you, he didn't like math very much, but he loved math after that because he did a video of all his skater friends and he talked about angles with the ramps and just all kinds of things. And so, If you know interest levels, then you can adjust to them. I think it's also just critical, critical to understand a student's culture. And again, I think that's one of those things that we just, we know broad groups, but we don't really know. I mean, I was in Miami and they wanted me to do a book list for them, a list of recommended books.

[09:54]

And they specifically wanted diversity. And I was like, well, you know, I don't know that I'm the best person to do that for you. For example, Hispanic culture, what are you looking for? And they said, oh, we have 19 different groups within the Hispanic community. Okay, that is not me. I don't have that knowledge base.

[10:13]

And I think oftentimes we just have big pictures. So one of my favorite activities to let students share about their culture, and you can do it orally or in writing, is they create a culture box. And they can actually do a real box, or if it's upper grade students, they can certainly do it electronically. And basically, they just collect things that tell you about themselves. And in kindergarten, it's sort of show and tell. They bring and they talk to you about what it is and why it means a lot to them and their family.

[10:44]

And you learn a lot about their culture. And so, again, for that full portrait, that's a piece of it. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is another one. You know, we've had that around, goodness, since the 60s. And I think sometimes we forget about that hierarchy of needs that, for example, if we're not meeting those basic physical and safety needs, it's very hard to get to any of the others. And so I put a chart that actually translates Maslow's hierarchy of needs into what that looks like in a school.

[11:17]

So I think considering that. And then the two other areas that I think are important that certainly we talk a lot about these days are social and emotional learning and growth mindset. And one of the nice things for folks who are listening, I'm gonna go ahead and put in a plug for my website, which is barbarablackburnonline.com. Because if you choose, go to free and choose the book templates and choose differentiation. For example, with growth mindset, I have two growth mindset assessments that I've developed, one for elementary and one for middle and high.

[11:51]

And, you know, you can grab them off my website. Don't have to register. You have copyright permission to use them. But Justin, sorry about the little plug, but I hope that gives you more of a feel. When I talk about learning portrait, it's much more in-depth than what a lot of people talk about.

[12:06] SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And it took me straight into the Danielson framework, 1B, demonstrating knowledge of students, where it's actually in our teacher evaluation criteria in many, many school districts that understanding your students, understanding who they are and what they bring, is really a critical aspect of planning. This is in her domain one planning and preparation. If you don't know your students, you don't know how to plan for their learning. Even before you get to the standards and the content you wanna teach, you've got to know your students. And as you go through the rubric from kind of unsatisfactory all the way up to distinguished, the specificity of your knowledge has to advance.

[12:47]

We're not just saying, well, some of my students are from this background and some of my students are from that background. You're getting more specific and even to the level of the individual student. And I think about the degree of knowledge and differentiation. we have an expectation of the students in a certain class period. You know, oh, this is the band kids, and I have them for science, so they're this way. And this is the class of students.

[13:12]

You know, we don't break it down into individual students and really get to know them. We just kind of take that surface-level view of that group. But I think you're saying, and Danielson says, we've got to get much more specific in our knowledge of students if we're going to plan for how to teach them effectively.

[13:27] SPEAKER_02:

Right. And, you know, just as a please don't freak out if you're a principal or a teacher. I'm not saying that you have to create 32 different lesson plans for 32 different students. What I'm saying is that if you understand your students and that's certainly a fluid thing because it changes. If you understand within lessons. you can tweak it for different students.

[13:54]

And I think, again, that's an important piece because I talk to too many new teachers who say, I can't even begin to do this. I wouldn't know where to start. I can't do 32 lesson plans. And I'm like, you know, really not. I mean, Justin, what I do is I'm pretty basic when I'm planning. I do my standard lesson, which is what I want everybody to be able to do.

[14:17]

Here's my standard. Now, then I plan two other lessons. What do I do for students who need something more advanced? And what do I do for students who need extra help? And then I juggle between those a little bit. So if I need to do even more differentiation, I do.

[14:35]

But I don't try to plan, you know, five or six or ten lessons to start with. I start with three.

[14:41] SPEAKER_00:

I think that's a much better starting point and a big relief. And I want to point out, you know, flipping through the book on almost every other page, you have time management tips, you know, how to get this done quickly, how to not make this, you know, 32 times more work than planning without differentiation. So I really appreciate those time management tips that are scattered throughout the book.

[15:00] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. That also came from feedback from teachers. Chapter seven is actually common concerns. And time is the number one when there are some others like homework and grading and communicating with parents. But time always comes up as what do I do? So I actually went back after I met with a group of teachers.

[15:19]

I went back and added those time management tips all the way through because they said, we appreciate you addressing it in Chapter 7, but help me as I go. And so that has been something I've gotten very positive feedback on.

[15:32] SPEAKER_00:

Well, so we've talked about students and we've started to talk now about the content, the objectives for the lesson. How do we connect the two, right? So we have a kind of a standard lesson and we want to differentiate that. How do we do that in a way that doesn't just widen the gap and give our more advanced students more opportunities to learn and oversimplify things for our students who are struggling the most? How do we actually differentiate once we've decided on the content for our lesson and keep that rigor up?

[15:58] SPEAKER_02:

So in math, rather than doing rote memorization or solving basic algorithms, all of which are important, but I'm going to lead up to a culminating kind of lesson that is rigorous. And my rigorous standard... And I use a mix of Webb's depth of knowledge, Bloom's cognitive rigor matrix. Rick Warmly's got some criteria for rigor.

[16:22]

So I've blended all of those into a model. So a standard of rigor in math is to identify and explain misconceptions. So what I'm going to do is that my standard lesson is going to be that I want students to be able to do that. And instead of just giving them Just going to go with a basic here, three problems to solve. What I'm going to do now that they understand the concept, I'm going to give them three problems that are already solved. They have to figure out which one is not solved correctly, solve it correctly, explain why it was incorrect to start with, and explain why they know it is correct now.

[17:07]

So that's my standard. And that's very rigorous. I mean, some of your listeners are probably going, oh, my gosh, but that's rigor. And I don't care if you're working with first grade or if you're working with 12th grade. That is a rigorous standard for math that is good for I've done it with pre-K. So, you know, I've just tweaked it.

[17:25]

But that's that's a rigorous standard. OK, so. Typically, with the others, maybe I'd give them, you know, something different to do, something easier or something just harder. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to stick with that standard. So with my more advanced students, I might give them five.

[17:44]

And I don't tell them how many are incorrect. So they have to figure out which ones. Or with my advanced students, I can have them create three, one of which is incorrect. swap, and then follow the same process. I've got two options with my advanced students. Now, with my struggling learners, I'm going to do a two-step piece.

[18:08]

I'm probably going to pull them and walk them through another sample. I would have done a sample with everybody so that we've got everybody on the same page. But I'm going to probably do another modeling piece with them. Then I'm going to give them a problem where they have two problems that are solved and they follow the same process. So everyone's having to meet the same level of rigor. What's different is that they don't have as many choices when it comes to struggling students, so they're able to focus.

[18:39]

Or when it comes to the advanced students, they're either creating them or they have more choices and they don't know how many are correct or incorrect. Does that make sense?

[18:47] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. So kind of the range of different skills that they're needing to use at once is kind of narrowed, but you're not changing the fundamental task. And I think that's what really challenges us sometimes with rigor is we can scaffold the rigor out of it for our more struggling students and give them a fundamentally different task that doesn't have the same outcome. In terms of their learning.

[19:10] SPEAKER_02:

Right. And I've still got the scaffolding because I'm going to model an extra time and I'm going to structure my curriculum differently because I'm going to give them two choices instead of three. But I'm not babying them. And I think sometimes and I did it as a teacher. When I look back, I know I did this sometimes out of our zeal to make them feel good. We, for lack of a better word or phrase, we dumb it down too much.

[19:34]

And I did that as a teacher. And I definitely have talked to teachers who tell me they do that. I want to make sure we get one that folks who aren't math teachers can understand. So in this case, let's say I'm in a science classroom and we're reading an article about biomes. So I do my standard lesson to introduce content. Maybe I do a KWL.

[19:56]

Maybe I show a video. Maybe we just talk about biomes. Whatever I'm doing to get started. Then I have an article. that I need students to read. And so I've got this article as a bonus.

[20:09]

It's the same kind of thing they're reading on the state test, so I'm getting them used to that. So my problem is I got 12 who can't read it, and I got six who are so advanced they're just going to be bored. So what I'm going to do after I have set up my content is everybody's going to read an article. The own grade level, my standard group, is going to read the main article. Struggling students are going to read an easier article on the same topic, and that's critical for when we get to step two. So they're not just reading an easier article, it's an easier article on biomes.

[20:47]

My advanced students are reading the on-grade level article. So I've got two groups reading the on-grade level article, one reading an easier article. Then I've got some kind of activity. It may be writing a summary. It may be doing a graphic organizer. I've got something that I'm using for them to show what they know.

[21:08]

Now we're going to move to the second level. So now what we're going to do is we're going to read another article. And I may have talked about those articles. It's really up to the teacher. But now we're going to read a second article. The standard students are reading another article on grade levels.

[21:25]

And then they're doing some comparison, some contrast, some analysis, maybe some synthesis. My advanced students are now reading an article that is more advanced. Same topic, still reading about biomes, but it's a more challenging article. And they're doing some analysis work with those two pieces. My struggling students, and I love this, particularly for struggling students, they are now reading the on grade level articles. I may need to model it and I may need to guide them through.

[21:58]

But here's what has happened. Because they have read the easier article first, they have built background knowledge and vocabulary. So they are better able to handle the grade level piece. So everybody's doing grade level. So I'm hitting the same content with everybody, but I'm tweaking what else they do with it. And then I can do some kind of a wrap up discussion where I ask questions out of all articles So even my struggling learners have something to contribute to the conversation.

[22:29]

And then we do a culminating activity. And I absolutely positively love that strategy. It's called layering meaning. And it is hands down one of my favorite support strategies.

[22:40] SPEAKER_00:

And I think it's important to talk about the Bloom's level or the Web's Depth of Knowledge level of the objective, because it seems like the core objective needs to be something that we're scaffolding all students, we're supporting all students in achieving, right? So if students who are already the very, very strong readers who are doing that harder text and doing some higher order tasks with it, those higher order tasks that only they are doing are not the core objective for the lesson, right?

[23:10] SPEAKER_02:

Right. My core objective for that lesson, my ultimate objective might be that students can explain the concept of biomes, explain why they impact our society today, justify your answers with evidence from the text, and explain what you would do in terms of recommending biomes Something to environmentalists today, because what I'm going to do and I will tell you, I'm a little biased. I really like webs because there's more descriptions with him. I would say, you know, my challenge with blooms is everybody always talks about the verbs. So we're going to create. Well, great.

[23:50]

We're going to create a diorama. OK, then some of you don't even know what that is. And that just hit me. You're going to create a PowerPoint. Well, if all you're doing is summarizing, so what? Versus we're going to create a design for a robotic arm to help with addressing a medical issue.

[24:06]

And so what I like is webs because, you know, they really give the criteria. So when it comes to text, being able to analyze and justify with evidence from the text is a piece of it. But to truly get to a level three, you also need to go beyond the text and make other connections. So I'm going to pull that in. And so my caution to those of you who are already Googling Webb's depth of knowledge, there's a cute little circle that's got verbs on it. Talk to Dr. Webb and he said that is not his and it doesn't represent his work.

[24:38]

So again, you don't want just straight up verbs. You really want to get into the descriptors. And there are those out there for blooms, but you have to dig to get them a little bit.

[24:48] SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about format a little bit because often one of the ways that teachers strive to differentiate based on student interest is in the format that students are allowed to select for showing their learning. What are some of your pointers or cautions for teachers who want to provide that choice for students? I think we've all cracked jokes about you can do a PowerPoint, a poster, or an interpretive dance. What are some of the pitfalls you see?

[25:13] SPEAKER_02:

I think the biggest pitfall I see is that We allow for creativity and to do that, we sacrifice rigor. So you can choose whatever format you want to. And if you're asking students to summarize information, you're summarizing information. I was in a school where the parents were very excited. They were they all talked about this big project. Well, it was this massive project.

[25:40]

I mean, students had to do like 10 different things. But when you boiled it all down, they were like having to create maps of a community and design the community park. It was like a two-week project. It was huge. But when you really just looked at the assignment, they were given a lot of structure. And what it boiled down to was they had to do things like draw the community park so it's in the shape of a square.

[26:07]

It was recall at best. best it was application. But because it was such a long project and because they had to make it look really pretty and display it in a way, whether it was electronically or on a poster, parents thought it was a very complex, rigorous topic. And so before you talk format, I think you've got to make sure that your format allows you to do something rigorous. Past that, you know, I'm pretty open. You know, I don't I don't have anything.

[26:42]

You know, one of my favorite activities to do in a workshop is riddles, you know, and riddles are pretty basic if you just do them the simple way. But you can make those very complex and kids like them. Kids like doing raps. Cool. You know, they like doing electronic presentations. They like creating a web quest.

[27:01]

But again, if they're going to create a web quest where they're looking for basic recall information, I don't care about the formats. You're not doing something rigorous. And I know it seems like I'm ducking your question, but the truth is the format is not what's important.

[27:16] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Barbara, I know toward the end of the book, you have a chapter for leaders. So when we think about leading for rigor, if you could wave a magic wand and get all of us who are in educational leadership to take some particular action or have something in mind when it comes to rigor and differentiation, what's some of your advice for us?

[27:35] SPEAKER_02:

Okay, if I have a magic wand, I'm going to waive it and all schools are going to go four days a week and every Friday is a full day of planning for leaders and teachers. But I can't do that. So but you asked me magic wand. All right. So here's what I would do. I think that collaboration is the biggest key, whether it is going to a staff development together and working together and talking together or if it's getting together in small groups, if it's doing a book study and talking about it.

[28:07]

You know, it really is collaboration. And what you want to accomplish really is twofold. First, you want everybody to have a common understanding of what rigor and differentiation is. And I will tell you that for a lot of people, that means you've got to develop a common understanding of what rigor is first, because a lot of people just aren't there. So you need to develop a common understanding of what it is. And then you need to look for and create examples of ways to bring the two together.

[28:42]

And as a part of that, ideally, you've got an outside standard you're looking at. So I do a lot of work with school systems where teachers will get together and craft tasks and assignments and they send them to me to review. And I'll say, you know, this works well, but this, how about taking a look at this, this and this? Because At some point, you need to make sure that you're not the only one who thinks it's rigorous. And so that math example I was talking about, that tends to blow teachers away because they're like, well, it's more rigorous if we do a word problem instead of a computation. Or it's more rigorous if they create a word problem instead of solving a word problem.

[29:23]

Not if they're all basic recall. They're not. So you really want that standard so that you can measure things against that. And again, I do a lot of that with training too.

[29:34] SPEAKER_00:

Well, and the book is so loaded with examples and very, very practical pointers that I think anyone who has the book will be in great shape. And of course, I know you work with schools in a more hands-on way as well. So Barbara, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about your many other books or learn about working with you more directly, where's the best place for them to find you online?

[29:56] SPEAKER_02:

Head over to my website, barbarablackburnonline.com. If you go to professional development, you can see the kinds of things I do. I do a lot of electronic, internet-based stuff these days. And then if you go to free, all kinds of free things. There's over 100 free things on there.

[30:17]

Articles, podcasts, a radio show I hosted for a little while, activity templates for kids, all of that kind of stuff. And if you are a leader... Certainly go there and look around, but also go to Just for Leaders. There's an entire series.

[30:32]

I want to say there's maybe 15 articles that are just for school and district leaders. Everything from how to begin and end the school year, to what does rigor look like in your school?

[30:44] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Rigor and Differentiation in the Classroom, Tools and Strategies. Barbara, thanks so much for joining me again on Principal Center Radio.

[30:52] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

[30:53] Announcer:

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