Ninja Notes

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How to Differentiate For Your Students in Less Time

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Learn how to differentiate for your students in less time with these strategies. These are practical ways to take some of the planning off your plate and still provide your students with the supports they need. Come read the whole post.

One of the biggest issues teachers talk about is how much time it takes to differentiate their instruction for the needs of the different learners in their complex classrooms. All teachers want to help, reach and teach all their students, but understanding how to do this can be a challenge especially for teachers who are new to teaching, new to a grade level or new to the types of challenges and barriers a student is facing.

Full Disclosure: Differentiated instruction is hard.

And there seems to be some sort of unwritten out there that everyone should be good at it the first time you try.

Gee, no pressure.

Well, what if we could give you some tried and true strategies that have worked for us? We all know differentiation is important, but what does it mean to truly differentiate for everyone?

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How to Create a Community Culture in Your Multi-Grade Classroom

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How do you teach a split class or combined grades? Start by combining your students into a culture where they get to know each other and create a classroom community that your students will love.

How do we create a community culture where all students feel they are equal and belong? It turns out we’ve had more combined-grade classes than straight-grade classes since we began teaching, so we can’t imagine teaching any other way. First of all, we call it a combined class rather than a split class. It’s the first thing we do with parents because our combined classes are not like the old ‘split’ classes.

When students come into our classroom on the first day of school, they immediately collect into two different groups-the lower grade and upper grade. They don’t know each other well and like to sit with their friends. We don’t give students a seating plan right away (or sometimes at all) so we can see which relationships form or are already in place, but then we slowly start changing their mindset about the combined class.

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The Reasons For Project-Based Learning

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Do you want to try project-based learning in your classroom, but you aren't sure where to start? Check out this post that helps you get started with some simple projects and activities to get you started. We've even added a free planning page to get you on your way.

Project-based learning can be a challenge because it moves the control from the teacher to the student. When we began our teaching journey, controlling every aspect of student work from beginning to end seemed like the right thing to do. As we’ve evolved as teachers, we learned that loosening the reigns has many benefits. Check out some of the best reasons we use project-based learning in our classroom.

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How to Create a Sense of Agency in the Classroom

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Are you struggling with classroom management? This strategy changed our entire approach. No charts, games or reward systems! Just classroom management that works! Come and read this post to make a change in your classroom today.

Imagine a classroom where the students monitored themselves-and, not in that “hall pass police officer” type of way. Imagine a classroom where students encouraged each other to keep the room tidy, put things away and treat each other with respect. We call this a sense of agency.

It’s possible because each year we turn out a classroom full of polite and respectful students, but it takes work. Students need to be taught how to make decisions that are positive and what to do when they make a mistake. Creating a sense of agency is just as important as all the math and reading skills. It’s the key to classroom management. Want to know how?

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Use the Learning Pit to Teach Growth Mindset

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Do your students struggle with giving up as soon as the work gets challenging? Do they lack determination or grit? This is one of the best lessons we ever learned and we regularly use it with our students to show them how to embrace a growth mindset. Come learn about the learning pit.

Have you been learning about growth mindset and wanting to try to instill some determination in your students? Have you heard of the learning pit? It might be the key to teaching students to learn how to learn.

Do you have students that break down during tasks that require a bit of problem-solving? Are they frustrated? Do they yell and scream or run out of the classroom? You need the learning pit.

Teaching students to overcome challenges can be difficult when we live in a society that is all about getting things done quickly. We have technology, parents and constant distractions constantly telling students they can learn anything anytime with little or no effort. As a teacher, this is very challenging when students feel they’ve failed, get frustrated or give up right away.

This was what was happening in our classroom. Students who could manage challenges were more successful overall because they kept working until they got it. It felt like it was a lack of effort, but it was much more than that. So we started investigating and researching best practices to help us teach students to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

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Getting to Know Your Students

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Getting to know your students helps with classroom management and lesson planning. Come learn some of the ways we get to know our students and start the school year off right.

Every starts with a new, fresh batch of kids that you want to get to know. Teachers need to know their students for several reasons. You need to understand them and their quirks because you’re going to spend the next ten months in close quarters trying to guide this child through all kinds of experiences. This is why you need to understand who your students really are.

You need to know who they are so you can plan to teach them. It’s just that simple.

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