Leanna Barrett

Dr. Allen
EDGE 6003
11 October 2015
Toolkit Reflection
The first strategy that I implemented in my classroom was the tiered assessment strategy.
This seemed like a great strategy to use with my students because it allowed all students to work
on mastering the same standard while working on a different activity based on each students
ability. The tiered assessment strategy seemed like something that could be easily transferred into
my virtual environment, and also sounded like a great way to differentiate in my virtual
classroom. Since all assignments are the same for students and are loaded at the beginning of the
year, the one of the only ways that I am able to differentiate for my students is in my weekly
Live Lesson sessions.
Since students had just taken their Unit 1 test, I used that data to split them up into groups
for the Live Lesson. It would have been better to have 3 groups, but since I only have one hour
of Live Lesson time, I had to split them up into a low and high group so that I could spend thirty
minutes with each of them. My learning teams power standard for the week was W1-writing
arguments to support claims, so I looked at students answers for the two essay questions on the
test. Students were placed in the lower group if they did not attempt the question at all or if it
was clear that they were not proficient writers. Students who wrote a thorough essay or went
above and beyond were placed into the higher group.
I decided to start small with my lower group since I only had 30 minutes to work with
them. I asked them to take a stance on the gun control debate at the beginning of the lesson. For

students who were straddling the fence or did not have an opinion, I provided an essay on each
side of the debate to help them make a decision. We discussed the importance of making claims
that could later be backed up with evidence rather than stating our own personal opinions. I also
provided students with a graphic organizer to help them organize their thoughts. By the end of
the lesson, I asked students to give me the thesis statements they had created as their ticket out
the door.
I provided less scaffolding for the higher group so that they could show me the extent of
their abilities. These students were also given more choices about the topic they wrote on and
were allowed to choose between gun control, the importance of arts in schools, or a presidential
candidate of their choice. They were asked to provide reasons to support their claims in their
thesis statement. To take the assessment a step further for the higher group, I asked them to also
appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos in their writing sample. The students in this group had the same
amount of time as the other group, but were asked to provide more writing and were given a
more complex task.
The lesson went relatively well, but there was also much that could have been improved.
Thirty minutes did not seem like enough time for some of my lower group students. I noticed on
the informal assessment that many thesis statements were only partially complete because they
did not have enough time to think out their points. Although I thought that thirty minutes would
be plenty of time to write a one sentence thesis statement, I did not take into consideration the
fact that these students had not had time to consider the issue beforehand and that it was a
struggle to create a thesis statement in such a short amount of time. One way that I would
improve this in future lessons would be to break down the assignment even further for my lower
group by stretching the activity out over several weeks. During my first Live Lesson, I would

brainstorm with the students and have them think of where they stand and a few reasons to
support their claims. Then, I would have the students create a thesis statement based on the
brainstorming we had done in the previous week. I would like to spend a third week on the
activity in order to see students expand on these claims in their body paragraphs. This would be
useful since the students never write essays during Live Lessons as they would in a regular
classroom. The fact that the same students do not consistently come to Live Lessons may make a
three-part Live Lesson difficult to implement, but offering communication and extra credit to
students my combat that.
Another thing that I would change about the lesson was my involvement. During the
activity, I had asked students to send me their thesis statements if they wanted to share or if they
wanted feedback. I read these thesis statements aloud and commented on what the student did
well and if there was anything that needed to be changed about the thesis. My thought process
was that this would model the writing process for my struggling students as they were able to see
and hear what their peers had done so that they could know what to mimic and what to avoid in
their own writing. However, I received feedback from a few students after the lesson who felt
that this was distracting and made it more difficult for them to concentrate on their own writing.
In the future, I believe that I would provide written feedback instead so that students could read
my advice if they would like to apply it to their own writing, but would not be distracted by the
sound of my voice.
The activity went much better for my higher-level students. They had no problem
completing the assignment within the allotted time. In the future, I would like to do something
more collaborative with these students, such as ask them to take part in a debate or work on a
collaborative essay with another student. Since these students were already proficient in this

standard, it would have been useful for the students to learn tips and tricks from each other as
well. I would also like to add a reflective piece so that students can reflect on their writing
strengths and the useful information they picked up from their peers.
The second strategy that I implemented in my classroom was a choice board. This
seemed like another great addition to my virtual classroom since the students are not allowed any
choice with the assignments that they complete. Students were just about to complete the Unit 2
portfolio, which is a descriptive essay. Most of the students absolutely hate the assignment, and I
have to agree with them because it does not allow for much creativity at all. I decided that this
would be the perfect time to offer a choice board for students.
Students were at the end of the Romantic Unit, so I decided to create activities for the
choice board that aligned with my learning teams Power Standards for this unit. This allowed
for me to assess students mastery of the standards before moving on to the next unit. Since this
was an alternate assignment for something that was already uploaded in their lessons, I did not
have to invite students to Live Lesson to complete this assignment, which eliminated the time
constraints that I struggled with on the previous strategy.
This went much better than the tiered assessment lesson. While some of my students
elected to complete the original descriptive essay, many students chose to complete the choice
board I provided them and went above my own expectations. In future lessons, I think that I will
modify my choice board. I noticed that an overwhelming majority of students chose one
combination of three activities, while the rest choice another combination on the other side of the
board, which left two combinations that were not completed by a single student. Since the
activities were aligned to Blooms taxonomy, I know that the most popular activity combinations
were not chosen by students because they were the most simple. It seemed that the two

combinations that students chose were more engaging and that there was one activity in each of
the other rows that students did not want to choose, which made them not be able to complete the
other two activities in the row. In the future, I will create three rows in my choice boardone
filled with easy activities, one filled with medium level activities, and one filled with harder
activities. I will ask students to choose one activity from each row, which will allow them more
choices and ensure that each student chooses three activities that are the same amount of
difficulty. I am also considering allowing students to give ideas for activities. This will ensure
that the activities are ones that the students find engaging.
Overall, I think that the strategies learned in this course have helped me to become a
better teacher to my gifted students and my on-level students. It takes a bit of creativity and work
in order to implement these strategies into an online classroom, but the benefit that they provide
to students is well worth it.