MIS Navigator
February Edition

This Month's Focus: M-5 & M-6
Students experience a personalized and differentiated learning environment, based on class and individual data, to ensure student understanding through remediation, instruction, and enrichment.
M-6: Maximize Instructional Time & Resources
Teachers design engaging lessons with a variety of instructional strategies, a focus on academic achievement, and an effective use of instructional time, resources and personnel.M-5: Differentiation & Personalization
What is Differentiation & Personalization?

What does it actually look like at MIS?
- Use guided reading and math groups and strategies to meet students where they are
- Provide lesson content in multiple modes, multiple times (video, kinesthetic, audio, visual, etc.)
- Survey students to determine their learning styles and plan lessons/groups based on results
- Use digital resources that personalize instruction (TenMarks, Newsela, Raz Kids, iReady, etc.)
- Incorporate elements of choice and student voice in learning activities
- Differentiate by content, process, product by readiness, level, interest
- Regroup frequently and across multiple classrooms if needed to meet individual needs
- Collaborate with parents to get to know a student's preferred and successful learning methods
- Use choice boards for projects and assignments
- Incorporate school specialists and instructional assistants to provide more 1:1 learning
- Use adaptive release in Blackboard Learn to differentiate assignments
- Build personalized content and resources using Symbaloo
- Use stations and small groups to allow for more choice
- Follow and understand IEPs to provide scaffolded support for learners
- Provide tiered instructional resources (leveled readings, Blendspaces with different resources, etc.)
- Plan enrichment and early finisher activities
Educational Articles
- Using Playlists to Differentiation Instruction - Educational Leadership
- How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper - Barbara Bray
- Just in TIme Support (Scaffolding) - Educational Leadership
Self-Paced PD
"Techify It!"
Discovery ED Assign activities, readings, etc. that are leveled. Supplies a variety of resources to meet the needs of various types of learners | Blackboard Learn Creating groups and assigning activities and assignments based on student need/level. Sharing student menus and rubrics. | TenMarks Students can self pace their learning. Teachers can assign activities according to objectives and student mastery levels for remediation and enrichment of content. TenMarks automatically provides amplifiers for student remediation. |
Discovery ED
Blackboard Learn
iReady Automatically differentiated based on diagnostic tests, but teachers can also assign lessons based on student need | Reading A-Z Provides books on various levels about the same topic to allow differentiation by reading level | iXL Students can complete math contracts at their own pace, providing more practice opportunities for topics that are difficult for them. |
iReady
Reading A-Z
Additional Ideas:
PlayPosit & Educreations - Creating different videos to differentiate for students
Blendspace & Symbaloo - Create boards with specific resources and activities for certain learners or learning modalities. Individual learning tracks for students.
M-6: Maximizing Instructional Time & Resources
What does it mean?
- Using the many resources (digital, paper, and people!) you have at your fingertips to create engaging and well-planned lessons for your students
- Using your instructional time wisely
What does it actually look like at MIS?
- Work with your PLC to break up instructional tasks and maximize each others' strengths
- Co-teach with the ITF and Media Support to make sure that all students are engaged and on task
- Use Sponge activities to soak up all instructional time and make smooth transitions between activities
- Give clear, specific directions in both written and oral form so students know what to do next
- Post time guidelines and timers or use student timekeepers to keep lessons on pace
- Use student job roles to increase efficiency in group work
- Have backup plans for when lessons don't go as planned, run short, or need to be adjustment
- Establish classroom procedures and routines for class so students know what to do as soon as they come in
- Organize and prepare materials/groups/directions in advance so you can teach bell to bell
- Use MGSD Digital Resources to provide engaging, differentiated lessons with tools appropriate to the task
- Enforce classroom rules, routines and procedures to minimize disruptions
- Create and post a daily/weekly/unit plan for students and parents so they know how it all fits together
- Use Brain Breaks, music, and movement for transitions to help students reset before a new task
- The 6Ps (Proper prior planning prevents poor performance)
- Use calendar, agenda, and digital organization tools to help students keep track of responsibilities
- Eliminate busy work and choose meaningful learning activities
- Plan activities for early finishers to avoid "I'm done, now what can I get into" syndrome
Educational Articles
- 4 Things You Don't Know About the Jigsaw Method - Cult of Pedagogy
Self-Paced PD
To explore more about this strategy, click HERE to check out some of the sessions that have been offered at previous Summer Institutes related to this strategy. Each one contains lots of strategies you can implement and resources you can use to improve your practice.
"Techify It!"
Discovery Ed Don't reinvent the wheel! DE has a variety of leveled reading materials, videos, hands on labs, virtual labs, and much more to use which require little planning and provide high student engagement. Because everything is housed in this one program - when students learn how to navigate it - there is an increased amount of time on task. | Blackboard Learn Organize your lessons and resources in a way that students can easily access them. | PlayPosit Save time and offer extra support for struggling students by introducing or pre-teaching necessary background knowledge prior to starting a new unit or standard |
Discovery Ed
Google Apps Google Apps for Education make it easy to plan and deliver instructional content - through Slides, Docs, Folders, Forms, Email, Google Classroom, etc. Students can view lessons or take assessments and they can create and collaborate on projects. | Mastery Connect Make sure you utilize the data from CFAs to group students based on strengths and weaknesses. This helps keep you informed so you don't waste your time or your students' time. | SmoreSmore can be used to deliver instruction or resources to students in a quick and easy way. Since everything is in one place, students can easily access it though a url. It saves valuable transition time. Through the teacher accounts, teacher can also create classes. This allows students to create their own Smores to share! |
Google Apps
Mastery Connect
Smore
Smore can be used to deliver instruction or resources to students in a quick and easy way. Since everything is in one place, students can easily access it though a url. It saves valuable transition time. Through the teacher accounts, teacher can also create classes. This allows students to create their own Smores to share!
Additional Ideas:
Thinglink, SymbalooEDU, and Playposit: create flipped lessons of high interest. These programs house all resources needed for a lesson in order to increase time on task, etc.
Co-Teach with the IC or SLMC to make sure that all students are engaged and on task
Co-Teach with peers based on individual strengths and grouping across classrooms