Don't make my mistakes about learner preferences!

My very first day of working safely at home was March 17, 2020. I think it's very symmetrical 🤓 that my very first (limited-staff) day "back" in the office is August 17, 2020. During the past 5 months, I know most educators have been working non-stop, so I'm grateful to take time this morning to reflect on a few things I've learned during our time of emergency remote teaching and learning.

What I've learned about my own learning preferences...

• A typical webinar is not my preferred way to learn. If I'm not engaged in activities, connecting with others, or at least utilizing the chat, then just send the recording for me to watch at my own convenience (and possibly speed up the presentation and pause as needed.)
• I have participated in large-ish online, asynchronous courses where the instructor designed the class so we became a collaborative community of learners. My summer MOOC experience with thousands of participants is not collaborative, so in the future, I must create that community myself.
• It takes a lot of effort and intentionality to design an effective online course. (h/t to my favorite instructional designer, Julianna!) Watch a 3- to 5- minute video, post a reflection on a discussion board and repeat 50 times does not work for me.
• I'm obsessed with ideas in the book The Art of Gathering, so if we gather, I want a purpose, an agenda, and a plan.

And what that means about others' preferences...

At one point during the summer, I was hesitant to offer a series of tool-based webinars. Show-and-tell presentations are my least favorite ways to learn; however, as my colleagues reminded me, others benefit from this type of live stand-and-deliver type of presentation. Some educators appreciate the anonymity of courses with thousands of participants, and/or they find ways to connect with smaller cohorts within the larger group. I realize many colleagues prefer the casual, organic conversations that arise when you hold a meeting for open discussions.

I allowed my own preferences to dictate how I designed professional development sessions and meetings. I limited myself because of my limited preferences. And I can't believe I fell for that mistake!

I've written about learning profiles, I've presented about differentiation and learning profiles, and I've shared extensively about learner preferences, as explained in The New Pillars of Modern Teaching. (Here's one post about that subject, and it explains preferences in terms of time, place, medium, and socialness.) 

Bottom line: I need to remember to design for other people's preferences, not just my own. Just because I prefer reading the text, doesn't mean everyone enjoys that same style. I want collaboration and connections, but others may prefer independent work. Not everyone is comfortable being a fearless clicker, so how can I include a bit more scaffolding within my PD sessions? 

One small solution.

Last week, these tweets inspired me, and I had the pleasure of working with a former colleague on her first lesson plans, so I'm putting all of these fabulous ideas together, and I'm relating everything to learner preferences: 

Was thinking about how we could use blackboards “choose your breakout room” feature to meet different learner’s needs and this is what I came up with. Different levels of support or collaboration in different rooms! pic.twitter.com/ljt5efM2yz

— Mollie Safran (@safsocialstudy) August 10, 2020

One does not simply create breakout groups, there is a sequence of gradual release when students show mastery and responsibility.
🍎Shout out to the Kinder teachers who teach kids to walk down the hall without licking the walls.
👏👏ROUTINES & PRACTICE 👏👏#MTBoS #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/2lABrCJIZK

— Theresa Wills (@theresawills) August 14, 2020

My friend wanted to give her students options for content input. She had a video ready to share, but the session had to be synchronous. I shared the first tweet about all of the different possibilities for breakout rooms by learner preference, and she loved that idea! This lesson will be her first "official" lesson, after several other introductory and community building meetings, but she considered limiting the breakout rooms to two choices, rather than three or more. (The second tweet about the importance of routines and practice applies to juniors and seniors, too!) 

She's fortunate because she is allowed to use Zoom and breakout rooms, and all of her students have the same device, so they can practice together changing their names to include a 1, 2, or 3, all based on their room preference. She will stay in the main Zoom room, and others who want to stay with her do not move to a breakout room. I know there are a lot of ifs in place for this activity, but I think it's a great start and a way to recognize how we can manage our preferences in remote settings. 

The same idea can kind of apply to face-to-face and hybrid models, too. When we're back to a face-to-face environment (that allows a bit of movement in the classroom) if the content is curated and designed for students to access it independently, they could have the same options within one class: small groups and workshops that are teacher-led; students learning and exploring resources independently; students discovering ideas by collaborating, or at least chatting while they worked. 

Side note: In our region, I'm suggesting that educators prepare for remote experiences because I foresee the remote learning dates to be extended, plus it allows planning for student absences, teacher absences, tech troubles, etc. So if the plan is for remote and asynchronous learning, I feel it will be easier to transition to other formats. 

I think this strategy will definitely work for PD sessions, and I can't wait to see what adult learners think about this addition of some choice in how they access the content.

A little more about learning preferences.

Last spring, a teammate and I created a podcast series called From Triage to Transformation, and we considered what learning might look like in the fall. Here's one episode where the focus is learning design for students, which is really all about learner preferences.

We recorded these episodes in April - May 2020, and I wonder how many of these transformational ideas can work in our current realities? 

During our summer of 2020, what did you discover about your own learning preferences? How can this information apply to your own classrooms, teams, or PD sessions? 

Always learning, even remotely. 

Wishing educators all the best for this new school year.

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Are you an expert curator and don't know it?

What is curation?

It's funny how often others have told me, "You should be a librarian!" Yes, I love reading, and I can recall a lot of information. My parents seem to be in awe of my research skills, but that just means I can do good internet searches! According to my StrengthsFinder results, two of my top themes are Arranger and Input, and both of those ideas lend themselves to my librarian-like-tendencies.

But I actually think all of these concepts center around the notion of curation, something I couldn't truly articulate until my deep obsession study of The New Pillars of Modern Teaching.

When I first started sharing the concept of curation in professional development sessions, participants intuitively understood the process because of the comparisons to museum curators: curators select works of art or artifacts, decide how to organize them into a museum space or room, and then add descriptive cards to share information about each piece.

In The New Pillars, Dr. Allen shares the three Ss of great curation, and then she suggests that educators help their students master the art of curation. I later found this post from Dr. Allen that called curation your learning workflow, and all of the pieces fell into place.

I created this graphic for an assignment in #ClassyGraphics!

During the past few years, I worked to improve my own workflow for each of three Ss, but I know there is always room for improvement! Fortunately, as technology develops, I continue to find more tools that assist with my learning workflows.

Curation Renovation

In one of my favorite professional development sessions, I ask participants to reflect on their own learning workflows and preferences, and then we try a curation renovation. We use the 3 Ss of curation to find any "gaps" and spend time exploring tech tools to help make personal curation more efficient. I still occasionally email links to myself, but that process definitely slowed! If you ask me for a blog post or article that I recently mentioned or shared, I can quickly find it. The goal from The New Pillars is that if you understand the process of curation, you can help others, either students or colleagues, understand and improve their learning workflows.

Last year, my teammate Ashley and I recorded this podcast episode about curation. We revisited all three Pillars, so we refer to the book and our other episodes. The episode show notes include all of the blog posts mentioned, and there are many ways educators can include curation in their classrooms. The word curate is now included in the ISTE Standards for Educators, too.


We also discussed these curation tools: Toby for Tabs, OneTab, Google Keep, Diigo (educators get an upgrade!) and Wakelet.

So are you actually an expert curator? Have you considered your own learning workflow? Is the process working for you, or can you make some tweaks about how you scan, study, and share?

Always learning (and it's so fun to be learning about learning!)


P.S. For fun, Faith Salie shares her opinion about curation in this video. She claims curate is overused, but I think we're just beginning to understand the power of curation!

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Are you using these tools to add audio in your class?

Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash

Podcasts for Learning

Last year, I wrote about my Podcast Love and my podcast routines, but this summer, I presented Podcasts for Learning multiple times, so I wanted to share a few additional ideas about using audio and podcasts in the classroom.

Finding Audio

During my sessions, I share two tools to help find podcasts: Listen Notes and ListenWise.

Listen Notes is a search engine for podcasts, plus it allows you to clip podcasts and create podcast playlists. Here's a clip describing what Listen Notes can do (from our @DigLearnRadio podcast!) and here's a playlist of our episodes about coaching. I also just learned that your can add this playlist and all episodes into your podcast player. Use this feature to create a podcast choice board, perhaps?

ListenWise is a tool from NPR that has "curriculum-aligned podcasts with accompanying teacher resources." The audio clips can be filtered for content area and grade level (5 - 12). For the free version, you get the audio clip, listening comprehension questions, and a Socrative import quiz code.

Recording Audio

In my session, I joke that podcasts fall on a continuum from "Kathryn talks to pre-schoolers" --> This American Life. Students (or you) can record quick, unedited audio clips OR you can create full-blown podcasts that can be shared with others.

Creating audio can be as simple as using a recording app on your phone. Getting the recording to the teacher is sometimes a challenge, but educators in my sessions suggested email, Google Classroom, and a shared Google folder. 

I discovered the Online Voice Recorder on this post from Free Tech 4 Teachers, and it's a super simple way to record (and do a bit of editing.) Once you record, you save the file, and you still need to get that "published" in some way. When the Insert --> Audio feature in Google Slides is fully functional (rollout paused on 7/24/19) that may provide an easy way to collaborate and share, but until then... Here's my sample slide with a recording from the Online Voice Recorder inserted into Google Slides. (I have the Insert --> Audio feature in only one of my personal Gmail accounts, but not my Google for Education accounts.)

Synth is a relatively new tool for recording audio, and I've tried it in a few of my sessions with some success. It's still in beta form, and I think it's a bit challenging to get it going, but the teachers in my sessions this week saw a lot of potential. There are a lot of features educators loved about it, such as the time constraints, transcriptions, and the option to include text comments. It also embeds beautifully into a website, its target audience is educators, and you can create "closed" classrooms. The audio below is from our session...all in unedited format, so you get bonus content of all kinds of background noise. 😉


Within this session, I also share Anchor for creating podcasts. I keep trying to get more people to share a recording in Anchor, but its entry point is not quite as simple. For educators who want to create their own podcast, and for teachers whose students are >13 years old, it does seem like the easiest platform to use for creating and publishing to the world.

Using Anchor, I collected all of the audio from this week's sessions and created a new "podcast" of all shared ideas.

Sharing Audio

On the #mfltwitteratipodcast, the hosts shared a hack of how to embed podcast players into a Wakelet collection. Using links from Spotify, you tweak the code to create a collection where the specific episode plays within the Wakelet.

For my recent Podcasts for Learning session, I decided to keep track of what I listened to and learned during a single week, and I added all of my notes to this collection. Here's my Wakelet without the hack (podcasts open in a new tab) and with the hack (players are embedded, also shown at the bottom of the post). The first ISTE Standard for Educators is Learner, and I definitely use podcasts to learn from and improve my practice!

If you want to create a podcast choice board for your students, this trick might be a great way to share the collection. You could also us this hack to create your "Podcast Tasting" PD session, as described by my PLN friend Meredith Akers.

Even More

Within the session, we briefly discussed creating more structured, polished podcasts, and I shared resources from the EduBlogger, ListenWise, and NPR about creating podcasts in classrooms.

Any other tools for recording audio? Any other favorite podcasts? I share my finds using #R10PodPD and would love to have more suggestions!

Listening and learning...

Check out my Wakelet with embedded podcast episodes!

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Retrieval Practice

When I first joined Twitter, I dipped my toes into Twitter chats by participating in #eduread. This small group of math teachers shared and discussed educational books and articles, and although some resources were content specific, most books focused on great educational practices.

Right before I changed jobs, our summer book was Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Because I was in a career transition, I did not participate in the chat, but I did read and study the book. (This new phase in my life coincided with my beginning of listening to podcasts. I discovered The Cult of Pedagogy blog/podcast with this episode, where Jennifer Gonzales interviewed Peter C. Brown, the author of Make It Stick.) Because I was teaching adults, rather than children, I wasn't able to try any of the strategies from the book with my own students, so I only occassionally grabbed the book to review and share a learning strategy.

Fast forward a couple years, and another Cult of Pedagogy podcast episode grabbed my attention, and this time, I am determined to make it stick. In this episode, Gonzales interviewed Dr. Pooja Agarwal about the power of retrieval practice, and the research and the implications on learning blew me away. Even better, Dr. Agarwal shares many ideas you can try tomorrow in your classroom, and they require very little prep or materials.

I started practicing retrieval in my PD sessions by changing one slide. For extended trainings (all day or mult-day) I typically provide a bullet-pointed list of "Remember, here's what we covered earlier." This information puts information into participants' heads.

From this slide...

Here's how I changed my slide to pull information out of participants' heads to provide the exercise of retrieval.

...to this one!
Notice the "Without peeking" part of the instructions!

This very minor tweak allows me to demonstrate retrieval, and then start our conversation about how it could look in classrooms.

Dr. Agarwal founded retrievalpractice.org, and her site contains resources, research, and ideas...but at the very least, sign up for her newsletter. You can also glance at the newsletter archives to see all the learning goodness she shares. Her work is definitely relevant and classroom friendly. (You may have seen Dr. Agarwal's interview during the Ditch Summit, but unfortunately, that video is no longer available.)

This information and research is so important, so I'm trying to share her work with as many people as possible. I even brought up the idea at my dinner group (all teachers, so school talk is the norm) which led to a fun follow-up. One of my friends reached out to a former student who is now a cognitive scientist, and this was her viewpoint:

One last related resource: The Learning Scientists are contributors to the Retrieval Practice site, but they also have their own podcast and resources. They're working their way through the Six Strategies of Effective Learning, and they have two podcast episodes per strategy.

Have you read and applied the work from Made to Stick? What are you doing to improve learning in your work?

I'm always learning (and working to make it stick!)

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Podcast Love

I'm kind of a podcast rookie (I missed the whole Serial excitement) but now that my work often includes quality time in my car, listening may be one of my favorite ways to learn. I recently noticed how often "I heard in a podcast..." creeps into my conversations!

I used to watch the news before work, but now I keep a podcast playing during my morning routines. I know listening and learning is a much more positive way to begin the day! At home, I sometimes use a small Bluetooth speaker that connects to my phone; otherwise, I prop up my phone in the kitchen window and listen while preparing meals or doing chores.

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, and I keep others in my feed in case I run out of content. My rule is to stop listening if I'm not enjoying the episode. (I often feel like I have to finish that book, but it's easy for me to delete a podcast that I'm not enjoying!)

My favorite, non-educator specific podcasts:

• For positivity and self-improvement, my top choice is Happier by Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen and her sister Liz Craft co-host this podcast, and I love their conversations, the podcast structure, their rapport, and even their word choices! (You can tell they're both writers!) The length of time is perfect for me (30 - 45 minutes) and I know I can finish an episode before I leave for work. It makes me happier to wake up on Wednesday mornings and anticipate a new episode! And understanding Gretchen's Four Tendencies framework is so useful for working with students and colleagues.
• Gayle Allen's interviews on Curious Minds are thought-provoking and interesting. I want to know more, read the author's works, and keep learning! I realize I'm already biased because I'm such a fan of Dr. Allen's book, The New Pillars of Modern Teaching (see my post about it) but she is an incredible interviewer, and she is so knowledgeable about her subject's work; you can tell all parties enjoy the conversations.
• Note to Self, "the tech show about being human," is relevant to my job, since I'm a Digital Learning Consultant, but the host Manoush Zomorodi provides us with information and ideas to help us control our technology, rather than the other way around. She creates one big listener challenge a year and follows up with research, solutions, and predictions. The results from her Bored and Brilliant project even became a TED talk and a book!
• One of the reasons that I enjoy Pop Culture Happy Hour is that it is pure brain candy. The roundtable discussions are lively, fun, and interesting, and I hear a lot of fantastic book, TV, and movie recommendations...but I doubt I'll use this information during one of my PD sessions. 

For educator specific, my go-to's are these very popular podcasts: Cult of Pedagogy, Google Teacher Tribe, and 10-Minute Teacher with Vicki Davis. I also can't leave out my team's podcast, Digital Learning Radio! (Check out this episode where we interview Gayle Allen.)

For those who don't (YET) listen to podcasts, this video with Ira Glass and his friend Mary is priceless! They share and show how to listen to a podcast:

Of course, This American Life is the premier podcast, and I bet many podcast hosts secretly aspire to be like Ira. :)

For listening, I use the Overcast app, and I like how easy it is to share an episode at a particular minute.

I know audio isn't for everyone, but I find that podcasts meet my learning preferences and they're easy to share. For my professional learning sessions, I try to play at least a minute or two of audio, and I now add podcasts (or particular episodes) to my resource pages.

I'm always on the lookout for recommendations, so what are your favorite podcasts? Do you use podcasts for learning?

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Obvious to You

One #MTBoS trend I saw this summer (and something I wanted to blog about for months) was the idea to simply share. Share your work, your questions, your ideas, your classroom, your lessons. Without the feeling of doubt that "This idea isn't good enough," or "Everyone already knows this." Without the feelings of vulnerability. A group of educators even started using the hashtag #pushsend, which was perhaps like the famous ad slogan, "Just do it." 😉  I love the approach, I need to remember this suggestion, and this post is my action plan!

One of my favorite things to share in sessions is Derek Sivers' video, "Obvious to you. Amazing to others," and I think this video is a perfect reminder to get over this fear.  I think it's especially difficult (for me, at least) when colleagues learn the same things as you; they know the same tips, tricks, and tools, they attend the same conferences and read the same books. It's almost a competition to see who can find and share something new...but it shouldn't be!

While in the classroom, it was often a feeling of competition for who received a "Teacher of the Week," recognition from a team, or whose classroom was the "best," based on the talk in the school. But again, it shouldn't be!

In this recent post by David Geurin, he reminds us that "we want collective greatness." All students are winners when there are 100 wonderful teachers on campus! All schools and districts win when all of us are providing the professional development services that help move the learning forward.

We all have something great to contribute. It doesn't matter if someone else shared it first. Go ahead, just do it. Learn, share, and grow!

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Learning About Learning

During the past few months, I have been reflecting a lot about documenting learning and how technology can help with that process. For several years, I have been interested in using formative assessments to make instructional decisions, and I know there are connections between the two, so now, I'm reflecting on this year's experiences and trying to put all of these learning-pieces together.

My Knowledge Base

John Hattie's work and his three feedback questions helped me solidify understandings about effective feedback and how/where to infuse feedback into the learning process. In The Google Infused Classroom, Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith share related ideas when they discuss assessment for/as/of learning. In their book, they also provide ways to make thinking visible and discuss how technology can amplify the learning process, and they reference the Project Zero Thinking Routines. The work from Silvia Tolisano and these posts have also inspired a lot of reflections on documenting for/as/of learning. (Silvia also creates fabulous graphics and sketch notes, and I'm looking forward to her upcoming book.) All of these thoughts about learning, feedback, and thinking routines are swirling in my head!

Blending Ideas

Holly and Tanya include a lot of ways to use technology to make thinking visible, so I'm going to try to do the same. I work with adult learners, but I'll begin with some of the strategies I used in my classroom. By the way, one big eye-opener in their book was the importance of learning from others to shift thinking. It's OK to have "public" posts for all to see, and that is definitely a shift in my thinking. Yes, some kids may copy answers, but others may think, "Oh, that's what she meant!" and formulate their own responses.

See-Think-Wonder

One of the first thinking strategies I tried was "What do you notice, and what do you wonder?" We even tried this idea with trigonometry vocabulary words on day 1 to illustrate that a lot of pre-calculus would be based on concepts you already know! (Trying to activate prior knowledge.)

Here's a description of the See-Think-Wonder routine, and here's an example of the routine being used in a health class. I always used the "Notice and Wonder" questions, but I like the structure of See-Think-Wonder, so I'm going to add the third question when I use this routine now.

When I tried this activity in class, I only had students share responses with each other and then "popcorn" out a few answers. In the video linked above, the teacher created a graphic organizer for his students, used think-pair-share for students to compare their responses, and then had a final debrief with a show of hands.

Options with technology...

Instead of simply observing an image, listing a few see/think/wonder statements, and sharing with a neighbor, how could technology be used to amplify this process?

• You could use comments in Google Docs, and I have used this notice-wonder activity in my sessions. Students could choose their preferred image, and they could reply to each other's comments. 
• You could use a Padlet board to collect comments from each student, and with the new "shelf" option in Padlet, you can create the see-think-wonder prompts as columns.
• If you didn't want the kids to see each others' responses, you could use Google Drawings to create a graphic organizer and share as a template in Google Classroom (or "force" a copy for each individual.)
• Another option if you wanted individual responses: you could use a Google Form to collect all responses.

I can see benefits to both the individual and shared responses...it all depends on the activity. BUT by using technology, you have amplified the process because you are able to hear from every student ("Even the quietest student has a voice!"), responses are documented, and if students can see all of the work, they can learn from and provide feedback to each other.

And with adult learners?

My friend Katie recently used Mentimeter for a faculty poll, and the responses are below.

I think the See-Think-Wonder strategy would be an excellent debrief after this type of activity, and I think it would help educators understand how technology could amplify the learning/feedback process. A few things I hope the participants would see, think, and wonder:

• There were 184 entries, so the entire faculty had a chance to respond.
• How long would it take for you to go around the tables and ask 184 people to answer the question?
• The most common responses/trends are evident. (The largest words received more responses.)
• How long would it take to see trends if responses were on post-its or slips of paper?
• If you couldn't immediately think of a response, you could see what others said to give you ideas.
• How could this tool/strategy be used with your class or team? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?

After working on this post today, the ideas are still swirling in my head, but I really like the idea of taking visible thinking routines and looking at tech-options. I firmly believe that you don't use technology for the sake of the bells-and-whistles, but I feel, at least in this case, the use of technology really could amplify the learning/feedback process.

What are your favorite thinking routines? I would love to see if technology could facilitate the process!

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Happy to be Blogging (Again!)

After a lengthy absence from the blogging world, I'm making attempt number ?? to return. Inspired this summer by conference keynotes, other bloggers, and my own desire to be a more reflective educator, I thought I would try, try again.

I started the alphabet journey in 2015, and it's a happy coincidence that I'm at letter H because this week I have the privilege of attending #ISTE17, and I know I can create a post for letter I.

During one of my sessions in Dallas ISD this week, a teacher shared this nugget (thanks, Ed!) and I thought it was an awesome school policy. Would this procedure work for your campus?

As we were reflecting on the day's learning, a few participants expressed some hesitation to try new strategies/tools, mainly because of the stress of an evaluation or an unexpected walk-through. Ed shared his agreement with his principal to have a sign on his door that said, "Teacher Learning in Progress," or "Technical Learning in Progress," which indicated he was trying something new. The administrator was welcome to observe and learn, but that class period would not be used as an evaluation. I love this idea, and what a wonderful way to nurture a culture of #growthmindset. (Actually, I'm sad that some of our schools do not establish a culture of risk-taking and failing forward...but that's another conversation.)

I also simply love the phrase Teacher Learning in Progress because that's what our journey is all about, right? When I started this blog several years ago, my focus was math, and I taught calculus at the time, so the "No Limits on Learning" title was fun (for math nerds) and appropriate, but I love how the blog title is still a perfect fit today.

My learning is definitely in progress!

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Learning Profiles vs. Learning Styles

I know I've neglected this blog, but after a recent #efamath chat (and a little hint from @druinok) I'm ready to dive back in and am ready to share, reflect and learn!

Over the past two years, our district has wholeheartedly embraced differentiated instruction (aka DI) and they are doing everything right to make certain that we know, understand, and do everything to embrace it, too.  In my role as an instructional specialist (an instructional "coach" for our school) I have participated in all kinds of wonderful additional professional development, have planned training for our departments and school, and have tried a lot of new things in my classroom.  These struggles and successes have provided enough material for at least 10 new blog posts, and I hope to use this forum as a place to help reflect and sort through what I've learned.

On to Learning Profiles...
In Embedded Formative Assessment, the author discusses the "myth" of Learning Styles and the lack of research to substantiate the use of learning styles to improve learning.  Several teachers mentioned this misconception in the recent #efachat, and I will raise my hand to admit that I've given kids quizzes at the beginning of the year to assess learning styles!

Thanks to some amazing training (first at a DI Institute with Carol Ann Tomlinson and then with a lot of follow up from my district) I now have a better understanding of a learner's profile, rather than a learning style, and have used learners' profiles a bit in my classroom.

It has taken me almost 2 years to comprehend and begin to implement the DI philosophy into my classroom (DI is not a set of strategies, by the way!) so a blog post will not do it justice.  However, for the sake of getting to the point, one of the non-negotiables of DI is flexible grouping.  According to Tomlinson, you may group students based on readiness, interest, or learner profile (or random) and each grouping achieves different goals.  Readiness leads to growth, grouping by interest increases motivation, and grouping by learner's profile improves efficiency.

The DI gurus use either Robert Sternberg's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (analytical, creative, practical) or Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory (which I believe more people know) to address learning profiles.

To introduce the idea to our faculty, we used this brief activity during a staff development (which we modeled from something we saw at our DI Institute.)   After teachers completed the task individually, we asked them to group together with one person from each group to share their responses.  (Hold up a finger 1, 2, or 3, and find the other two numbers to form a group.)

We then shared the slide to show the green group was analytical, yellow was the  practical group, and purple was the creative group.  If we had grouped by like intelligences, the discussion would have been very quick, thus the efficiency.  (One person read the definition, yeah, we all got that, too.)  

Now to stretch yourself, what if you complete the same activity using the prompt from another group?  Or what if we asked teachers to write the definition in 3 different ways?  (That idea reminds me of a Frayer model.)

In a math classroom, a quick example (or exit ticket) could be something like "Explain what a function is," choosing one of these prompts: a) write a definition that you might find in your textbook glossary; b) write a list or examples of the attributes of a function; or c) draw a visual representation or metaphor of a function (not necessarily a graph).  I only did this a few times, but a goal for next year is to make this type of quick assessment more of a norm.  "For concept _________, either write a definition, write how you could explain it to someone, or draw a representation."  Students could turn in their work, share with their table, or share with "unlike" intelligences.  (Wouldn't this be an easy assessment for any level, any content area?)

For my classroom this year, instead of the good ol' learning styles quiz (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) that I had used in the past, I tried assessing my students on Gardner's multiple intelligences.  With my class blog post, I found several surveys (online and paper copies), included videos and definitions, and had the kids complete a Google form with their results.

I then created a seating chart based on their intelligence preference (as best as I could) and let the kids try those groups for a few weeks.  I did notice the discussions, questioning, and explanations were quite different from each of the groups, so that was interesting, but I didn't design enough tasks that catered specifically to their strengths.  (Another post for another day...)

In Embedded Formative Assessment, the conclusion to the "Learning Styles" section was simply to be aware of different styles and encourage all students to use as many styles as possible.  So I don't think the old learning style idea is completely wrong, but perhaps it's just incomplete and can be strengthened by adding a bit more information.  This document is something from our district, but I do not know where it came from, so I cannot give the appropriate credit (and it's a PDF, unfortunately) but it is an example of a very thorough learner's profile.  In addition to the intelligence theory, DI also requires building the community in your classroom and with your students, which means the importance of learning students' interests.  (Another post for another day...)

I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the book, and the book is about using assessments, not the small tangent of learning styles/profiles.  But in learning about differentiation, I really see the connection and importance of both.  Isn't the bottom line that we must know our students?? 

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Once again, thanks to @druinok and #made4math to motivate me to start blogging in the first place.  I've been an avid blog reader for several years, but writing about practices really helps me solidify my thinking.

I loved this post by @pamjwilson who challenged us to "Model What We Wish To See" and who now posts her great reading list on her blog.  So to follow her lead...

Summer Educational Reads:

Embedded Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam

Essential Questions, Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins

How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills In Your Classroom, Susan M. Brookhart

Leadership for Differentiating Schools and Classrooms, Carol Ann Tomlinson & Susan D. Allan

Teach Like a Pirate, Dave Burgess

Interesting Posts:

How Do You Not Know That?

Cool Comic Posters on Multiple Intelligences

Love the one you're with: improving professional development in schools

Googleable or Not Googleable

Thanks for reading!  Anything to add?  What else do you know about learning profiles?

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