Facilitating Forward Progress For All Your Students Without Going Crazy

By Susan Winebrenner M.S. and Lisa M Kiss M.Ed

See yourself on the first day of school. Realize that you have a very wide variety of students to teach this year. Connect with the feeling of your stomach being upset and acknowledge the fear of rising to the occasion of accommodating so much diversity. You have already been told you will have no aides or student teachers for thi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Winebrenner and Lisa Kiss
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781774192047

Susan Winebrenner M.S.

Susan Winebrenner has an M.S. in curriculum and instruction and a B.S. in education. A former classroom teacher and gifted program coordinator, Susan is an internationally recognized leader in the field of gifted education. She is the author of several books and teaching resources, including Differentiating Content for Gifted Learners in Grades 6-12, Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in Today's Classroom (with Lisa M. Kiss), and The Cluster Grouping Handbook and Teaching Gifted Kids in Today's Classroom Professional Development Multimedia Package (both with Dina Brulles). Through her consulting and workshop business, Education Consulting Service, Susan presents seminars nationally and internationally, helping educators translate education research into classroom practice. She has contributed articles to various educational publications and served on the faculty of New Leaders for New Schools. She lives in San Diego, California. Visit Susan's website at susanwinebrenner.com. Special Award from CA Gifted Education. Who's Who in America Award. Sold over 100,000 books over her career as an author.

Book preview

Facilitating Forward

Progress for all your Students without

Going Crazy

Susan Winebrenner, M. S.

Lisa Kiss, M. Ed.

Contents

Title Page

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1:

ACTIVITIES TO START THE SCHOOL YEAR

SAY HELLO TO SOMEONE WHO...REPRODUCIBLE

YOU WILL ALSO WANT TO…

RESILIENCE

GROWTH MINDSET[5]

THE CLASSROOM LAYOUT

KNOW YOUR STUDENTS

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

CONSISTENTLY ENGAGE EVERYONE IN LEARNING AT ALL TIMES

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES

LEARNING CENTERS

I HAVE THE ANSWER...WHO HAS THE QUESTION?

THE STUDY GUIDE METHOD[7]

GOAL SETTING

GOAL SETTING LOG REPRODUCIBLE

THE RESEARCH NOTE CARD METHOD

ANALYTIC VERSUS GLOBAL

LEARNING MODALITIES

CHAPTER 2:

LEARNERS WITH OBVIOUS LEARNING DIFFICULTIES

LEARNERS WITH OBVIOUSLY ADVANCED LEARNING CAPACITY

FOCUS ON TWICE OR MULTI-EXCEPTIONAL

DIFFERENTIATION

COMPACTING AND DIFFERENTIATION

WAYS TO COMPACT LEARNING[8]

LEARNING CONTRACTS

LEARNING CONTRACTS RECORD SHEET REPRODUCIBLE

DIFFERENTIATION SUCCESS BUILDING

CHAPTER 3:

DIFFERENT WAYS TO GROUP YOUR STUDENTS

FLEXIBLE GROUPING

TYPES OF FLEXIBLE READING GROUPS

CENTIPEDE WRITING GROUPS[9]

HOME GROUPS

COOPERATIVE LEARNING[10]

CHAPTER 4:

PLANNING A GREAT LESSON

STEPS FOR PLANNING A TIERED ACTIVITY

LESSON PLAN REPRODUCIBLE

CHAPTER 5:

KWPL Chart[11]

KWPL REPRODUCIBLE

BOOKS I WANT TO SELL

BOOKS I WANT TO SELL REPRODUCIBLE

BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY

STEM/STEAM INSTRUCTION

RESOURCES FOR THE 4 C’S IN STEM/STEAM INSTRUCTION:

SERIOUS GAMES

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (D&D)

CRITICAL THINKING RESOURCES:

CHAPTER 6:

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

ONE-PAGER REPRODUCIBLE

THE STUDENT CHOICE CHART REPRODUCIBLE

ASSESSMENTS OPTIONS MENU

CYBERHUNTS AND WEBQUESTS

ONLINE TEACHER RESOURCES

CHAPTER 7

BUILD COMMUNITY

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES THAT WORK

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

AUTHORS' BIBLIOGRAPHIES

INDEX

Copyright © 2023

Susan Winebrenner, M. S.

Lisa Kiss, M. Ed.

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

Cover design by: US BOOK PRESS

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATIONS:

Susan dedicates this book to her full-time caregiver, Tito Jude Callueng, whose goal was to balance Susan’s drive to complete this, her last book, with his drive to keep her healthy and safe so she could realize her dream without compromising his own goals.

IT WASN’T EASY!! BUT THE FACT THAT YOU ARE READING THIS BOOK IS PROOF THAT BOTH SUSAN AND JUDE, AND THE CO-AUTHOR, LISA KISS ARE SMILING NOW!

Lisa dedicates this book to her husband, Doug, who has lovingly supported her throughout their marriage for thirty-three plus years.  He has always, and will always be, her rock and the love of her life. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

US Book Press

1055 West 7th street

Los Angeles, CA 90017

818 666 3179

Marco Miller, Editor

INTRODUCTION

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

-Albert Einstein

Many educators would agree with the authors that too much pressure is placed on teachers to teach to standardized tests which are, in our opinion, not an accurate representation of student learning.  We do not feel that these tests or their scores help to prepare students to be successful adults in the workplace or their private lives. The current school structure makes it difficult to foster individual student strengths, talents, and passions, but we believe that it is not impossible.  Your classroom will undoubtedly have different abilities, ethnic groups, backgrounds, experiences, demographics, learning styles, interests, strengths, difficulties, and interests, and you wonder How am I EVER going to meet all the needs and differences presented to me this year?  We hope that this book will provide most of the answers you need.  We hope you enjoy it!

CHAPTER 1:

Create an Environment that Promotes Engagement in Learning FOR ALL STUDENTS

What a wonderful idea, but how? 

First, create a welcoming and inclusive environment in your classroom and here are some strategies to help you with this.

ACTIVITIES TO START THE SCHOOL YEAR

Activities to Start the School Year

At the beginning of the school year, students should participate in activities that help them learn about their peers.  These used to be called ice-breakers.  Choose one of the ideas below or let us hear about another one you know. 

1. ​Bean Bag Name Game

Create groups of 4 or 5 students, and give the first student in each group a beanbag.  The first student in each group says their name and tosses the bean bag to another peer in their group.  That peer says their name and the name of anyone who shared prior to them, and then tosses the bean bag to the next person until everyone in the group has shared their name after repeating their peers’ names.  You can start with small groups doing this and then increase the group size to make it more challenging to remember more names. 

2. ​4-Corners

Label the corners of your classroom, 1-4.  Give students questions where they can respond with one of 4 choices and go to that corner.  Use a Google timer on the white board to help organize this. 

For example, I ask students to choose a sport they enjoy (1: soccer, 2: running, 3: swimming, 4: football), go to that corner, find an elbow partner (or group of 3-4), and ask each person to give their name and share their reason for enjoying that sport.  After one minute of discussion, I pick a student from each corner to share what they said or heard (or they can pick a volunteer from their group to speak).

3. ​How Well Do You Know Your Teacher?

Kahoot, a Jeopardy-type game, a worksheet, or any game you can think of can be used for this activity.  It’s fun for students to get to know who you are as a