EP8: What Does True Differentiation Look Like In A Secondary Classroom?

In this episode, Jill Gumz, High School Math Coach with Rochester Community Schools, explores what effective differentiation can look like in secondary classrooms. She shares insights on why it’s both challenging and essential, how collaboration and co-teaching support diverse learners, and what it takes to create classroom systems that help every student succeed.

Hosts: Jay Haffner - Literacy Consultant, Katie Morrison - Mathematics Education Consultant, Dr. Steven Snead - Supervisor of Curriculum & Assessment.

This podcast is proudly brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District in the great state of Michigan. Oakland Schools is an educational service agency that offers support services to school districts that are best delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. Oakland Schools is an autonomous, tax-supported public school district governed by Michigan General School Laws and is one of 56 intermediate school districts (ISDs) established in Michigan in 1962.

If you are an educator in Oakland County, Michigan, check out www.oakland.k12.mi.us to explore the services and professional learning opportunities available to support you. 

Have feedback for the hosts? We'd love to hear from you! Email steven.snead@oakland.k12.mi.us to connect with us. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:15

All right, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. Wherever you happen to be listening to us, you have reached the Teaching Tomorrow Podcast with Jay, Katie, and Stephen. I am one of your many, or not many, like three hosts. It's only three. Steven. Triad Tree. Our triad trio of hosts. I'll let my other hosts introduce themselves.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

I am Jay Hafner, Oakland Schools Literacy Consultant. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, so excited. Katie Morrison, math consultant with Oakland Schools.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

And so we are glad that you are joining us today for a very interesting topic that I'm very interested to talk to our guest about, we'll bring it here in a moment. But today's episode: what could differentiation look like in a secondary classroom? What could differentiation say that five times? What could differentiation look like in a secondary classroom? So I'll say for me, uh as a former high school English teacher, this is the thing, right? Like, how do you meet all of these needs? And I got three letters for you. I DK. I don't know. I have I have no idea. I have tried many, many different things. I don't have like one particular answer. I am very interested in talking to our guests about her perspective, which we'll bring her in a moment. Um, but in for me, in my practice, even what I recommend to others, this will be a shocker for those who knows me, to use data to inform what that differentiation might look like. Now, the first thing I gotta clarify when folks say, when I say use data, folks sometimes in their head translate that to like test scores, like SAT and MSTEP. And I'm like, well, at the classroom level, that's not necessarily the first data piece I think about. That's one of many, but I'm really thinking about information that I've gleaned through the formative assessment process. So thinking about engineering really great rich discussion tasks in the room and listening for key words from students or student groups that then enable me to shift learning in a certain direction based upon what the kids say. So I liken you know the formative assessment process to like a dance, you know, with your partner like a waltz. You're kind of listening to the rhythm of the music, you're following your partner's rhythm. And so a really good dance in the classroom uh works like that versus a non-example. I'm just plugging and playing with the lesson plan, whatever's on the paper, we're just we're steaming forward until the end of second hour. So I that's what differentiation looks like to me. But Jay, yeah, what about you?

SPEAKER_04 3:01

Yeah, I think uh I I like what you teach about. Like our own English brothers from another mother. Like liking music, liking the dance motif uh that we have here. Uh differentiation is is important. Um, I think you had brought up differentiation and uh formative assessment. So say different formative differentiation, say that 10 times let's go 10 times on that and we might be able to uh to unpack something here. But uh yeah, there's a lot that goes into like supporting teachers, so they especially at the secondary level. I know when I was a teacher and I had in some of my classrooms 34, 35 kids thinking I had to like develop 35 different individual lesson plans.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

And well, and then multiply it by how many classes, right in a space times six, five, seven.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

And then you go home and still don't even know what that means. And then after all of that, within your day, you go home and people wonder why you're so tired and why I'm like napping all day on a Saturday. It's um it can be exhausting and we burn our teachers out. And that that's one of my primary concerns. It's like sort of twofold around the interventions that we're providing inside of the classroom. How do we provide that in the moment need for students right then and there? And how do we support teachers in a way to where they're not burned out by September 19th? Uh you know, and it's a long school year. So uh those are the things I think the dance that we're talking about, it is a dance. It's a dance through the school year to ensure that we're finding the resources, applying those resources to all the students, and that we're supporting our teachers in a really uh really effective way. And I I think we'll be able to unpack some of that today.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, I think that's why I'm so excited that we've got an amazing guest with us today, because I think she's really gonna speak to um the complexities that exist in secondary spaces, but it's also gonna take something that feels theoretical, right? So often when we talk about differentiation, there's these like huge things that feel like really challenging and too far. And, you know, I even think about like, you know, when we use terms like formative assessment and what does that actually mean? And so, you know, our guest is really gonna help us think about what's doable, practical, practical, and how can we think about our spaces and create spaces like that?

SPEAKER_05 5:24

So you mean after people listen to this episode, they could just check that box. Like I know I'm in a de differentiation point.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

I don't know if that, but what I am hopeful and I can't do it. Please continue to listen to the entire episode. Yes. And I think our guest is too, is like starting to think about what exists inside of our systems. What are some questions that I can ask myself? What are some ways that we can talk about this stuff as teachers to make it feel practical? So I don't even know because differentiation doesn't feel like a checkbox, if that's what they'll be able to do. Talk to me again. Um, but I do think that, you know, in the conversations that I've had with our guests, she's got some really great things to share with us. Well, I think you should go ahead and introduce it. Why don't I do that? So today we have the amazing Jill Gums, a high school instructional coach from Rochester Community Schools. Jill has been an educator in Rochester for 21 years, where she served as a math and English language arts teacher. So when we talk about unicorns and education, like Jill is a true unicorn. She might be that, yeah. She might be that. You guys representing the English face, me representing the math. Jill is able to bring them both together.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Both hands.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Um, but what I think is so cool is that is not where Jill's journey in Rochester began. Jill actually graduated from Rochester Community Schools before working there as a teacher herself. Her instructional leadership includes curriculum, course development, leading professional learning, and creating systems of intervention at the course, building, and district level. So, Jill, thank you so much for watching. Be still my beating heart, Jill.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Well, thank you so much for inviting me today to talk about one of my favorite topics in teaching and learning is differentiation. And so I'm so humbled to be here and talk with you folks and talk about some tangible things that we can take back into our classroom.

SPEAKER_05 7:11

Real, real stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah. Yeah. So, Jill, I think like the question that I wanted to sort of pose, because I think you have this beautiful story to tell, um, is just like what was the problem that Rochester was trying to solve? And what were some of the things and solutions that you guys tried? And then where where did that journey sort of take you? If you can just sort of like walk us through that story.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

It's a beautiful story where problems really can be opportunities. And so we were really surprised at all the exciting things that come from starting with problem solving. Um, and so the problem for this particular uh story isn't unique to Rochester. I mean, it's that algebra one foundational class tends to be one of the most failed classes in our district. It was year after year the most failed class. And even with lots of different um models of intervention, we still were seeing that students who were identified for needing support were still not making progress. They still were failing. And so that was a huge problem. And um, my mentor and my curriculum director at the time had hired me and my brilliant uh counterpart, Julie Schmidt, who's the middle school math coach, and said, Can you look at this? And so we said, sure. Um from there, we started to talk to teachers. We said, we have this um brand new co-teaching model. We started years ago with sort of algebra-like kind of classes, extended classes, um, where really intervention was outsourced. It was like, okay, there's one or two teachers who will just take care of intervention. We'll just kind of move kids off level and we'll sort of house them here and do the best that we can. But that's burnout for teachers. Um you think teaching can sometimes feel like you're an island. And when you're an intervention teacher, it really can feel like burnout. Um, and because it's not all students identified as needing support, they have varied needs, and so you're differentiating at such an amount. So we also tried uh a math lab model at the high school, and I was a math lab teacher, and at the time I thought, yes, this is the best. I can really do some relational work. Um, but when we looked globally and reading some of the research from Dweck and Bohler, um, as well as just the just-in-time intervention stuff, we said, you know, our students who are in math lab are taking two math classes out of the six. And if they were in math lab six, seventh, and eighth, and ninth, that's four elective classes and maybe eight right elective classes that students are missing out on to try to get this extra support. And so we moved to an on-level support where it's co-teaching. We said we have a team teaching as a model where we have a special education teacher and a math teacher, and um that has worked a little bit in our system, but what do we do for students who are marked for intervention um but don't have an IEP? There's lots of other needs that exist out there, and so we tried putting two general-ed math teachers in the same classroom. And we learned by just doing that was also over COVID, so not a lot of training, not a lot of support. I was one of the first co-teachers in this model myself. And um we found out that there was some success, and also the results varied because our systemic supports weren't really there yet. We didn't have a lot of training for teachers. Um, co-teachers didn't have the same prep hours, things like that. Um, and so the next year I was um in this new role as the district high school math coach, and again with my partner, we said, what can we do to support this model before we can actually evaluate if it's working or not? So we needed some things. We needed to create learning and opportunity for teachers to come together and learn, and also have time, time to collaborate, time to um to do some things where we can build risk-taking tolerance. And um we also had to look at some systemic things, work with our admin teams, work with counselors, um, getting teachers to have the same prep hour so that they could talk. And then we could get down really into the fun work of a specific classroom. So we needed to, we created this co-teaching cohort um and it was very important to do at 612. We really wanted some coherence, and um, what we then went from was having one teacher be the interventionist in each building to now six teachers might be co-teaching, and so that's half of our math department at each of our three buildings. And so really we started with the identity shift of all math teachers are interventionists.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Say that one more time. That's a long time.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

All math teachers are interventionists, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:54

Come on, talk to them again.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And so um that identity shift was really powerful. And our um teachers were amazing and in it because now we were gonna say, let's let's see what do we want to learn? What do you feel like we need? And the number one thing was time. So we started doing um this idea of quarterly sort of cohort group meetings, and we asked, What do you want to learn? And we sent a small team to Oakland Schools and uh the secondary intervention math series. And um, so that team would come back and share some of the strategies, the differentiation strategies, cognitive science things, and we would pilot things together. We'd say as a team, okay, let's let's give it a try. Um so we really worked as a cohort to create a model, not just two teachers together, but what should this look like? What should intervention actually look like? And not just intervention, but enrichment because in our co-teaching classes, one third of the students are marked for intervention, and two-thirds are just randomly placed. And so we have this wonderful classroom of on-level, but you have two teachers to not just provide um support for a small group of students, but two teachers working together to really support all students for whatever they need. And then the beautiful thing was we saw that teachers were taking some of the strategies and things that they were doing in the class and sort of scaling it to their non-co-taught classes, their singleton classes, single-taught classes. Um, and so we've just seen this amazing growth of excitement, of efficacy. And I really um think that co-teaching, our to our surprise, not only really impacted our student achievement, but also served as a professional development model that we didn't expect along the way.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Yeah. So I want to I want to talk a little bit more about that professional development model and sort of drill, drill down into that. And I think you're bringing up a really important point that intervention is a team, it's a team sport, right? We it's it's a collective identity that we all have to have in our teaching practice. And then I think the way you can help shape that identity is through some real targeted professional learning. So I was gonna sort of ask: what are some of the early professional learning moves that you guys did within your system that really helped push that identity that uh intervention is not a solo act that we're doing in our own classrooms, that it's this team sport. How did you get there?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Well, when we moved as the cohort, we said we're gonna build sort of collective capacity across the district. So we got time where we all would be in the same room. And we said we wanted shared ownership of building a model. And so having us start as a visionary sort of step together, we were really building that model collectively. And so there's sort of four pillars that the group came up with. The first pillar was um sort of the co-planning and co-implementation and co-reflection. And so that's a lot of work in partnership parity. Um, and then really utilizing uh like Marilyn Friend has the six co-teaching models. So, how do you maximize differentiation, not just having two teachers teach, but with parallel um teaching or station circuits, or um sometimes it's one teach, one target differentiate. So utilizing those to maximize differentiation. So we started with that and saying we're not really islands, we really are partners. So it was building the capacity and teamwork that we're in this together. So already we're in it together and there's teamwork around it. Um then we said we wanted to work on access and engagement. So the idea is that we are trying to really maximize the tier one strategies. So start with rigorous tier one.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

One more time.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Tier one.

SPEAKER_05 15:50

Not tier two. We are not gonna start at tier two. Oh, and we're gonna get to tier two and three, but she just said her lips to the microphone's ears, tier one. Okay, please continue. I'm sorry. I got excited.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

And then I sometimes like to use the term tier one point five. And so that's kind of what we talked about in our co-teaching model as well, is that we really wanted to amplify tier one supports and really think about well, sometimes there's 1.5. So before we are outsourcing to something else, we really want to do what we can to keep kids in that sort of maximized tier one setting.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

I want to spend a lot more time with Jill.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I know, it's actually brilliant.

SPEAKER_05 16:29

This is this is brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I think it's the unicorn brain of having both sort of like humanity and then also like the STEM side.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

Well, one of the things that you said, you had me at this point. Yeah, I mean, you had me at hello. But at this point, um, when you talked about, you know, getting this task is going to the teachers first. And I think if if in for my a lot of my leaders out there that are looking for solutions for their staff, you know, do I want you to call me at Oakland Schools? Yeah, sure. You know, email. I I love this stuff. But I love how you really anchored a lot of your way forward on listening to the needs and assets of your own staff. And so now I'm wondering like, what are some of those staff assets that we want to identify to build on? What what did you see that was working well with your team that you expanded to other or other practices throughout the building?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yeah, well, it was that collective capacity. I used that John Hattie model, right? That collective teacher self-efficacy. And so we um did like again, we looked at those models and each of our professional developments um that we had in those quarterlies were based off of one of those domains, like the co-teaching, the access um and engagement. Then we also had re-engagement and growth opportunities that was really important, and then differentiating for like specific needs. And so what was neat is that as a goal, we would kind of learn about something, and then we would, and this is something that's also really important to me when when I'm planning professional development for teachers, half of it is uh shared learning and dialogue and processing, and half of it is work time, structured co-planning implementation time. That's really important.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yeah, because that's the time, right? That time aspect you we talk about is like, where do I have the time to be able to do this work in a co-teaching space in order to differentiate to all these two? Where does the time building that time in intentionally into the professional learning? You're seeing impact from that.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, and really being hands-off and kind of letting them trusting them like yes, and because they the um I think Carolyn McGander is uh a mentor of mine, and she always says sometimes the smartest thing in the room is the room. And so it's this shared co-planning time, though, where um it's the groups co-planning with their partner, but also together. So when you're talking about assets and staff, we did teacher labs. So we have three high schools, there's four middle schools, and so um it was really important, 612, that we did teacher labs, and it was based off of something we would try.

SPEAKER_05 19:10

And I can I apologize there for a moment for our audience who doesn't know what a teacher lab is. What is a teacher lab?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, so the way that we run them in in Rochester um was that uh we will get together and it's really about our own learning. So when we're visiting, it's uh like for this particular cohort, the co-teaching cohort. We would meet at a building and we would do some shared learning. Then we would go. Um, we have some norms that we've set up. Um we've we've worked with open schools and supporting some of those that norm work.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

Shout out to open schools.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, I will all day because you guys have really supported uh our work. And um so we'll go in and it's really about our learning. We expect that we will take something away, and it's looking at student learning. So a lot of times it was rooted in this the the math practices. Um what are students doing? And from there, we then um maybe it's maybe it's 15 minutes, 20 minutes for us. It might have been around the domain that we were specifically working on. We would come back and we reflect, we get to hear what the teachers were hoping to do. How did it go compared to how you thought it would go? And um at the same time, we're all trying the same things because it was our collective group goal to try something, and so we're all learning kind of together. Um it was also great because we've we've done a lot of work with a lot of neighboring districts, and so doing teacher labs with people that we don't see every day but are in the same kind of um experiences, like with Oxford and Birmingham and Clarkson and like Orion. Um I don't know if I can if I can say all that, but they're just there are friends that are open county friends. I was gonna say in Open County, like there's so many wonderful partnerships that we've developed, and so we we've hosted labs, we've gone there, and working on co-teaching is one thing in particular. And so we're continuously trying to make our practice public, and it's not as scary to try stuff. And so um so anyway, so it's through those teacher labs that you sometimes when you see it, it makes you think, Oh, I didn't think I could run a station like that, but now I have a couple ideas. Maybe I can't do it exactly that way, but I wanted to do that, and so um but that's also been helpful when we think about when we're in co-teaching and when there's two of us, what do we do when we're not co-teaching? And we still want to provide the same kind of experiences in our other classes, and so how do you scale that sort of differently? And um, and so again, teacher labs have been fun to see it taught together, and then what about the next algebra class that doesn't have two teachers? How did that teacher still do a lot of the same things in there, but now as a single taught class?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Yeah, yeah. Jill, I think that was the question I was gonna ask. You know, I want so many of our listeners are teachers who might be saying, Well, I don't have a co-teacher. Right. So how do I differentiate? Um, and I think there are a lot of things that you've said. Um, and I'm wondering if there are some specific things that you notice that teachers that were working really well in these co-taught classrooms, but were able to really nicely translate to their single classes that all of our listeners might be able to say, Oh, that's something I I could think more about or I could try.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

And so I think there's strategies and there's also intentionality and planning. Yeah. So a lot of times we pace things like I'm gonna do this on this day, this on this day, this on this day. But the planning, um, we really focused on doing an RTI model within the classroom. So what is going to be that formative check and then the planning ahead of time? What will my students who don't get it do? What will my students who are on level do? And what will my students who need enrichment or extension do? And having folks that are also teaching similar classes to brainstorm together and develop those plans and then try them. It gives um sort of permission to try. And so I would say that that that's the first part planning ahead of the differentiating, knowing that there's going to be a tricky thing. So let's walk through what are the ways that will support students who don't get it and students who do get it. Um using space is really important. We have vertical whiteboards in all of our math classes, and so um it might be tricky. How do I do stations? Like, how do I support? So you might have some students who are working um on whiteboards at the desk, and they might be doing a different activity that's been sent to their Google Classroom, or you have posted here, and then you might have some students who are working on vertical whiteboards, and so you're still man you can still manage all of them, but it's still differentiated kind of activities and engagement. So it's really like the specific strategies we have think about access and engagement. So, you know, those three read strategies, info gaps, things like that that you can do. Um, but that re-engagement part is really um about after you've maximized sort of that initial access and engagement, it's really drilling down to okay, knowing ahead that some students will struggle and how do you build that within? So carving a day, saying, even though it's just me, I'm gonna plan a differentiation day. And so I don't feel stressed later when kids don't get it and I don't have time to do it. No, every unit I'm gonna make sure I have one or two just in there. And so that's where I would start if I'm thinking, how do I start differentiating on my own? Because it seems like it's so overwhelming. But if you just start by saying, I'm going to give myself a day and a day here, and so I I know that I will have the time and I don't have to be stressed out about it. And as I'm collecting that formative feedback, if I can't do um do it on the fly, at least I know on that day I'll be able to address it.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah. So, Jill, we are so grateful for everything that you've shared, the story that you told, the journey you took us on. And we now are gonna go into a part of our podcast that we lovingly call Hot Takes, where we share, each one of us, something that might be like out of the box thinking, maybe pushes educators to really like think differently about this topic. Um, so we're each gonna share ours, and then we always leave our host with the final word. Um, and so Steven, you want to start? You want to kick us off with your hot dogs?

SPEAKER_05 25:23

Jill kind of took mine that was in my head. I know, so that's always the hard part with hot takes. Yes. Um, but this one's a little spicy. This one, this one might get me put on a pip.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I love spicy hot takes.

SPEAKER_05 25:35

If my boss is listening, uh, you know, this is all for the glory of student uh learning. So when we take a look at professional development and like district-provided professional development, right? If you're a teacher out there, your district is providing X number of hours of that. And I am really interested in like the quality and the modality of learning. So I know in our tech age, um virtual learning and asynchronous learning through like modules and online system is a thing. Okay, I get that, not gonna fight that. But what Jill said earlier is just super resonating with me, and this was what I was thinking the whole time, particularly for something like differentiation at the classroom level, you have to see it. You have to really see it in action. So it's one thing to read about it. It's one thing to like read a rubric and reflect on your own practice, and another thing to maybe even see like a video of something, whatever. But you gotta be there, right? You gotta see it, you gotta take a whiff of the classroom. Hopefully, it's not a middle school classroom, but you gotta get you really gotta get a sense of like what are the instructional moves that the teacher is making, how are students responding to that? And you really gotta take in that data. And that type of professional learning, I think, can only happen through experiences like teacher labs or classroom visitations. So my spicy hot take is what if in those 30 hours, 30%, so roughly 10 hours of the professional learning that districts had to give every year. I'm not talking about a policy, I'm talking about just a practice, right? Try it out, were teacher lab experiences.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:19

Like what if we just made sure that every teacher in our building, if I'm building principal, every teacher is gonna get a minimum of 10 hours of classroom visitation and lab experiences so they can actually see what this weird theoretical concept looks like in practice with a person uh who has demonstrated capacity to show and lead others in that work.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Yeah. So I feel like we're like shouting Carolyn McCanders out all over. But what I was gonna say is Carolyn says that the experience is so important, but where the real value and learning comes from is the reflection on that experience. And I think that that's exactly what you're saying too, right? Like the beauty of teacher labs isn't just the experience, but it's the the reflection time and the built-in time to say, like, how is what I'm seeing feel practical and relevant to to my classroom space.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

So socially with a group to be able to experience together, a small group, but then also independently like process it too, right? So you kind of what's the goal that you now have? What's the learning you now have moving forward?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So my hot take. A little spicy, yeah. Come on, come on. Yeah, yeah. My hot take. So I was thinking, I was thinking back on when I was a classroom teacher and feeling like so often differentiation feels like one of the challenges is connected to content, right? When we talk about how students are coming in and some can't do this skill or some further removed from this skill. And it feels a lot like the content is the barrier. And I was wondering, and even as I was like talking to Jill and she's like really making me think about a lot of different things, was maybe it's the pressure of time and not so much the pressure of the content. And so, my hot take, and this is real spicy, because this would cause like schools to really restructure their systems, but like, what if it was less about the content and more about the time? And instead of saying students had to master this skill in six weeks, because that's what our unit is, what if the time fluidity that said you get as much time as you need to master the skill? And as a teacher, I'm here in this space to guide you through that process. And so students are going to be on this continuum of like where they are in their understanding of linear equations, but I've pre-planned for what that looks like when students don't have it yet, and when students have already mastered it. Um, and that would take a lot of like really thinking differently about our content and what we teach and our standards, and thinking of it as a much more like fluid structure for like really pacing instruction less around like the 180-day calendar and more around like what kids need in the moment.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

And it's like we should structure schools around students.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Students. Oh, maybe I mean that doesn't seem so hot, but sometimes that really does seem hot. Yeah, say something. I know poor Jay always has to like lead us up. All right, Jay, what do you got? What do you got?

SPEAKER_04 30:17

Something a little more muted, a little more bland. But it yeah, but I you're you're right. Sometimes the hottest takes in education are often the things that are most obvious. And I think that's something we need to think about as educators is that the thing that feels like it's the biggest shift is actually the thing that brought us into this profession in the first place. And that's to service the needs of students and to be creative with the work that we do and to have opportunities. This is my hot take, leaning into what Jill was talking about. Opportunities and time to actually feel what it's like to co-plan with somebody. We talk about co-planning, it is a large system that needs to be implemented into a secondary space. That can be daunting. Sometimes we get benefits if we just have not a whole system, but an opportunity to just co-plan differentiated strategies. So when I walk into a classroom one time throughout the year with a colleague that we've co-planned one lesson that we teach together inside of a classroom that offers multi-levels of differentiation and opportunities to intervene there in the moment in a tier one setting. Just doing that once can be impactful to a teaching, uh, to teaching practice. Just one time, feeling what that's like. Then you can take some of those strategies you've developed and you realize, oh, I can do some of these differentiations on my own. I can plan some of these on my own. Maybe if we do it one time, all of us commit to one lesson in which we co-plan and deliver together. We can build a system in all of our schools that strengthens our tier one practice without necessarily having to feel that we have to take a tier, uh, a tier one coaching, uh, I'm sorry, co-teaching model that we have to implement right off the bat. Just start small. One lesson that Katie and I plan together to differentiate in my ELA classroom as a math teacher. Let's see what happens. Everybody commit to that.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

We're gonna hand you off the final hot take.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

The final countdown.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Well, I mean, I want to say, you know, like there's some specific things like you know, you talked about data, and there's like data to intervention moves protocols that are at really a micro level, like giving teachers some specifics that that can support them. But really, I'm gonna go from that micro to also the macro.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

How do we really want to support differentiation? It like back to the beginning. It's a team effort, it's an all hands on deck. So, what are we doing in our systems? Structures, do we give teachers who are teaching the same things the same prep hours so that they can? They that that structure is built in the day. Um, do we how do we build risk um excitement, right? Where we can try new things and permission to pilot. So let's try seeing something new. I don't want to see a polished lesson if I'm an administrator going in. I want to see you trying something new. And so what do we, what do we give voice to and value and excitement to in our macro level level? And that way teachers, when they're planning for differentiation, it's not all up to me. Right. It's okay, my team, we're gonna sit and talk about how are we gonna differentiate for this and this? What are some ideas that we can try? Um, and then see it, right? See in other places. So micro and macro, my hot take is all hands on deck. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Oh my god, what a beautiful way that's the team, the team. The team, the team. All right, there shout out. Yeah, we just lost that. We just lost all our Michigan state. Yeah, they all just turn us off. Go blue.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Oh, it's connected to Football. Oh, well, I'm a Spartan, so I just want to. I didn't know what they were talking about either.

SPEAKER_05 33:57

Uh if you're no matter, I can't I don't know when we're releasing this, but when we're taping this, the Michigan versus Michigan State game is tomorrow, so we'll see who wins. But if you listen to this podcast, you're the winner because this has been such a treat to talk with Jill Gums from Rochester, uh, the mighty Rochester schools. I feel like we could talk to her for for hours and hours and hours. Maybe we'll bring her back differentiation part two.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah. Well, anytime it's a pleasure to learn and listen to you folks and the that power of um all the listeners, they probably have so many great ideas too. And so hopefully they have some comments to share us.

SPEAKER_04 34:33

Yes, let us know. Leading us right in. So thank you, Jill. Again, really appreciate you uh being here. And uh guess what? We are successful enough that we are gonna have a next episode. Oh it's coming. We have another episode. We still don't have sponsors, but we do have a sponsor. No, no sponsors.

SPEAKER_05 34:52

No sponsors. Just to let people know this is free. We don't do this for profit, we do this for the love of teaching and teachers.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

Yeah, that's right. So join us next time on uh on our next exciting episode. We are going to be diving into a conversation. How do we make STEM a place where girls feel like they belong? Okay. Uh in the meantime, right? Isn't it? Can I be there for that one? Yeah, we you better be here. Everybody, it is a conversation.

SPEAKER_05 35:20

Everybody's in the number.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

You're you're yes, you're gonna be a part of it. Uh, in the meantime, before we get to this next exciting episode, please don't forget to follow or subscribe to Teaching Tomorrow wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or comment. It does help other educators find these conversations. And if you liked what you heard, share this episode with a colleague who could use a little inspiration uh during this uh during this school year. Until next time, keep teaching, keep learning, and keep building the tomorrow your students can believe in because here at Teaching Tomorrow, we believe in you.

SPEAKER_05 35:59

Smash that like.