Differentiated Instruction: Q&A with Head of School Sandi Wollum

Differentiated instruction – teaching tailored to students’ different learning styles and levels – is an educational concept that has been around for decades. It is a concept that’s embraced by most schools in theory – and varying degrees of practice.

Because it is essential for gifted children to have a program designed to address their individual characteristics, needs, abilities, and interests, differentiating curriculum so that each child is appropriately challenged is at the core of Seabury School’s mission.

Learn more about differentiated instruction at Seabury in this Q&A with Head of School Sandi Wollum.

How do you define differentiated instruction?

I would say it goes back to the fundamental philosophy that every child gets to learn something new at school every day. Giving every child equal access to education means you need to do different things for different children.

Isn’t that just common sense?

Not always. Some systems in schools are set up to say that every kid should hit the same academic milestones in same way at the same time. We don’t expect children to hit growth charts like that. We don’t expect their T-ball skills to develop like that. Why do we expect their reading or math or other academic skills to develop like that?

How do we ensure differentiation happens at Seabury?

At Seabury, we have small classes and highly trained teachers in order to be able to appropriately challenge every single child, every single day. Most gifted kids are not equally gifted in every area. They have strengths and weaknesses like everyone else. Although our classes are small, the range of needs is extremely wide.

What might that look like in one of our classes?

In a first grade class, we might find students whose reading hasn’t really clicked yet, where they’re still struggling to sound out words, but who also have highly advanced comprehension skills when they hear a story read.  Other children might be reading chapter books meant for fifth or sixth graders, and yet only have five or six years of life experience so while they “understand” what they are reading, they don’t comprehend like an older student would. It makes the range of abilities in any class wide.  And they’re all still gifted.

How does a teacher address this?

What it means in a first-grade reading class is that kids who are not decoding well need to be stretched in decoding, while still being offered materials that allow them continue to stretch their already high level of comprehension.

With the early readers, Seabury teachers know that they usually start reading spontaneously without relying on phonics, so the teachers work with them to notice things like patterns that they haven’t been exposed to. They don’t need phonics to be able to sound out words, but understanding word patterns will help with spelling and vocabulary development.

How can this apply in math?

You might have kids who are gifted in one facet of math because they have had some previous exposure to it and learned it quickly. But in other areas, they may have had little or no exposure and be totally new to the concept being taught.  Teachers need to be able to assess what kids have mastered already and skip that material in order to spend time on concepts they haven’t yet mastered.  They need to sort out whether kids really understand concepts, or have just memorized a series of steps for solving a problem.  And they need to adjust the pace of instruction to match the child’s learning.  Gifted kids need fewer repetitions to master new material, so teachers need to be keen observers and able to adjust the pace of instruction as needed.

How do our teachers find out what children know?

We do a lot of pre-testing and post-testing, and assessments all year long. Our teachers have to know our students really well. They are keen observers every day, constantly monitoring the pace and depth and amount of practice that kids need.

It sounds complicated.

It means really complex scheduling. Students are loosely grouped. But teachers are constantly observing and readjusting. Who’s ready to go faster? Who needs more practice? Who’s ready to move on?   It might mean giving out three different homework assignments for five kids. Or at the middle school, a math teacher with a dozen students might need to create five different finals. Recently a college professor looked at some papers done by our middle school students and commented that the writing was better than much of the work turned in by his students. Every one of our middle school students gets one-on-one time with a teacher on those papers. Our teachers are good at asking things like, “I wonder what would happen if you do this?”

Could we do what we do if we had 25 kids in a class?

Not to the extent that we do. Not with the day-to-day adjustments we do. No human teacher I’ve met could do it. There’s another layer on top of the academic ­– the social-emotional stuff. Our teachers also know that this kid really loves this; or this kid is having a rough time in his family; or this kid is a perfectionist. If you’d asked me when I was a public school teacher, I would have told you I knew all the kids in my class, but it wasn’t the same. When I came here, I thought with 15 kids this is going to be so easy. I spent so much more time with each kid. I knew them so much better. At the same time I was working so much harder because the adjustments were so much more nuanced.

Differentiation was originally devised so teachers could move away from tracking groups of kids. How do we at Seabury avoid having children making comparisons or feeling labeled if they know they’re in a less advanced, math group, for example?

Our overall focus is always on everyone getting what they need. We focus on kids’ strengths. After they’ve been here for a little while, they should be very aware of their strengths. This is also one of the reasons it’s important to have gifted kids with other gifted kids.  In a class of more typically developing kids, if they find that they’re always picking up on things before everyone else, they don’t get a sense of their strengths – or weaknesses. They either get a sense that everything should be easy and shy away from challenge,  or they develop a fear that the first time they don’t know something, there’s something really wrong. We want them to understand that they don’t have to be good at everything, and at the same time help them develop the work ethic and grit that comes from taking on challenges and being confident that the effort is worth it. 

What else is important to know about differentiating for gifted kids?

The vast majority of teachers have zero training in gifted kids. That means that despite their good intentions for our kids, they’re often operating on myths that are just not true.  For example, more work is not better work.  Rigor is not measured in hours of homework per night and, in fact, more work for the sake of adding work can be detrimental to the growth of gifted kids.  Research shows that gifted kids’ achievement goes down with excessive practice beyond what is needed to master the skill they are learning. Gifted kids learn quickly in their areas of giftedness, so need less time practice time to master a skill and more time to apply it in new and more complex ways. 

Seabury’s teachers understand gifted kids – how they learn, what the research says about their intellectual, social and emotional development, and how to both support and challenge them.  Our approach really goes back to that basic philosophy that EVERY child deserves to learn something new EVERY day.  Including gifted kids.

Further reading on myths about giftedkids

Inspiring gifted kids for 25 years – and they sure inspire us!

December has been a month of reconnecting with Seabury alumni who have come back to share their stories of life after Seabury. After having been at Seabury for a long time now, it is always exciting to see former students and meet those who were at Seabury before my time. I love to hear the stories of where they have gone and what they have done since leaving our program.

Over the years, I have talked with and heard the stories of many of our alums – both recent grads who are still in high school and those who have gone on to colleges and careers. A number of themes have emerged from those conversations, themes that both validate the work that we are doing with our current students and that provide valuable information for parents regarding the benefit of the significant investment they are making in their child's Seabury education.

First, every alumnus I have ever talked with or heard from through others has said that their experience at Seabury has had a significant impact on their lives, choices and successes. Alumni consistently tell us that Seabury was the place where they recognized their passion for learning and where they discovered what true academic rigor looked and felt like. Many have shared experiences of going on to high school programs with a reputation for rigor and challenge and finding, instead, that there was a great deal of work and hours of homework, but much less rigor in terms of thought, analysis and application of learning. At Seabury, students from pre-k through eighth grade are expected to take information they learn and apply it in new and unique ways – a rigorous activity requiring higher level thinking and deeper understanding. A number of alums have shared that Seabury set the bar for them, and that they demanded that kind of rigor from the teachers and professors they had in high school and college.

Second, alums consistently tell us that Seabury is the place where they gained self-confidence. Research tells us that when gifted students learn with other gifted students, they not only increase their academic achievement, but also show greater social/emotional growth than when they are in classes with more typically developing students. We see that every day at Seabury – our students inspire and stimulate deeper levels of questioning and discovery in each other. And they grow in confidence as they recognize that they not only have areas of strength and expertise, but that others have areas of strength as well and that they can learn from and support each other. We see that self–confidence carrying forward with students as they move into high school, college and career. We see alums demanding excellence from themselves and seeking out those who support and encourage them.

Third, our recent grads talk about Seabury's program giving them the tools to advocate for themselves, getting what they need from school and other experiences. When we talk with graduates of our current middle school program, we hear again and again that the community element of the program – our students’ experiences interacting with people of all ages through partnerships, field studies as close as Tacoma and as far off as the D-Day beaches at Normandy, participation in the Model UN – even Thursday lunches out – has given them confidence, poise and sophistication beyond their years. They are able to advocate for themselves appropriately in their high schools, asking for more challenging classes, talking with teachers, seeking out internships and relevant experiences, and getting what they need to be successful. Whether they are at public or private schools, they tell us they have learned how to be their own advocates and they attribute that to their experience at Seabury.

Finally, we our alumni show us that Seabury is not a school that produces "cookie cutter" students who look the same and follow similar paths after leaving our school. At Seabury, our goal is to help students discover their passions and develop their talents, whatever those might be. When we look at our alums, we see young people who are pursuing careers in medicine, business, social service, law and academia. We have musicians, dancers, and artists. We have alumni who have studied at Ivy League schools and students who have military careers. We have a successful Indie musician, an Olympic athlete in training, technology experts, a rocket scientist, world travelers, and students who have made their way from high school to college early. The broad range of schools our students attend and careers they have chosen reflects Seabury's commitment to helping our students define success for themselves and to giving them the tools to ask great questions, think deeply and seek inspiration and innovation.

Whether they started at Seabury in pre-k and finished the eighth grade here, or spent just a remarkable year or two with us, our alumni are an inspiration. Seeing them discover their passions, set their personal bars high and seek excellence in a variety of ways reminds me of the tremendous importance of our work. It is significant to me that Seabury is the only school I have worked at in more than 30 years in education where students cry on the last day of school because they don't want the school year to be over.

Seabury students past and present inspire us and inspire each other. We are grateful for all of them, and I am humbled when I see what they are contributing to the world. It is a privilege to be part of this special school!

– Sandi Wollum

Discovering their gifts

Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences.”

– Annemarie Roeper, 2000

What does it mean to be “gifted?” We are often uncomfortable with that word and unsure what it means. Parents of young children who come to visit Seabury often tell me that they are not sure their child is really “gifted” but they can see that their child is developing differently – more quickly in many areas – than other children of the same age and they are concerned about what that will mean when it’s time for school. They’ve read the list of characteristics of giftedness and recognize their child in many of them, but what does that really mean for schooling, for parenting and for life?

On Wednesday after our annual Seabury Thanksgiving feast was over and everyone had gone home, I was locking up the lower school building when I saw a family wander into the parking lot. I walked over and introduced myself. As it turned out, it was a Seabury alum, out for a walk with his mom and a friend. He attended Seabury from kindergarten through eighth grade and was eager to share his memories and tell me about what he is up to now. He is working as a French chef, building on an interest in the culture that was sparked in Mme. Olliphant’s French class. We talked about classmates who have become video game creators, who design high tech security systems, who have make successful phone apps, and one who is an indie rock star. He said that Seabury was the place where he and his friends felt safe being who they were, pursuing their interests, learning at a rate that was appropriate for them, and developing the confidence that would allow him and others to pursue their passions as they moved beyond Seabury.

This week, we will be hosting several of our more recent graduates who are currently in high school. Again, as we look at our graduates, we see them finding success in art schools, technical and science schools, AP and IB programs, and sometimes creating their own paths through Running Start and other forms of early entrance to college. We hear them tell us that Seabury supported their love of learning, encouraged them to seek out those who challenged and supported them, and gave them the confidence to pursue the things they loved doing. They tell us often that at Seabury they found what learning looks like, and they seek that for themselves.

When people ask me to describe gifted children, I often say that the biggest thing they have in common is that they are all so unique. Our students come to us with a wide range of gifts. Some are incredible readers who develop insights that are deep and highly perceptive. Others love numbers and patterns, and shine best when they can model an idea in three dimensions or through a mathematical function or equation. Some are incredibly creative, constantly asking, “Why can’t we do it this way?” whenever they are given a task – always seeing new ways to put ideas or objects together.

At Seabury, we are committed to helping these highly aware, highly sensitive, highly perceptive students develop their passions. We are not a school that is out to produce cookie cutter students – each one looking the same as all the others. We are a school that is designed to support students as they discover their unique gifts and talents. We give them opportunities throughout their education to connect with adults who are passionate about what they do, so they can recognize that passion when they experience it for themselves. We are a school where kids are engaged, inspired, encouraged to ask great questions and explore possibilities. We are a school that teaches to students’ strengths, whatever they might be, and uses those strengths to address areas for growth.

Our eighth graders are spending the school year working on capstone projects that combine their individual passions, the middle school focus on service and Seabury's continued commitment to exploration and discovery. One student with a passion for geography is working with teachers to design a curriculum that he'll try out on our lower school students. Another eighth grader, who is a gifted ukelele player and songwriter, will create an extended play recording. A third is working to learn Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop so that he can offer graphic design services. An eighth grade girl, interested in medicine, will shadow a doctor at a local hospital. Another girl, a talented artist, is submitting a mural proposal to the city.

At the lower school, we see passions emerge early. There's a fifth grader who has checked out a thick book called The Elements and a fat field guide on North American birds several times a year since he was in second grade. In fact, that bird field guide is one of the most popular books in the library. We have a kindergarten student who holds geography as one of his passions. In pre-k as the class was brainstorming words that started with the letter B, he offered "Belarus." He also could draw an accurate map of the United States on a white board from memory. Last year's kindergarten class became passionate about writing and publishing books. One boy started his own book blog, which he still contributes to as a first grader.

If you know me, then you’ve probably heard me quote theologian Frederick Buechner’s definition of vocation. “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” Our goal at Seabury is to provide our students with skills and experiences that will help them discover where their “deep gladness” is – whether it’s in scientific discovery or the creation of art or music or serving others. It is to encourage our students’ ingenuity so that they can continue to reinvent themselves in a world of every changing technology and opportunities. It is the reason that our alums can be found in such a wide range of vocations, having attended everything from Ivy League schools to apprenticeships and trade programs. They are creating new ideas, technologies and works of art that are making our world a better place.

  
It’s a privilege to be in the position I’m in. I get to see our students, from our youngest entrepreneursdeveloping a pretend latte/pumpkin stand in the pre-k room to our alums who are attorneys, chefs, artists, writers and rocket scientists finding what it is they truly love and developing the skills and abilities they will need to pursue those interests. It’s one of the things I am most thankful for!

– Sandi Wollum

Questions and "aha" moments

I wish you had the opportunity I have to spend time in Seabury's classrooms.  To witness the "aha!" moments.  To hear the endless questions.  To see students engaged in discussions and debates that are often mind blowing.

Seabury's kids love learning.  We are thrilled that they often tell us they love school and they have fun every day.  And how many schools have kids crying on the last day of school because they don't want the learning to end?

It is important to understand that students’ happiness is not our ultimate goal as educators at Seabury.  It is, instead, a by-product of a program built specifically for the gifted learners we serve.  Seabury's program is different from typical public or private school programs because our kids think and learn differently.

There has been a great deal of research over the years into how gifted students learn and develop, and there are agreed upon best practices for making sure gifted students have the  same opportunities to be challenged intellectually and supported socially and emotionally as typically developing students.  Dr. Karen Rogers, one of the foremost researchers in the field has been doing meta-analyses of various program practices for gifted learners for more than 30 years, looking at the gains students make when each practice is implemented, such as subject or grade level acceleration, grouping students with intellectual peers, and giving students the chance to pursue areas of interest.  

Where many schools implement or partially implement some of these recommendations, Seabury's program has been developed around these research-based best practices.  A student who is ready for math that is three grade levels ahead can work at that level rather than being limited to an "advanced" program that only allows students to work one or two grade levels ahead.  A student who is an early reader but who is still young can read with other young early readers who share similar interests and attention spans rather than either being under challenged in a grade level class that is too easy or moved ahead with students who are older and at a different developmental level.  

Teachers are trained in working with gifted students rather than relying on the myths and stereotypes that often lead well-meaning but untrained educators to make poor educational decisions for children like ours.

During Seabury's 25th anniversary year, we are going back to basics – talking about why we do what we do for the gifted students we serve.  We know we are on the right track.  Not only because the research tells us we are and the experts we bring in each year to speak to parents congratulate us on our work.  We know we are doing the right thing because our kids are happy.  They love learning.  They continue to have millions of questions.  They want to know more. And sometimes they even cry on the last day of school. 

– Sandi Wollum

Karen B. Rogers: Lessons Learned About Educating the Gifted and Talented

We celebrate math at Seabury

A celebration of math?  Really?! 

For many of us, math was something we did in school, or that we engage in when we balance our checkbooks.  It is a necessary skill – a tool we need to manage our lives and do our work.  But it is rarely celebrated – except at Seabury!

At Seabury, math is more than a collection of skills we tick off a list – it is a way of thinking that can be challenging, fun, engaging, and intriguing all at the same time.  Seabury’s teachers seek to develop strong math skills in their students, and also to develop students’ mathematical thinking and love for discovering new patterns and possibilities.

Most schools talk about differentiating instruction to meet student needs.  Looking at Seabury’s math program you will see that Seabury takes differentiation to a level that is unheard of for most schools.  In our effort to challenge each and every student every day, teachers have developed strategies for tailoring math instruction to individual student needs through the use of individualized instruction, flexible grouping, using a variety of teaching tools (rather than just the math texts), and the use of open-ended activities that allow students to go as deeply into a topic as their interest and readiness will take them.

Here is a math problem for you.  There are 25 students at the middle school.  Students are grouped by math ability and readiness, and teachers have used six different texts (ranging from sixth grade, through pre-algebra, algebra and geometry) with students this year.  Our middle school math teachers are currently preparing students for final exams that will be given during the last week of school.  In order for each student to take a final that is tailored to what she or he has studied this year, teachers are   How personalized does that make Seabury’s math program?

preparing a total of nine different finals, each with its own final review worksheet.

But math isn’t just working in a small group or individually with a teacher at Seabury.  Students at the lower school engage in “Math Adventures,” which are open ended activities that allow students to explore interesting patterns, develop their mathematical thinking, and explore the concept behind the algorithm for solving problems.  Students in the fourth-fifth grade class have developed their mathematical thinking through working with Math Pickles and have solved complex puzzles that have stretched their understanding of factors and prime numbers and patterns such as the Fibonacci sequence.   Students at all levels have incorporated math into art, and have made connections in the integrated curriculum to math.  Kindergarten students studying marine life recently made a life-sized nurse shark, measuring carefully to make sure it was the size of a real shark. 

 

As with all of Seabury’s program, tailoring instruction to meet individual needs, allowing student’s individual development to drive the pace of instruction, and building understanding through engaging, challenging activities drives math instruction.  Our students celebrate math because it’s fun, challenging, and it provides a chance to learn something new at school every day.  Come celebrate with us!

– Sandi Wollum

A Celebration of Writing

I hope you have had the chance to take a look at our classroom blogs (www.seabury.org) this month as we have highlighted writing at Seabury. While writing is always an important element our program, we have spent this month focusing on the role of writing in our classes. From prekindergarten and kindergarten students authoring their own books (and in the case of our kindergarteners, starting their own publishing company - left photo) to middle school students creating position papers on global issues as representatives at the Model United Nations, developing strong written communication skills is a key element of Seabury's curriculum. Writing also serves as a perfect example of the myriad ways in which teachers at Seabury differentiate the curriculum, matching instruction and expectations to individual student needs.

Writing serves many purposes at Seabury, just as it will in our students' lives. Students learn from the very beginning that writing is a tool for expressing ideas, telling stories, recording information, and keeping track of what they've learned. They learn writing can be personal or shared with a group. When students have opportunities to share their writing in a variety of ways, they learn that taking time to carefully choose their words and construct their stories will mean that the ideas are more likely to make sense to others. They learn that writing can be formal, such as published stories and final papers, or informal, like notes to oneself and journal entries. And, most importantly, by giving students time and opportunities to write about things they are interested in, they learn that writing can be fun.

Writing at Seabury is also a great example of the ways in which teachers differentiate instruction to meet students' individual needs. At the prekindergarten level, that means that those who are not yet reading or who are still learning how to form letters might draw pictures of their observations in science, make tally marks to gather information, or dictate their stories to a teacher – writing, but not yet putting words on paper by themselves. As they begin to write words, they are encouraged to use inventive spelling, recognizing that we start by getting our ideas down on paper the best way we can, and then we can go back to correct, clarify and add detail. With young gifted students, we frequently find students who have huge stories in their minds, but whose motor skills make it difficult to get it all down on paper, making the prospect of writing daunting. So writing might become a combination of the student writing and the teacher taking dictation. Teachers work with students one on one or in small groups, allowing them to tailor their expectations to the individual readiness of their students.

This is true at all grade levels at Seabury. Teachers might work with the whole group on something they are all ready for, such as how to use more precise, colorful language in their writing, but will then tailor assignments and expectations to the readiness of each student. Working with students individually and in small groups, this could mean that one student might be asked to write sentences using at least one descriptive word in each. For another, it might mean taking a longer piece and working on developing more intricate character descriptions. In elementary grades, students begin to use the computer for some of their writing, making editing and revising something they choose to do rather than are forced to do. By the time students reach middle school, students are writing in all kinds of formats, including blog posts, creative stories for fun, and serious research pieces using the same MLA format they will be using in high school and college. In middle school, just as in all grade levels at Seabury, expectations for students are designed so that they can take the next step on their journeys to becoming strong writers, recognizing all are in different places on those journeys.

The result, as you can see in our teachers' blogs, is that Seabury promotes a culture of students as authors. Seabury is a place where kids of all ages beg for more creative writing time. Where kids of all ages use writing as a tool for expressing themselves. Where academic writing, such as research papers and lab write ups is happening in age appropriate ways at all grade levels, including with our youngest children. Our graduates are consistently recognized in high school for their strong writing skills and ability to communicate clearly. This is truly something to celebrate!

-Sandi Wollum, head of school