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Unit 3: Continuing differentiation after the initial lesson

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Return to: ETAP 623 Spring 2021 (Byrne) | Elizabeth Choinsky's Portfolio Page |
Incorporating Learning Styles Throughout the Learning Process | Unit 2: Implementing the use of Learning Styles within the classroom

Lesson 1: How to design an assessment

The main focus of this unit is continuing the use of learning styles in assessments. Many educators forget this step and create or use "normal" assessments like written tests. Although this course is focused more on differentiating instruction to meet student's needs based on their learning styles, it's important to extend those differences into the assessment after the lesson is over. Before we embark on adapting assessments to meet student's needs, let's review how to design an average assessment.

Tips for Assessment Design:

  • Begin with the end in mind. When designing the test, be clear about the specific objectives you expect the students to learn from that unit of instruction.
  • Use simple and brief language in the questions and the instructions. The assessment should be testing the student's knowledge about the subject, not the phrasing.
  • Include charts, graphs, images, or passages that require evaluation and elevate the level of thinking from recall to analysis.
  • In order to get the outcome you want from your students, it’s important to let them know why they are doing something, including what skills and knowledge you’re expecting them to demonstrate mastery of. One of the best ways to do this is to create a clear rubric or grading system and give your students a copy prior to beginning work on the assignment.

Lesson 2: Multi-Answer Type Assessments

When designing an assessment with multiple learning styles in mind, it's important to focus on the content knowledge, and not the form in which the assessment takes. For example, if you're interested in testing to see if a student can use place value understanding to round multi-digit whole numbers to any place (CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NBT.A.3) then does it need to be written down? Why not allow students to answer orally? If you're looking for students to describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3) why not allow them to illustrate their answer or act it out? The goal is for students to express an understanding, so why not let them represent their answer in whatever form best meets their needs?

With so many technological advances in recent years, the possibilities are only limited by your creativity. For example, using Spiral from Discovery Education, teachers can provide instant feedback with collaborative, multimedia assessment tools including discussions, video responses to and from students, and Quickfire responses.

Lesson 3: Matching Assessments to Expectations

To allow for multi-answer type assessments, it's vital you connect the assessment to the learning objective. Simply asking a student to say, make, write or do something without clear guidelines or expectations won't work. Be sure to create an assessment that will test the depth of their knowledge and understanding or evaluate the level of proficiency in their skills and capabilities.

One of the most common ways to test for knowledge and understanding involves asking students to say or write something to make their thinking visible. This can include:

  • Standardized assessments like written tests
  • Concept maps that can be revisited to show growth in understanding of big ideas
  • KWL or Know, Want to know, Learned charts
  • Graphic organizers that help students reflect on new learning


Assessing skills and capabilities generally means having students do something in a way that best enables them to reveal their levels of proficiency. This might involve:

  • Your observations of your students, either in the form of rubrics or anecdotal notes while they complete a designated task
  • The performance of a self-assessment by students with data collected and compared over time


Rubrics and other scoring tools are a great way to clearly identify and explain the expectations of an assignment. A rubric should explicitly describe the educator's expectations for an assignment or piece of work in terms that students will understand.

Lesson 4: Simplified Grading with Multiple Answer Types

As mentioned in the previous section, rubrics are a great tool for implementing unique and varied answer types, A carefully designed rubric provides numerous benefits to educators including:

  • Reducing the time spent grading by referring to a predetermined description without writing long comments
  • Helping educators more clearly identify strengths and weaknesses across an entire class and adjust their instruction appropriately
  • Helping to ensure consistency across time and graders
  • Helping eliminate unintentional bias


Rubrics benefit students as well. They provide students with:

  • An understanding of the teachers’ expectations and standards
  • The opportunity to use teacher feedback to improve their performance
  • A way to monitor their progress as they work towards specific goals
  • A way to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and adjust their efforts as needed


Mini Activity: Below is a rubric I created during my student teaching to assess students during a particular writing assignment. Although the assignment was limited in terms of learning styles differentiation, the rubric itself clearly defines the expectations. How could you adapt the assignment/rubric to meet the needs of multiple learners?

Test Your Knowledge

Having been through Units 1-3, you've read, watched, and thought about learning styles in a multitude of ways. To test your knowledge, click the link below and adapt the lesson plan provided to meet the needs of at least 2 learning styles of your choice. Once you're done, feel free to return to this course and extend your learning by clicking through the resources at the bottom of each page. Thank you for completing this course and I hope you enjoyed the content!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-ZeaK108bfG3Qduh3486-KsW1UO4P8QQSAOoco4n-w/edit?usp=sharing

Resources

All resources were last retrieved 5/13/21

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