Differentiating for Higher Achieving Students (That Isn’t Just Extra Work) [Episode 169]

Rebecca 0:00
Sarah, last week, we kicked off a new series all about differentiation in your secondary science classrooms. And I told you at the end of the episode that this week we would be starting with specific tips for differentiating your instruction to serve your higher achieving students. And I confess to you all that I wanted to start here because for my own personal time in the classroom, this is often where I fell the most short. If I’m perfectly honest with you, I found I really reserved most of my energy for my on grade level classes or for those students that I really needed to triage, if you will, to support that were maybe not going to pass my class, and I rarely spent time honestly thinking about my honor sections, or those students, maybe in my on grade level, or my honor sections that were just bored and finishing early and twiddling their thumbs. So to do those past students justice retroactively, I want to start with how much more I could have served them. So this episode’s advice, just for context, is going to be mainly for supporting those of you who, let’s say, teach freshmen biology one and you have an honor section and an on grade level or CP section. I’m going to share how to take the baseline that you’re teaching to your on grade level courses and advance it to a higher level for your honors classes first. And then at the end of the episode, I’ll share a few ideas for serving those higher achieving students who are in your honors classes and in your on grade level classes, and they’re just already above their peers in those regards. And then know that next week we’ll talk specifically tips for your low achieving students. And then the following week, we’re gonna really have one episode that deep dives those class periods that you have that have a wide range of students abilities all in the same class period. Okay, so today we’re talking specifically about more your honors classes and then also your outliers in all of your classes. And I’m going to share five tips to differentiate for those high achieving students. And four of them are really shifts in your classroom culture, which is why they’re really gonna help, mainly with those honors separated classes, if you will. All right, so are you ready to hear more? Let’s dive in. This is secondary science simplify, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum rider, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend, let’s get to today’s episode.

Rebecca 3:07
My first piece of advice, and I mentioned this last week, is I highly, highly recommend going to the person above you who teaches the even higher level of what you teach, or who teaches the next course in your course sequence and consult them, see what they think is the most important content and what are the most important skills to focus on or dive deep into with your more higher achieving students. So for example, again, we’re using, like your freshman biology one course as our example here, go to whoever teaches AP Bio and say, Hey, what do I need to be diving more deep into with my honors bio students? What are topics that you’re like, Wow. I really wish the students had seen this in honors bio before they get to me. I wish I was not the first time that they were seeing this. This is why I started introducing Hardy Weinberg equilibrium calculations. And, you know, calculating allele frequencies with my honors bio students was because I realized, if they’re just seeing this for the first time in AP Bio, the overwhelm factor is so real that they just do so much better when it’s the second go around that they’re seeing it. If you teach a course like a physical science, go talk to that chemistry one teacher or the physics one teacher for me personally, I really prioritized Chem one because the sequence that my students followed in terms of their courses were typically physical science into biology and then into chemistry, and then maybe some of them would take physics as a junior or Senior. So I really cared about that Chem one teacher and saying, Hey, like, what are the things you really think would be helpful for them to have seen before? Have had some skill acquisition there one of those being, like, if you look at the NGSS, they really don’t need to be knowing how to, you know, write and balance chemical equations and write chemical formulas and. Name chemical compounds in physical science as an introductory course. They don’t need to do that, but those are some of the hardest skills to nail down in Chem one. And if those students have at least had some time doing that in the past, then when you get to in Chem one, it’s so much less foreign for them. And then if they can get that down, that’s one level that’s then not going to impact them. When you get to stoic I found so many times that sometimes it’s hard with stoichiometry, because, like, before we can even get into the math, they’re not even balancing the equation right. And so that, like, base level skill is impacting them, learning these more intense skills, if you will. And so I really recommend seeing what they think and really going from there and saying, okay, like, what can I add in? Because the hope would be that in these honors classes, you are able to move at a quicker pace, and thus you could cover more content and add in more skills than you could in an on grade level course. So I’m talking about, how do you know what to go into, above and beyond the standards, especially if you’re using NGSS, you and I both know that the standards aren’t crazy specific. They are really general, really broad. I love the 3d nature of them, but I think the greatest fault is their lack of specificity, which we’ll talk about. We have an NGSS series coming up, but I think one of the things they do is like, they’re gonna tell you the bare minimum that you need to teach and the assessment boundaries, but you get to use your discretion as a teacher to decide which of those boundaries do you cross, which are the things that you go deeper into, and that’s where I think getting advice from that person ahead of you is just invaluable. Okay, so that’s just my like initial tip.

Rebecca 6:37
Now let’s get into the five really specific tips for pushing those students harder. First, your assessments, you should be writing more challenging assessments for those students, higher level thinking questions. Look at your Bloom’s Taxonomy. We’re going to be going to those higher level questions. Oftentimes, my CP and honors tests will have the same multiple choice questions, because multiple choice questions are so difficult to write. So I find making those the same is just like a much easier baseline for me. And typically they don’t have more than, like, 20 of those which and they’re about 1.5 to two points each. So it’s not like the majority of their test is multiple choice and then using that open response to really ask those higher level thinking questions. You know, my on grade level test. There’s a lot of charts they’re filling in. You know, we’re doing some matching, maybe we’re labeling a diagram. But in honors, it’s going to be a lot more open ended, a multi step stoichiometry problem and chemistry. For honors, it’s just going to ask the end question, whereas in CP, it’s going to be broken down into an A, B, C, D, E, type of question where I’m telling them, okay, part A, write the equation. Part B, balance it, part c. Now you’re going to do this like I’m going to help scaffold that for them there, which, again, we’ll talk about more when reaching our lower achieving students. But I really think an easy way to push them harder is with those assessments.

Rebecca 7:58
The second thing is, I just with my higher achieving students. Y’all, there is so much more autonomy and independence given to them and expected of them. Okay, I’m really not doing a lot of hand holding here. I’m really putting so much more of the learning back onto them. I’m expecting them to work really independently. And this is a tip that translates for reaching those outlier students in your honors and your on grade level classes, those really high achievers above the average in those classes, like it’s not to say I’m ignoring them, but I am expecting them to work very, very independently and to be able to work on their own and to find solutions to their questions, as opposed to just coming straight to me, that is an expectation I set. It’s a cultural expectation. I said at the top, other than the assessments, which we already talked about, these four tips are really culture shifts, and one of them is training these higher achieving students like you are capable of doing so much more. Thus I am expecting you to do these things on your own, and because of that, they’re probably going to finish a little bit faster, and then I’m going to be utilizing those students to work alongside me to help their peers. I am a huge fan of peer support, of saying, Okay, you finished early. If you don’t have anything to work on for another class, or, like, you know, if you really want to read a book you want to read, that’s fine, but I would personally love for you to partner with me and help me like oftentimes, especially in a quantitative class like physical science, there’s a lot of one to one that needs to happen to reach those lower achieving students. Take advantage of these higher achievers, these fast finishers, and say, come help me. Help your friends. The expectation is that we’re all going to finish at the end of class together, so that no one has homework. So I’m expecting you to help me in this now, if you’re saying, how do you motivate them? That’s going to be something we’re going to talk about later. But I really push those students and say, Hey, I see you. I see your giftedness. I see you are above and beyond the average student in this class. I would love to write you a recommendation for wherever you’re heading. I. After this. In order to do that, and for me to write this really well, I need you to be a partner in this class with me in serving your fellow students. And if you really understand this content really well, as you’re projecting that you do with finishing early or maybe singing bored, then you will easily be able to teach this to your classmates. And it’s gonna be a way that’s gonna stretch their brains too. And so I really, really hold that highly of like, Hey, I would love to do this for you, but this is an expectation I have. If you don’t want to do this, that’s fine, but don’t come circle back in two to three years and be asking me for a recommendation. So that’s one way I motivate them.

Rebecca 10:34
So first, we’re really pushing them with assessments. Second, we’re expecting so much more autonomy from them. Third my advanced classes, or even my on grade level classes that tend to have a higher achieving compilation of students, because it’s always so random who ends up where, oftentimes how the schedules work out with their other classes. You know, sometimes you can have three sections of on grade level biology, and they’re vastly different in ability. But the classes that seem more high achieving overall, whether they’re labeled honors or not. I am doing so much more listening, so much more question asking, and there’s so much more discussion. I feel like the discussions you have are what truly set apart your higher level classes from your lower ones, oftentimes, again, we’re just trying to do the bare minimum in some of these classes to get these students through and get them to where they need to be, and so we’re having to take the brunt of the educating on ourselves. That is not what I do at all with my higher achieving students. I want them to be the question askers. I want them to get better at asking questions, and they only do that with practice. So a huge part of my classroom culture is establishing like we are going to be doing a ton of discussion. This is a back and forth. This is my expectation of you. I don’t know if any of you out there are fourth wing, iron flame, onyx storms. Readers, if you’re listening this, you have, like, no context what I’m talking about, just, I promise I’ll keep this like 60 seconds. But Onyx storm, which is the third in this series, is coming out, or just came out at the end of January. I’ve been rereading fourth wing and iron flame in preparation. And I thought about this episode as I was reading, because in the battle briefs. What happens in the book is they give the students a scenario of a battle that’s happened in the war, and then the teacher says, what questions do you have? And then they literally learn by asking questions. Instead of the teacher just explaining everything that’s happened, they give a tiny bit of context, and then they say, Hey, what questions do you have? And the questions of the students are what guide the learning process. That is how I envision this in my own classrooms going like, I’m gonna give you a little bit here, and then I want you to lean into figuring out what you don’t understand, what you need more explanation of. I saw this especially works so beautifully in my AP Bio course when I taught that. But this can start happening in your honors courses. It can also start too with like your higher achieving on grade level courses. It doesn’t have to be limited to that, but I would really lean into discussion and getting them to ask more questions. You asking them questions of course, but also training them to ask you questions as well.

Rebecca 13:16
My fourth recommendation is so much more student choice y’all, student centered pedagogy, student led development of resources. I have an entire series on student centered pedagogy that starts with episode 29 so I’ll link that first one in the series in the show notes, so you can listen to that if you want. But I think creating space for students to explore their interests, to show what they know, their output, if you will, in a way that best suits them. That is what I am talking about here. And this is something that’s great, like, you can literally have a project, and you can give the whole class, like two options, and then you can go privately to your higher achieving students and say, Hey, if you have a different option, you’d like to explore a different topic. You’d like to research a different output where you would like to express what you know here, let me know, and I will like accommodate that. For example, in my genetic disorder research project that I do with my biology students, I have a list of genetic disorders that I have my students pick from, especially in my on grade level classes, they we draw names. They get to pick an order from the list. I do this because these are disorders that I find they it’s very easy to understand the inheritance pattern of, you know, oftentimes these things are a lot more complicated in nature. It’s not just like it’s a, you know, sex linked recessive disorder. It’s not always that simple. So I try to keep it to a simpler list disorders that have a lot of information, a lot of research out there, you know. So it’s going to be a win for them if they pick these. But you can let your other students, as higher achievers, say, Hey, if you want to go off this list, if you want to research something a little bit more complicated, maybe there’s something that’s in your, you know, family history that you’ve always kind of been interested in, that has a genetic tendency. I’ll let you go. Rogue on this one. And so I think meeting them on that individual nature and with individual projects and assignments is really valuable, and it really empowers them to know, like, oh, I have a choice here. I have a say. She sees me, and she’s allowing me to, like, spread my wings a little bit more here as well.

Rebecca 15:19
And last but not least, with my high achieving students and classes. Y’all, as much as you can change your culture to be around inquiry the better, especially when it comes to labs. My labs in my lower level classes are a lot more reminiscent of cookie cutter than they are inquiry. And I’m just going to be perfectly honest, I try to do at least two like full inquiry investigations. Year with those lower level students, one per semester, we do a lot of inquiry activities that are more shorter term, but we’re not like designing every lab fully from scratch, and a lot of labs like I’m gonna give them the procedures, but then let them draw their own conclusions, analyze the data, that kind of thing. Whereas with my higher cheating students in those classes that have you know, the majority of them like your honors designated classes, I can create so much more inquiry in the class. We can do so much more exploration before explanation, as opposed to like explain, explore while we reinforce, at the same time, reinforce some more with my honors classes, I love exploring. First, I love to do the lab first, then we kind of follow up with direct instruction. Then we might reinforce with some practice if we need to. And then last, if we have time, we can extend. I do a lot less reinforcement in general. In my honors classes, typically like we learn something, we explore it, we engage it, we explain it all that, but then we have like, one reinforcing activity, one practice problem page, we go over that we move on. So students need more reinforcement in those classes, which we’ll talk about in the next episode as well. I’m expecting them to come to tutoring for additional reinforcement. So that’s one way too. I reclaim a lot of time in my advanced classes so that we do have more time and capacity for extension, which I love to do, to go deeper and add in those extra skills, is by decreasing the amount of reinforcement that’s happening within the class period and expecting them to take that initiative, to have that autonomy, to take ownership for their education and come in outside of class as needed. Now, a big complaint I hear is oftentimes teachers feel like the only way I can make it advanced or more honors is just to give them extra work, or the only way that I can challenge these higher achieving students in my on grade level courses, or whatever, is to give them an extra project. And so I know you don’t want to just do that. I get it, but I also do think that an extra project here, or there is a simple solution for an add on here, if you want to have them dive deeper than the majority of the class can, especially because, like I’ve said in honors, like you should be moving through the content faster, so there should be more time that you could naturally have more work. And it doesn’t have to be homework, because I don’t do homework. If you’ve listened to that podcast episode, I’ll link in the show notes, if not. But your advanced students can do more, and so I do believe that they should do more if you’re really wanting to push them because you feel like maybe they’re being disruptive, or they’re getting too bored, or you’re not stretching them enough. So I don’t want you to shy away from giving them more, but also like, don’t feel like you have to. There’s all these other ways we can change the culture so it is differentiated to be more advanced without just being like, here’s 10 extra projects now in terms of what to teach and how deep to go as always, like I said, start with the standards. Expand on your skills and content, based on what teachers ahead of you are saying is important, and then you decide what to go deeper with based on this information, and you’ll have fun with it. I think that’s one of the best parts about teaching honors or AP or whatever is. You can get your students opinions. You can see what they’re interested in. You can follow their lead when you get into discussions, and maybe there’s some tangents, you will allow them to go on for the sake of learning and extension, and you can kind of do that, as opposed to with your lower achieving classes, where I feel like you have to hold a tighter ship and have a tighter reins on the time so that you have more time in class to do all that reinforcing.

Rebecca 19:14
Now, a great opportunity, I feel like, for your high achieving students, if you’re trying to do something for them, that’s extra from what the majority in your class is doing is having them do an independent research project. I have PBL packs. They’re like PBL inspired project based learning inspired packs that you can check out. I’ll link in my show notes that I love, because students can do them on their own outside of school, but they give them space where they finish early, they can be working on this. I think it’s really helpful for giving those high achieving students, like, a little extra oomph, especially those students that are in your classes, but you just, they just need some more. Okay, this is something that they can do, and it’s something that, if you’re like, Well, how do I motivate them to do it? If not? No one else is doing it. It’s something that you say, hey, again, use that recommendation as a motivation. Also say, Hey, this is something you can put on your resume that you did this independent study research project. Like that’s something you can put that you did this year long research project with me. I was your research mentor. Like that is something that you can encourage them with in a way that they can diversify their resume from other peers that they have, and also especially for like your freshman biology students, this is something you can get on your resume right now. You don’t have to wait till junior year. So that’s one way I think you can, quote, unquote, give them extra work, but it really be meaningful. It involve that student choice. Involve a lot of autonomy, and they can work on it in their own time.

Rebecca 20:40
Now, like I said, I know a lot of these tips are really requiring a culture change, which can be hard mid year. I get that, but you can start small. Y’all like start by looking at your next lab or your next project or your next test and making changes. Tweak those open response questions. Add a couple more choices to the output of what the project could look like. Take away some things in your next lab and see if they can kind of design components of it a little bit more themselves. Remember from last week’s episode, you cannot do all of this differentiation at once. It’s too much. It’s a process. But hopefully this episode has given you some ideas for where you can get started, and if you want to talk more about the culture of your classroom and how you manage it, and the vibes you set. I mean, I hate that word, but that that really is relevant for this, then you should check out. I have a virtual professional development course, a mini course all about culture and classroom management, and I’ll link that in the show notes so you can check it out. All right. So here’s today’s take home challenge for you. First, if you didn’t do it last week, go talk to the person who teaches this course above you. Or after you get some ideas for skills and content you can dive deeper into and then pick one area to start making small changes in. Maybe that’s auditing your next test, reviewing your next lab. Or if you have the energy, maybe look over your whole next unit and see how you can, you know, tweak it a bit to have more autonomy, more inquiry, more discussion, more student choice. And then lastly, y’all let me know how it goes. I cannot tell you my favorite DMS, my favorite emails to get are from y’all that are like, Hey, I listened to this episode and or I heard this, and I want to talk to you about this like I love hearing from y’all. So I mentioned a lot of links. I’ll put those in the show notes at it’s on rocket science classroom.com/episode

Rebecca 22:26
169, and be sure to tune in. Next week, we’re gonna really lean into serving your lower achieving students. And then we’ll follow that week talking about mixed level classes. And then we’ll end this series with content specific suggestions. So so much more to come. Stay tuned. And if you haven’t left a review yet, I would love it if you would leave a review at a five star rating for the podcast. If you’re excited to make some of these shifts in your classroom culture to better serve your high achieving students, leave a five star review for the podcast. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode, if you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you teacher friend!