Fairness is not Equity

Quick Easy Ways

to 

make Learning Equitable

As experienced educators we have always tried to make sure that our students are treated fairly. Every child gets the same amount of everything we have available to them. But is being fair enough in todays classrooms? Equity is not just about making sure students get the same thing but rather making sure everyone gets what they need to be successful. All students must get a proper education but every child has a different learning style and a different level of learning. So what each child needs to be successful will be diverse as well. We as educators have been tasked with curriculum mandates, deadlines, and learner growth outcomes. So, we teach all we can but we are not equipping our students with the tools they need to achieve their goals.

My personal experience

 It was year 2021, one year after COVID. I had quite a few students who had been impacted by learning loss. I was trying to figure out ways to get my students to respond to reading without leaving anyone behind. 

Here’s what I did: 

I used See-Saw for them to respond to reading. Now most of my students could read and type their own answer but I also had students who could not. So I recorded myself reading the question. They responded to the question by recording their answer verbally. So, all of my students completed the same assignment with the tools that made everyone successful.

I have come up with a list of ways to address equitable learning in your classroom. 

 Tips to Make Learning Equitable: 

• speech to text tools 
• sentence frames 
• verbal or written steps to solve problems/ answer questions 
• pictorial steps to solve problems
•  audio steps for assignments 
• visual or audio cues 
• graphic organizers 
• drag and drop activities

Take Action with Anchor Charts

I teach mathematics in 3rd grade and one way I level the playing field is with step by step anchor charts. Based on my students data, my students are all at different levels and they have so many learning styles. While I have students that can computate mentally with accuracy, I also have students who must be able to visualize and manipulate to solidify their learning.

It’s really ok and that’s where anchor charts are so impactful for any learner. Here are some examples of anchor charts that I created or recreated. I must say I was never an anchor chart person but I noticed that my students needed math concepts chunked in steps to help them to remember what to do next. Here are some examples of anchor charts in math.

 

 

Be Innovative

I know that there are so many wonderful teacher created worksheets and materials out there. Remember you are the teacher and you yourself know what your students really need. I am a huge fan of TPT, Made by Teachers, etc......... Think about it for a moment, you have so many tools to create what your students need and you can  even narrow it down to your own state standards. There’s Google Slides, See-Saw, Google Docs, Canva, and so much more. I am telling you, your students will perform better when your materials are tailored specifically for them. Here are some snipets of slides that I created to help my students break their math thinking down.

Here’s a division word problem but I divided the page in 4 parts to help my students first organize their thinking. There’s questions in there that can be used for them to turn and talk. According to (Stewart and Swanson, 2019) turn and talk in the classroom has the following benefits:

•  Increases student opportunities to respond
•  It’s a form of collaborative learning that promotes the use of new content in conversation to improve expressive language skills.
•  It has been shown to improve vocabulary knowledge and content knowledge.
•  It can also increase on-task behavior for students who struggle to sustain attention and focus in the classroom. 

 Here’s some more quick and easy things I made for my students.