When you have a student already who understands the material, do you take them deeper? Or do you move them along faster?
Let’s think outside of school first.
Imagine you have a young athlete. She’s six. She’s playing tee-ball. The coach realizes that she can consistently hit a gentle, underhand pitch.
Now, the tee is a scaffold. This athlete doesn’t need the scaffold. So, obviously, you’d remove the scaffold. She’s ready to work on hitting a pitch. Maybe that means moving her up a level. Maybe it means she just doesn’t use the tee and the coach pitches to her. But it would be wacky to hold her back and force her to use a tee. We wouldn’t make the coach develop some kind of Advanced Tee-Ball right?
Don’t waste time trying to differentiate a scaffold. Just remove the scaffold and move the child along naturally.
I wrote about how my son was frustrated with Duplo at age 3. The answer was simple: move him on to Lego! We didn’t try to go deeper into the baby version of Lego. There is no need for Advanced Duplo. Duplo is just a scaffold. When a kid is done with it, just remove it and move them along.
If you’re bowling with someone who doesn’t need bumpers, you just remove the bumpers. Let them move towards real bowling. We’re not going to create High-Ability Bumper Bowling!
When a student has mastered a scaffolded version of something, just remove the scaffold. Let them move along naturally. Do not try to develop differentiated versions of a scaffold. That way leads to madness.
When Do We Go Deeper?
Now, there is a point where the scaffolds are mostly gone. Student are very close to the real deal. This is when there is room to naturally go deeper.
As a kid, I played baseball. By my 4th year, our Little League games were relatively close to real baseball. Sure, the field was smaller and the game was shorter, and we weren’t allowed to slide headfirst. But! We could start learning real strategy. This level of baseball is easy to differentiate. More advanced players naturally get more advanced instruction from the coach. There’s a lot of room to go deeper once we’ve removed most of the scaffolds.
Once you’re playing with Lego, well, it’s obvious what to do with more advanced builders, right? You get more complex sets. You start incorporating those fancy Technics pieces. You get the robotics set. Lego scales up naturally in a way that Duplo cannot. A 7-year-old can play with Lego. A 97-year-old retired engineer can still play with Lego.
Take it to School
Now, imagine a kindergarten has memorized the ABCs. Do we hold them back and force the teacher to develop an Advanced Alphabet Project? No! Just move them along to the next thing. Learning the alphabet is a scaffold for reading and writing. Maybe they’re ready for 1st grade reading material. Maybe they need 2nd grade material!
I consider myself so lucky to have been in a 1st/2nd/3rd combo class as 1st grader. Mrs. Phillips didn’t waste her time (or mine) developing “Advanced First Grade” projects. I just sat with the 2nd or even 3rd graders. My teacher didn’t hold me back.
If a first grader can add single digit numbers, you don’t need to develop a differentiated, advanced project for adding single digit numbers. That is madness. Single digit addition is a scaffold. Remove it. Move the student to two-digit and three-digit addition.
Is a one-step algebra problem so simple that a student can do it in their head? One-step algebra is a scaffold! Don’t differentiate a scaffold. Just move on to two-step algebra.
Now, if my students are learning about the American Revolution, this is a topic that I can push deeper. I can bring in more advanced resources for my advanced students. I can embed multiple perspectives. I can integrate universal themes and ask students synthesize-level questions. But note that, in a way, I’m just moving my advanced 5th graders towards the thinking that their 8th-grade teacher will ask for.
Standards Are A Minimum
The easiest way to spot scaffolds is to know what the standards look like for the next two or three grade levels. Too many teachers approach their standards as the maximum. A goal we hope students can maybe reach (if we’re lucky!). No no no. Standards are a minimum, not a maximum. And a bunch of students can already exceed them on day one.
A 4th grade teacher should know what 5th, 6th, even 7th grade teachers teach. Often it’s just a less scaffolded version of what you teach. You’re on a continuum, not an isolated island.
The Difference
So the key question to ask is, “Can I just remove a scaffold?”
Your third grade math standard says: “Students will fluently multiply and divide within 100.” When Jimmy can do that, teachers don’t need to spin their wheels creating an “Advanced Multiplication Within 100” project. Just remove the scaffold and let Jimmy multiply four-digit numbers. This is so much more respectful of the teacher and the student’s time.
Now this doesn’t always mean skipping entire grades. Acceleration can take many forms and is often the simplest, cheapest way to differentiate. Much easier than trying to get every teacher in every grade to develop multiple versions of every lesson! I wrote about that here. And you can read my colleague Lisa’s take.