IB geography differentiation strategy

I don't blog often so I'm going to keep this short.

When I was working at the International School of Bangkok years ago, I took a two week course on differentiation taught by Bill and Ochan Powell.  They offered many great strategies for how to differentiate instruction in the classroom from simple "think, pair, share stuff" to more complex "cognitive coaching."  It really was a bulldozer of information.

But there was this one strategy I couldn't think of how to implement, until now, that really struck me as the most powerful.  Over the last couple of days, as I struggle for more and more ways to reach all of my juniors before the end of the semester and all of my seniors before their final exams in May, I think I may have managed a way to put this theory to practice.

If you teach IB geography, you know about command terms and assessment objectives (AO).  Command terms are basically just words either in the syllabus or within the questions on the exam that determine the depth of the answer.  For example, the answer to a question that asks the student to Describe is going to be considerably less in depth than Analyze.  Command terms (or sometimes referred to as "command words") are found within every IB subject, I think, and are more or less modeled after Bloom's Taxonomy.  This is partially evidenced by the fact that each IB geography command term is given a different assessment objective.  To use the above example, a question that asks a student to Describe is only needing an answer that shows the student's knowledge and understanding of the subject/content/topic.  Likewise, a question that asks a student to Analyze needs more information: not only does the student need to have knowledge and understanding but also must be able to take that information and synthesize the information or "create" something in a way so that all of the separate knowledge makes a completely new whole.  Again, if you teach IB geography, then you know this.  The following is what I'm proposing (adapted from some math teacher Bill and Ochan Powell talked about):

So just like on a ski hill you have different difficulties of runs (see below).  You've got green circles which indicate easy/beginner runs, you've got blue squares which indicate intermediate/challenging runs and you've got the ever famous black diamond which indicates the most advanced/difficult runs.  Beginner skiers can start off with the most basic of runs and as they improve, become more comfortable and gain confidence they have the ability to choose progressively more advanced runs.  The beauty is that everyone can ski and progress together regardless of ability level because they've been given the opportunity to choose.

My plan is to apply this concept to IB geography.  Now that at least 10 exams have been given and I know what command terms the students are likely to see, I'm just going to create my own tests that mirror these ski hill difficulty ratings and command terms/assessment objectives.

Green circle - AO1 command terms

Blue square - AO1/AO2 command terms

Black diamond - AO1/AO2/AO3 command terms

----------OPTIONAL TWO BELOW----------------

Double black diamond - Globalization

Freestyle - Mock IB exam

The idea is to have the three levels prepared at the beginning of a test day and have the students choose which test they feel is right for them.  For the seniors, its a little late considering they all need to be riding the black diamond runs by next month but for my juniors, there's no doubt time to progress.  I would say that most of them could rage a black diamond but there are definitely some who are more than likely still only ready for a blue square and even some yet who are still riding a green circle.  The beauty is that students choose for themselves with guidance from the teacher.  The teacher should obviously want them to push their limit and progress to more difficult levels but if they try a level that is still too difficult for them, then it would be expected they be allowed to find their most comfortable level with trial and error.

I'm hoping this will allow my class to be more fully integrated in differentiation.  I'm planning on setting up these tests for the end of this school year but will more than likely implement this strategy at the start of next school year.  If anyone has any comments about this teaching strategy or would like me to keep them posted, I'd love to hear from you.  I'm open to suggestions.