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E-zine

Vol. 3, No. 4 Anchoring Activities: Dealing with Differences in Learning Time and Pacing

Key rule: The one choice you never have is the choice to do nothing! We all know that children do not work at the same pace. When we plan a whole- class learning activity and estimate it will take the average student 30 minutes to complete it, inevitably some students will finish the assignment in 10 minutes while others will need 45 minutes or an hour to do the same work. Because children do work and learn at different speeds, all teachers need to plan for these differences. When students do not know what to do when they finish their work, they are likely to waste learning time and may become behavior problems. Anchoring activities help teachers deal with the differences in the pace of learning within the classroom. They are ongoing relevant learning tasks that students automatically move to when they have completed classroom assignments. An anchoring activity can be as simple as reading a book and doing a short book review, or as complex as a long-term independent study. The most important thing about an anchoring activity is that it should be a learning activity that can be done independently without teacher assistance. The key to success in using anchoring activities is planning. In general, teachers know which of their students work at a fast pace. Help those students develop a list of anchoring activities they would like to do and help them gather the materials they will need in order to do them.   The "Clip" Strategy This works best in a classroom where students are at the same desk for most of the day. Give each student a magnetic clip that can be attached to the metal portion of their desks. Unfinished work can go on the clips as well as activities or assignments each student would like to do as time permits. The work on each individual student's clip will be different. Students love this idea and often ask, "When can we work on our clips?" Teachers prefer clips over folders because the work each student needs to do is visible at a glance!   Students with their "clip activities" at Springs Valley Elementary School in French Lick, Indiana   Tiered Anchoring Activities for Middle and High School At the middle and high school level, teachers may only see their students for 45 minutes to an hour each day. Students come in, work on their assignments and leave to go to the next class. Nevertheless, some students finish their work quickly and others need more time. As students finish, have a list posted of activities they can work on. Make some lower level and some higher level. Put an asterisk (*) beside the lower level activities. Some students will be instructed to choose an activity with an asterisk while others will be told to choose an activity without one. Some students may have fifteen or twenty minutes to work on these anchoring activities. Others may have as little as five minutes. The important thing is that all students continue learning for the entire class period and that they have a choice of learning activities targeted to their level and needs.   The Difference between Anchoring Activities and Alternate Activities Many teachers need clarification about the terms "anchoring activities" and "alternate activities". This is understandable because the same activities can be used for both. Both are activities that are done independently by students. The focus of such activities can be acceleration, remediation, enrichment or extension of the standard curriculum. Anchoring activities are those activities that can be done by students after they finish the normally assigned work. Alternate activities are done instead of the normally assigned work. This is an important distinction. Think carefully about whether some students truly need to do the classroom assignments. Use pretests or other pre-assessment strategies to ascertain what students already know. Students should never have to do work to practice skills they have already mastered! Begin now to collect activities that your students could do independently. Make sure such activities are not busy work. Instead, these activities should enhance higher level thinking and challenge students in many ways.   Ideas for Anchoring Activities: Tic-Tac-Toe learning choices Resident Expert research Learning Centers or Stations Reading a book Logic puzzles Word puzzles Crossword puzzles Writing a short story or play Research on a famous person Current events, especially in the target country Writing a poem Vocabulary research (etymologies) Fairy tales and myths made into word problems   To see many books and resources containing a multitude of activities that can be used as both anchoring activities and alternate activities, log onto www.piecesoflearning.com. Coil, C. (2009). Anchoring Activities: Dealing with Differences in Learning Time and Pacing. E-Zine, Vol. 3, 4. www.carolyncoil.com.