Students should be divided into enrichment or remediation groups depending on the mastery of the learning target. This allows Mr. Smith to work with a smaller group. He should work with that small group using guided instruction and guided practice and provide immediate feedback to students. That small group could be then divided into smaller groups with differentiated activities after working with Mr. Smith in the guided instruction and guided practice group.

Mr. Smith could do a type of silent differentiation. Students could be given enrichment or remediation activities to work on individually this way the only reason that students would be aware which ones mastered the standard and those that did not would be if the students discussed their individual assignments.

Mr. Smith could create learning stations that focus specifically on the skill that students did not master. These learning stations can be done before school, when work in completed, or after school while waiting for dismissal. The learning stations should have some type of activity for students to practice, along with an activity assignment such as a journal entry or teacher created activity for students to apply their practice and learning. These activities should have an accompanying rubric that details what the student should do in order to achieve mastery. This information could then be analyzed to see who has made progress, and who needs further instruction.

Mr. Smith should engage learners that did not master the learning targets in small groups. This will help him learn why they did not reach mastery, as well as allow students to catch up to their classmates who showed mastery. An extension activity should be given to students who have demonstrated mastery of the learning targets.

As an intern, I observed several ways teachers handle dilemmas like written above. One teacher retaught the questions missed most often among her students on a test and moved on to another lesson. Many times a similar problem will show up again within the curriculum and students will have more exposure to the problems they did not master the first time.

Mr. Smith could assign online remediation modules based upon the learning targets that were not mastered on the test. Studyisland.com and USAtestprep.com are sites utilized by my school.