CodeHS Differentiated Instruction 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A CodeHS teacher uses 'anchor activities' during class. What is the purpose of an anchor activity?
- To introduce the first concept of a new unit
- To provide meaningful independent work for students who finish tasks early (Correct answer)
- To anchor students to their assigned seats
- To review last year's content
Correct answer: To provide meaningful independent work for students who finish tasks early
Anchor activities are ongoing tasks students return to when they complete other work, keeping all learners productively engaged.
Question 2: Which differentiation approach involves varying the complexity of the SAME coding concept for different learners?
- Curriculum compacting
- Tiered assignments (Correct answer)
- Interest centers
- Learning contracts
Correct answer: Tiered assignments
Tiered assignments cover the same essential concept but at different levels of complexity to match student readiness.
Question 3: An ELL student in a CodeHS class needs support. Which strategy is most effective for differentiating content?
- Excuse the student from coding assignments
- Provide bilingual glossaries of coding terms and translated instructions (Correct answer)
- Give the student only visual tasks
- Move the student to a lower-level course
Correct answer: Provide bilingual glossaries of coding terms and translated instructions
Bilingual glossaries and translated instructions help ELL students access content without removing rigor.
Question 4: In Tomlinson's differentiation framework, which three elements can teachers differentiate?
- Grades, time, and seating
- Content, process, and product (Correct answer)
- Lectures, tests, and homework
- Standards, curriculum, and textbooks
Correct answer: Content, process, and product
Carol Ann Tomlinson's model focuses on differentiating content (what students learn), process (how they learn it), and product (how they demonstrate learning).
Question 5: A CodeHS teacher allows a student to demonstrate mastery by creating a video tutorial instead of taking a written test. This differentiates the:
- Content
- Process
- Product (Correct answer)
- Environment
Correct answer: Product
Changing how students demonstrate their understanding (video vs. test) is differentiating the product.
Question 6: What does 'curriculum compacting' mean in a differentiated CodeHS classroom?
- Compressing the entire curriculum into fewer weeks
- Allowing students who demonstrate mastery to skip ahead to more challenging content (Correct answer)
- Combining two subjects into one class period
- Reducing the total number of units taught
Correct answer: Allowing students who demonstrate mastery to skip ahead to more challenging content
Curriculum compacting lets advanced students bypass content they've already mastered and move to more complex material.
Question 7: Which of the following is an example of differentiating the PROCESS in a CodeHS coding lesson?
- Giving some students easier problems
- Letting students choose their final project topic
- Having some students use visual flowcharts while others use written pseudocode to plan their code (Correct answer)
- Allowing some students to skip the quiz
Correct answer: Having some students use visual flowcharts while others use written pseudocode to plan their code
Differentiating process means varying how students make sense of the content — using different strategies like flowcharts vs. pseudocode.
CodeHS Differentiated Instruction 3
A CodeHS teacher uses 'anchor activities' during class.
What is the purpose of an anchor activity?