Use ranking and sorting activities to draw learners into your lessons, differentiating their engagement with the content you’re teaching

General Introduction

This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.

I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.

For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.

For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.

This blog falls into the category of activities.

Using Card Sorts to Differentiate

Give learners a collection of cards relating to the topic.

Each card should contain a different piece of information.

Then, give learners instructions on what you want them to do with the cards.

Examples include:

Discuss with a partner the cards that most interest you
Order the cards from most to least important
Categorise the cards
Match the cards
Connect the cards together in a map

Learners can work individually, in pairs or in groups.

The second option is often the most successful.

Whatever you go with, the concreteness of the cards is a significant factor.

Being able to pick things up and move them around creates a tangibility that is absent when learners are working on a purely abstract level.

This is a form of scaffolding, making it easier for learners to access the learning.

In addition, once you have your cards, you have a range of options for what you want learners to do with them.

This puts you at an advantage, as it is easier to tailor the activity in the moment, in response to what’s happening in front of you.

For example, you might ask learners to sort the cards into groups, notice that everyone is doing this quickly, and so decide to immediately switch up the activity and ask learners to rank the cards from most to least important.

Here is a specific example of a card sort to demonstrate.

Topic: Human Rights

Learners work in pairs.

Each pair is given a set of cards containing the following human rights (one right per card):

Right to life
Right not to be tortured
Right to equality before the law
Right to privacy
Right to family life
Right to move freely
Right to a nationality
Right to rest and leisure
Right to work

The teacher begins by asking learners to group the rights, leaving it up to them to choose what groups they use.

This doesn’t take long so the teacher swiftly increases the level of challenge and asks the learners to rank the cards from most to least important, in their opinion, stating that no two cards can go side-by-side.

As each group finishes their ranking, the teacher asks them to come up with a short verbal summary justifying their choices.

The activity then moves into a class discussion with the teacher calling on different pairs to share their rankings, along with their justifications.

How do card sorts differentiate?

The use of cards means that learners are provided with something tangible they can pick up and move around.

This contrasts with the abstract manipulation of ideas that takes place inside one’s mind.

As a result, the structure of the activity makes the content more accessible for learners.

Learners can visualise their thinking.

Taking the example from above, pairs can arrange the cards to reflect what is in their minds.

This, in turn, allows them to examine and analyse the contents of their minds more easily than if their thinking remains purely internal.

Card sorts can be used as a precursor to other tasks, like writing.

This differentiates because it divides the thinking learners must do into discrete parts.

This results in increased accessibility because learners can attend to one process at a time.

Take our example above.

Having sorted their cards into a hierarchy, and developed a verbal summary, learners are now primed and ready to write.

The process of doing the card sort has scaffolded the writing to come.

Learners have already refined, ordered and edited their thinking in advance of capturing this through the written word.

Match-Group-Rank – An Alternative Activity

Matching involves learners pairing items that are related.

Grouping involves learners applying their knowledge to put similar items together.

Ranking involves placing items in an order relative to one another, based on some set of criteria.

This activity structure is progressive.

It moves up Bloom’s Taxonomy, increasing the level of challenge at each point.

Matching is a knowledge task (Level 1 of the Taxonomy).
Grouping in an application task (Level 3 of the Taxonomy).
Ranking is an evaluation task (Level 6 of the Taxonomy).

Here is an example to demonstrate:

Learners are given a series of historical sources and a series of historical writers. Their task is to match the writer to the source. (Matching)
Learners are provided with a set of categories for the sources (‘very trustworthy’, ‘quite trustworthy’, and ‘not trustworthy’). Their task is to group the sources using these categories. (Grouping)
Learners are provided with a scale that ranges from ‘very useful in answering the question’ to ‘not at all useful in answering the question.’ Their task is to rank the sources in accordance with the scale. (Ranking)

This is a single activity, broken down into three sections.

As learners move through the sections, the level of challenge increases.

You can ask learners to match, group and rank almost anything.

For example:

Keywords
Sources
Quotes from a story
Characters in a story
Materials
Pictures
Newspaper articles
Equations
Questions
Statements
Books
Designs
Reasons
Holiday destinations
Extracts of music
Photographs

In each case, you should provide learners with between eight and twelve items you want them to match, group and then rank.

This means there is enough for learners to get their teeth into and really think about.

A key part of this activity is learners manipulating the items and looking at them in relation to each other, as well as on their own.

How does Match-Group-Rank differentiate?

The various tasks involve abstract thinking (justification) being accessed through concrete decision-making (matching, grouping and ranking).

Each of the methods provides learners with a set of criteria to apply.

Matching = Can these be paired?
Grouping = Are these related?
Ranking = Where do these sit in relation to each other?

This avoids the difficulties that can arise when criteria are left implicit or when knowledge of them is assumed.

The level of justification that learners give will be in accordance with where they are at in terms of their learning.

This means all learners can achieve success in the task, but that more-able learners will still find themselves challenged.

As mentioned, the activity is progressive, moving up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

This means the level of challenge increases as learners work through the task.

Some less-able learners may need additional scaffolding as they go, particularly when they reach the ranking element.

Knowing this in advance means you can be on hand, ready to support them.