Differentiated Instruction Using Plume

Stéphanie, 2nd/3rd grade blended teacher and Plume ambassador

Stéphanie is a school teacher and Plume ambassador. She shared her experience using Plume with her class of 24 students in a 2nd/3rd grade blended classroom. Her classroom has ten tablets and an interactive video projector (IVP), and she shares five additional tablets with her colleagues.

Plume serves as a digital companion for conducting writing sessions, offering a variety of co-writing stories classified by difficulty level, various writing spaces, student writing tools, and teacher correction tools.

Introduction to Plume

Stéphanie discovered Plume on social media and through her colleagues. She first learned about it during an annual educator event where she met Aude Guéneau, the founder of Plume, and her team. This year, Stéphanie embarked on her Plume adventure in her blended classroom and was kind enough to share her experience with us.

Implementing Plume in Second and Third Grade

During the summer, the teacher became familiar with the Plume platform and built a sequence based on a story to be co-written using her own tools. Her students work on a story related to tales, chosen from several options on Plume.

Each afternoon, she organizes three workshops. One independent group works on reading fluency, another on learning dictation words, and a final group works with Stephanie on writing production.

She teaches her students how to use the keyboard and coaches struggling students during the writing phase. After writing seven chapters, students have mastered the use of the keyboard and the main features of the application. By the end of the sequence, they become independent and develop their own writing routine.

Using Plume in Second and Third Grade Classrooms

Today, third graders are co-writing stories of their choice on Plume, and are given full autonomy to do so. They thoroughly enjoy writing, and have even discovered the Dojo space, where they can progress on the tatami of their choice. The judo belt system allows them to complete short exercises of increasing difficulty and earn colored belts. With each belt, students work on their lexicon, sentence syntax and word encoding. Just like in the co-writing stories, students can find a bird to guide them through any difficulties. Thanks to these omnipresent aids, students are accompanied and guided in all the writing activities offered on Plume.

Benefits of using Plume

Using Plume in class has resulted in many positive outcomes for Stéphanie. One of the most obvious benefits is the increase in student motivation and involvement. Plume also serves as an additional source of motivation, using digital technology to enhance learning and facilitate communication between students and teachers. With Plume, students can produce clear and legible final drafts by copying their work onto the tablet tool.

Plume's collaborative writing and projection features provide students with opportunities for numerous exchanges of ideas, helping them enrich their stories.

The workshop system combined with Plume stories enables Stéphanie to differentiate instruction further, giving each group a designated time for research and working on syntax. The writing workshop is a popular activity among students, whose motivation is essential for academic progress.

Evaluation with Plume

Evaluation starts as soon as a chapter is copied. Students can listen to the text they have produced. This feature allows them to self-assess their work before their teacher validates it. This way, they can confirm the meaning of what they have produced and whether the written words correspond to what they had in mind.

Stephanie also uses Plume for positive evaluation based on her own criteria for success. She keeps the correction grid she developed herself and applies it easily to the writing that students produce on Plume, as well as to dictations.

Communicating with Families

Plume enables students to present their writing on high-quality documents that showcase their work. Once finished, their work is printed and stored in the writing production binder. Additionally, Stéphanie uses the platform's email feature to send the students' work to their families. At the end of the year, to extend the Plume adventure, she provides students with access codes so they can continue writing stories throughout the summer.

Stéphanie's Advice

• Take the time to navigate the application, get used to it, and anticipate.
• Don't try to go too fast; accompany your students at the beginning.
• Don't hesitate to contact the team by email for pedagogical advice or on the chat room of the teachers' area for technical advice

‍