Tiering

From the reading I understand tiering as a step to teaching students in a differentiated way. Tiering, like differentiation is absolutely neccesary when teaching children. No one learning a particular subject is going to be on the exact same level, but in a classroom there are groups of students who are on similar learning levels. But there will be a gap in learning abilities from group to group. To help students learn in the best way possible without pushing them to much and just frustrating them, but pushing them enough that they are learning tiering must be used. Tiering allows multiple levels of students to be taught the same thing and do the same lesson activity, but it alters exaclty what each student does just enough so it fits that particular student's learning level and ability.

The example Think-Tac-Toe in the book is tiered because first it states what the students should know and although the activities are very similar, they are altered so that the more advanced students will get the second version and the less advanced students will get the first version because it has a little bit simpler ideas, but the two are similar enough that they are still the same lesson. I think this is a great example of a tiered lesson. I was thinking though that there might need to be three levels instead of two because of the range of students that most people have in their classroom.
The Raft Activity I do not think is tiered. It does state what the students should know and I like that the students get to choose the activity they do, but the activities are not assigned to certain students based on their learning level. In a tiered lesson the lessons are tweaked in order to fit everyone in the class and even though students have a choice, their choice is not based on their abilities. To make it tiered the teacher could pre asess the students and see where they are at and then assign them a particular project based on what they need to learn and what they already know. I might be wrong, but that is what I think about the two lesson examples.

Learning Contracts are a good way to help students understand what is expected of them and have them follow through with it. I think learning contracts are tierable because each contract is made up for each student so each one may be changed a little bit to fit that particular students needs.
ThinkDots are a great review or study activity. This is easily tiered because the questions on the cards can be changed for any students on any level, but can still ask similar questions about the same topic. Teachers can have a different group of think dot cards for different levels of students too. Depending on the level of the student they can be assigned a certain (color, size, number ect.) type of think think dots and that will coincide with their learning level and ability.
Multiple Entry Journals is already a tiered lesson example. There are different levels of questions for each level of students. The students are still doing the same activity they are just thinking about and answering different levels of questions that are best suited for them.