How do
you group your students?
Grouping has
been a hot issue with teachers since I first began teaching 11 years ago. In college I was always told to group by a
student’s ability level, put the highest with the highest and the lowest with
the lowest. However, this made
absolutely no sense to me. Why would you
put the lowest with the lowest? They are the ones that need help the most.
Over the
course of my years of teaching I have found what works best for me is seating
my students in groups of 3. Depending on
the class that I have at the time I seat my students accordingly. For example, in an inclusion class, I would
put the higher level student in the middle of the 3 seats this way they can
help both students if needed. No one
knows why they are seated together, who the high or the low student is but
everyone works well together. At the
beginning of the year this is hard to do without knowing your students
first. One of the best things to use is
their TCAP data. This gives you a good
indication of a student’s performance. This is what works best for me, and I
feel like it helps all students equally.
Here are
some things that you can look out for in your own classroom when grouping
students:
- Consider your students common interests.
- If assigning a project that will require them to work outside of the classroom, think of the students technology use at home.
- Don’t avoid using group work, even if it does get loud! My students know that when I turn the lights out they are immediately required to get quiet. Come up with a signal before you start group work that will let the students know if they are getting too loud. Students enjoy mixing it up and working with their peers.
- Don’t use the same grouping method every time.
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