What To Do With The Others?

Many of us have been encouraged to have groups within our Maths Classes, in fact it has been a basic organisation since the 60’s when I started teaching.  These groups were originally based on ability(much research says this is not the best way of grouping) now we can have all sorts of groups, 

•         Interest
•         Social
•         Groups of 2 or 4 etc
•         Small groups for interacting with the teacher, rather than a large class 
•         Groups of one
  

 

How ever we organise the issue is about the groups that are not under "Direct Supervision" so we here the catch cry

             “What Do I Do With The Others?”

For successful 2 or 3 group organisations to work then the most important thing is that the groups/children, not with the teacher, know what to do!!  

One organisation that has been used for a number of years is Groups of Four.  The class has a common open ended activity and groups of four work together to solve/attempt the activity.  After a period of time the groups report back their findings to the whole class. Sometimes roles are assigned to each child (with the roles changed for each new task)

• Reporter
• Recorder
• Gopher
  

For any groups/small group teaching we have to make sure that the students, not with the teacher, are generally on task and know what to do!!

This means:

• They can work Independently or in pairs, small groups, without supervision
• They know the organisation of the classroom:
• They know how to work quietly,
• They know what to do when they have completed the task,
• They knowwhere to get another activity,equipment and tidy up
  
• They know where to place completed work,
• They can Self Mark, as appropriate without cheating
  

They also need to Know the Mathematics, and I believe this is where most of us fall down: 

We teach something today/yesterday and then go and ask them to practise it.  

        In many cases students need teacher supervision to become masters of the skill/process. 

In the immediate aftermath of teaching a process/skill: 

        they may not know what to do or how to complete the worksheet etc.  

 

Please take time teaching repeatable Thinking type activities so that all students know what to do,

• Have repeatable activities printed on card and laminated, if possible, so students can write on them with Dry Erase and then wipe clean
• Have the activities organised by group, or content.  possible coded for topic/strand
• Some teachers have these in Plastic Bags-but if a die is missing someone has to check- so I advise that no equipment is with the activity but in a place where students can go and get the dice or pen or paper clips(organisation) 
• The equipment needed for an activity should be listed on the Card(see my examples)

I have advised all teachers to take time teaching and practising Independent activities and routines as a class, before trying to introduce groups.  The children’s knowledge of these routines and behaviours make your maths' teaching so much easier.

This time, organising students to work independently,  could be anything up to 3-4 weeks (a whole term) depending on the group of students.  We cant rush these things if we wish to enjoy the teaching as well as the kids learning the maths.  Remember KISS.

When ready have two groups and get those working before starting with 3 groups(and no more)

Without the appropriate activities, and behaviours by the children, we do make our work hard for ourselves.

Marking

Traditionally the teacher has used the Red and Green pens to say which one is correct or which is not.

• I prefer teachers and myself not to stand in judgement,( be the Policeman) but to ask the Groups/individuals to report back with reasons and explanations as to why they think they have ended up with the result. Other groups/children may wish to dispute the result so we should be asking the children and groups to JUSTIFY their answers.
• I can remember a situation in a classroom where a child gave an answer, say 4, and was told that it was wrong.  This upset the child so I went and said, “can you explain what you did?” During the explanation the answer was 4-for what the child did

Questions

In my time working with Teachers and Students, I often did not know the “answer/s” to particular questions, problems that I presented  This meant I could not “lead” the kids to what I thought was the answer, I used questions such as:

•     Did you try this?
•     Can you explain how you got that answer?
•     Can you show me what you did?
•     Would you like to teach /explain this to a group?
•      What does the problem tell you?
•      What do you have to find?
•      What Strategy approach will you/did you use?

 I like this approach that one school uses for getting students to explain how they tackled a problem.