FLEXIBLE GROUPING

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FLEXIBLE GROUPING

• Bringing the meat and potatoes to DI

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Flexible grouping

• Teachers, bring the meat and potatoes of
  Differentiated Instruction to your students.
  Engage them in small group activities and
  instruction in a systematic and motivational way.
  Learn how flexible grouping allows for more
  differentiation, when to incorporate flexible
  grouping, the advantages and cautions inherent in
  such a system, and practical, easy, and fun ways
  to design and manage your groups.

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Todays Agenda

• Introductions
• Definition and purpose
• Grouping structures
• Research
• Formative assessment
• Managing flexible groups
• DI strategies that support flex groups
• Closure

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Group Resume

• By alphabet groupings
• Identify and brag about your groups resources
• Should include any information that promotes
  subgroup as a whole
• Topics can include background, experience,
  positions, accomplishments, hobbies, families,
  etc.

• TEACHERS R US
• Berks IU
• Objective
• Desire experience creating flexible groups that
  increase knowledge
• Qualifications
• 12 years teaching
• Masters Degrees
• Some knowledge of DI
• Hobbies include skiing reading

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Knowledge Transfer
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Whole group-set the stage for flexible grouping

• Description
• Rationale
• DI connection
• When to use it
• Advantages
• Cautions

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Flexible Grouping

• Occurs when there is a whole group assessment or
  instruction initially and then the students are
  divided by their need for either review,
• Re-teaching, practice, or enrichment. Such
  grouping could be a single lesson or objective, a
  set of skills, a unit of study, or a major
  concept or theme. Flexible grouping creates
  temporary groups for an hour, a day, a week, or a
  month or so. It does not create permanent groups.

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Take a look

• Readiness
• Interest
• Learning profile

• Group Arrangements
• (like/unlike/size)

• Teacher choice
• Student choice
• Random

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Planning for GroupingQuestions to Consider

• When does grouping benefit students?
• When does grouping facilitate instruction?
• Which activities lend themselves to group work?
• How do you determine group membership?

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When does grouping benefit students?

• When the task requires input from different types
  of learning styles and perspectives.
• When the subject matter is new for all students.
• When it allows gifted students to be engaged in
  real learning.

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When does grouping facilitate instruction?

• When it
• allows both for quick mastery of information and
  ideas
• allows for additional exploration by students
  needing more time for mastery
• allows for both collaborative and independent
  work
• gives students and teachers a voice in work
  arrangements
• allows students to work with a wide variety of
  peers
• encourages teachers to try out students in a
  variety of work settings
• keeps students from being pegged as advanced or
  struggling

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Grouping and the Gifted Student

• The gifted student ranges in his/her strengths
  and weaknesses just as do all students
• Students are different from each other and
  challenged when provided programming at the
  appropriate level of instruction
• Teachers must look at each student individually
• MCPS content curriculum contain adaptations that
  are suitable for the gifted student in the
  cluster grouped classroom
• Flexible Grouping for the delivery of instruction
  is the cornerstone of appropriate differentiation
  for the gifted student

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Which activities lend themselves to group work?
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Group Work - Old and New
Traditional
Cooperative Groups

• Task is usually a project
• Some students do more work and take most
  responsibility
• Some students are ignored by others in group
• Some students feel success, others feel
  frustration
• Each student cares most about what he/she learns
  and what grade he/she receives

• Task may be a project, brainstorming, problem
  solving
• Shared work and responsibility
• Participation of all students is encouraged
• Each students ideas and work are valued
• Students care about group learning

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Activities for Heterogeneous Grouping

• Open ended activities with use of strategies such
  as critical thinking,, development of concepts
  and generalizations
• Multidisciplinary themes
• When presenting new content
• Examples Hands on Science experiments, and
  current events activities

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Appropriate Activities for Heterogeneous Grouping

• Critical Thinking
• Concept and Generalization
• Whole Language Experiences
• Multi-disciplinary Units
• Open ended discussions
• Examples Hands-on science experiments and
  Current event discussions

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Appropriate Activities for Homogeneous Grouping

• Drill and Practice
• Math computation
• Studying for recall type test
• Answering comprehension questions about a novel

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Turn and talk

• Proximity partner
• Turn to partner to review lecture guide

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Spotlight Share

• One member of pair called on to answer
• Major point
• Misconception
• Concern

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Group Membership

• Can be determined by
• Readiness
• Interest
• Reading Level
• Skill Level
• Background Knowledge
• Social Skills

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Grouping Method

• TAPS
• Teacher Assigned
• Student Selected
• Random

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Creative ideas for forming groups
Popsicle sticks with names last one picked chooses group Clock partners
Stickers on card, find matching sticker
Birthdays in seasons
Puzzle pieces
Team hiring and resumes
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Other resources for forming groups

• Use contribution reminder cards
• Pass out colored chips and put in center after
  each contribution
• Rank students by ability and put in array of 3
  across
• Group reflection form use a rubric

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And the research says

• Text-based seminar
• Read the article

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Text-based Seminar

• All read pp. 1 2, 26-29
• Divide the article into 4 parts (Models 1-4)
• Each member reads a section
• After reading, discuss this framing question
  How can flexible grouping increase achievement in
  my class?
• Protocol Each person in group refers to one
  quote from the text and explains how this quote
  supports their response to the framing question.
• Other members take turns in responding to group
  members quotes.

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Take a look

• Watch the video
• Trio learning

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Rotating trio exchange

• Sit in groups of 3
• Assign each a 0, 1, or 2
• Discuss the following question
• How does heterogeneous grouping support
  higher level thinking of all members?
• Rotation 1s move clockwise, 2s move
  counterclockwise, 0s stay put

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Continue the triad discussion

• What first steps will you take to employ flexible
  grouping?
• What barriers might hinder the implementation of
  flexible grouping and what can you do to remove
  those barriers?
• How can a teacher ensure the appropriate level of
  challenge for each student?

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PRE-ASSESSMENT

• The purpose of pre-assessment is to determine
  what students know about a topic before it is
  taught. Pre-assessment will help the teacher
  determine flexible grouping patterns and should
  be used regularly.

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Equity
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Pre-assessment Strategies

• Teacher prepared pre-test
• KWL Charts /Graphic Organizers
• Writing Prompts/Samples
• Guess Box
• Student demonstrations and discussions

• Student products and work samples
• Show of hands/EPR Every Pupil Response
• Standardized Test Data
• Teacher observation/Checklist

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Formative assessment

• Assessment for learning is any assessment for
  which the first priority in its design and
  practice is to serve the purpose of promoting
  pupils learning. It thus differs from assessment
  designed primarily to serve the purposes of
  accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying
  competence. An assessment activity can help
  learning if it provides information to be used as
  feedback, by teachers, and by their pupils, in
  assessing themselves and each other, to modify
  the teaching and learning activities in which
  they are engaged.
• Such assessment becomes formative assessment
  when the evidence is actually used to adapt the
  teaching work to meet learning needs.
• Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall Wiliam, 2002

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Types of formative assessment

• Long-cycle
• Span across units, terms
• Length four weeks to one year
• Impact Student monitoring curriculum alignment
• Medium-cycle
• Span within and between teaching units
• Length one to four weeks
• Impact Improved, student-involved, assessment
  teacher cognition about learning
• Short-cycle
• Span within and between lessons
• Length
• day-by-day 24 to 48 hours
• minute-by-minute 5 seconds to 2 hours
• Impact classroom practice student engagement

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Aspects of formative assessment
Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there
Teacher Clarify and share learning intentions Engineering effective discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Peer Understand and share learning intentions Activating students as learning resources for one another Activating students as learning resources for one another
Learner Understand learning intentions Activating students as ownersof their own learning Activating students as ownersof their own learning
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Examples of formative assessment

• Learning intentions
• sharing exemplars
• Eliciting evidence
• mini white-boards
• Providing feedback
• find it and fix it
• Students as owners of their learning
• colored cups
• Students as learning resources
• pre-flight checklist

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Activity

• Regroup by job alike groups
• Identify formative assessment strategies useful
  in your class

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Management of Groups

• Goal of the Activity
• Total number of Pupils in Class
• Number of Groups
• Number of Students in a Group
• Roles within the Group
• Teacher Role

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Management strategies

• Chart of management ideas

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6 Hat Thinking

• In groups of 6
• Read the article from one of 6 roles
• Discuss using references that support your own
  role

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Exit cards

• What stands out as new knowledge for you?
• What questions do you still have?
• Other comments?

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Assessment

• What questions remain?

Name tag mix-up
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Complex Instruction

• Complex Instruction evolved from over 20 years of
  research by Elizabeth Cohen, Rachel Lotan, and
  their colleagues at the Stanford School of
  Education. The goal of this instruction is to
  provide academic access and success for all
  students in heterogeneous classrooms.
• Research has documented significant achievement
  gains in classrooms using such curricula.
• Complex Instruction (CI) has three major
  components.

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Multiple ability curricula

• Development of higher-order thinking skills
  through group work activities organized around a
  central concept.
• The tasks are open-ended, requiring students to
  work interdependently to solve problems.
• The tasks require a wide array of intellectual
  abilities so that students from diverse
  backgrounds and different levels of academic
  proficiency can make meaningful contributions to
  the group task.

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Instructional strategies

• Teacher trains the students to use cooperative
  norms and specific roles to manage their own
  groups .
• Teacher is free to observe groups carefully
• Provide specific feedback

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Treat status problems

• The more that students talk and work together,
  the more they learn.
• Students who are social isolates or students who
  are seen as lacking academic skills often fail to
  participate and thus learn less than they would
  if they were more active in the groups.
• Teachers use status treatments to broaden
  students' perceptions of what it means to be
  smart, and to convince students that they each
  have important intellectual contributions to make
  to the multiple-ability task.

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Processing

• Individual and Group accountability activities
  which reflect the success of
• The student
• The group
• The objective for the teacher planned activity
• Practice designing flexible grouping structure
  for given set of classroom data lesson

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Station activity

• Investigate DI structures that support flexible
  grouping
• Anchor activities
• Tiered lessons
• Stations/Centers
• Rotate every 20 minutes

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PMI Chart
Plus () Minus (-) Interesting
Station
Tiered lessons
Anchors
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Assessment

1. In the acronym TAPS, which word(s) do(es) not
   allow for differentiation?
2. T/F Flexible grouping implies putting students
   into ability groups.
3. Name at least 2 DI strategies that support
   flexible grouping.
4. What are 2 problems for historically based
   arguments for heterogeneous classrooms?

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Assessment responses

• T total group
• F - many reasons for grouping arrangements
• Compacting, Complex instruction
• Struggling learners must be met where they are.
• Advanced learners often given more work, asked
  to be peer teachers, or left alone as they are
  already up to par.

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Summarize

• In job-alike groups
• Create 30 second commercial
• Reasons to support or oppose flexible grouping

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Keeping flexible

• Exercise the strategy
• Switch your groups regularly
• Have fun!

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Thank you!

• Please complete the evaluation
• Contact me with any questions
• barbara.launi_at_rtsd.org

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Flexible Grouping for the delivery of instruction
is the cornerstone of appropriate differentiation
for the gifted student as well as all students.
The use of Flexible Grouping assures Success for
Every Student.
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Readiness group tasks

• Cooperative grouping strategies
• Group members roles
• Learning styles inventory
• http//www.metamath.com/multiple/multiple_choice_q
  uestions.html

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Modality preference groups
Visual Auditory Hands-on
Find cooperative group strategies from handouts and on-line resources. Make a chart. Put the group roles from the resources on the chart. Participate in lecture-format and complete chart of strategies. Finish the chart with group roles. Make index cards of cooperative group strategies with purpose on back. Make a charades game of group roles.
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Agenda

• Microlab How do we honor all learners in
  variable grouping?
• Read all about it!
• Share
• Evaluation

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Todays Agenda, continued

• Sit in groups (by modality preference)
• Learning styles activity on management of
  flexible groups
• Brainstorm ideas for grouping by readiness,
  interest, random
• Whole group share dot vote