SMALL GROUPS

"Because student's vary greatly in readiness at any given point in an instructional cycle, it is critical during a unit to find a way to teach to a learner's needs rather than only to an imaginary whole-class readiness."

Teaching in small groups is a very effective strategy.  Teaching in small groups allows you to teach at student's readiness levels, interest, and learning profiles.  The key to working with small groups, is that you shouldn't have groups set in stone where the same people work with the same people overtime.  Teachers should be actively looking for students to work with in small groups.  For example, if you are starting to write a story, and a group of students are really having trouble coming up with what to write about, you could quickly give the gesture of saying, "I see there are some students struggling to come up with what to write.  If you are having trouble and think you could use some help coming up with some ideas, meet me up at the whiteboard, and we will go over some possible topics."  These students will work together for maybe 3-5 minutes, and then that exact same group of students will probably never work together again.  That need of coming up with a topic to write about was solved in less than 5 minutes, and you have those students back to their seat writing rather than them goofing off, and procrastinating about a topic.  

You can use Small Group Instruction for any Subject!

AIM HIGH!

"It's likely that we underestimate what any student can accomplish"

- Chapter 6 Carol Ann Tomlinson 

Has one of your students ever surprised you?  Has someone ever done something that you never thought they could do? Have you yourself done something that you never thought you could do?  If you haven't done something yourself that you never thought you could do, you surely know someone that has done something that has simply surprised you.  Many times we underestimate our students abilities. Sometimes we are robbing them of the things that we don't have them do because we don't think that they can.  I am here to tell you that we are wrong.  WE need to "AIM HIGH" 

 "It is highly likely that students achieve much more when we present them with tasks that we genuinely believe to be beyond them."

-Carol Anne Tomlinson chapter 6.  

Once we start Aiming High with our students we then lead into the NO  excuses attitude!

"Accepting no excuses for work that is undone, incomplete, or inferior is trickier that it might seem.  Seen correctly, "no excuses" is not punitive but redemptive."

If we are going to require our students to accomplish tasks that we have "Aimed High" for them, we must make them accomplish the things that we have set for them to accomplish.  We cannot let our students give us excuses as to why they cannot/will not complete something that we have given them to accomplish.  Instead, we must provide support for them so that they will accomplish the task.  We cannot give our students "aim high" tasks and not give them support in doing those tasks.  It is essential for us to help our students accomplish those "aim high" tasks.  

"A no excuses teacher is formed with one part Mother Superior, and one part Marine Drill Sergent at the core.  The message is not so much, "If you don't do the homework, i'll line up zeros in the grade book," But rather, "If I need to provide a time, place, and support system in this room to make sure the homework or the project gets done, so be it--but the work will get done."

A GREAT classroom conveys to all students, 

"This is hard, but you can do hard 

things, and I am not willing to 

let you settle for less."

I think that a great way to show our students that they are important to us is to allow choice.  Let students decide on their own what is important to them, and allowing them choice allows them to learn in a way that they want to learn.  A great tool to allow choice are CHOICE BOARDS, or THINK-TAC-TOE BOARDS.  Here are some great examples.  

  

Not only do Think-Tac-Toe Boards provide choice, they also are differentiated for each student.  Students will be able to complete activities on their own level, while still having a choice!

These strategies are great ways for student's to feel like their work is important, and what they are doing is worthwhile! 

YOU are IMPORTANT, what you DO matters, and I want you to know that you are IMPORTANT to ME.

~Because you matter, the teacher says to the student, and because learning matters to you, I will do my best to, 

-Make sure I teach you and you learn what is genuinely of value in a subject:

-Pique your curiosity about what we explore, capture your interest, and help you see daily that learning in inherently satisfying;

-Call on you consistently to help you become more than you thought you could become through dedicated work; and 

-Be you partner, coach, mentor, and taskmaster all along your learning journey in this class. 

There are some GREAT examples in the book that show teachers that make their students feel important, as well as making whatever they do feel important.  Some of the things we can do to make our tasks worthwhile and important are, link the content to real life, use meaningful audiences, and help students discover how ideas and skills are useful in the world.  I would like to share an example where one of my professors shared that she used to do with her class.

Every year before christmas, the class would be learning about perimeter, area, volume, etc.  This professor would have her class build gingerbread houses on the last class before Christmas break.  But, before the class could build their gingerbread houses, they would have to plan out exactly what they were going to build, and how they were going to build it.  Everyone has built a gingerbread house before, and that is something that everyone in the class could relate to.  The class had to measure and figure out the size of the graham crackers that they were going to use, what type of candy they would use and how it would fit onto their gingerbread house, they did so much math related concepts in order to figure out what they would need, and they had to come up with a complete drawn out plan that was accurate before they were able to build their gingerbread house.  I think this activity is a perfect example of a teacher that gave her class something important to do, and those students learned so much by doing this.  

HERE are some other examples of important tasks that the book gave, 

* A high school history class continually integrated interviews with their reading, lectures, and discussions.--The direct link between history and lives of real people made the issues and principles behind their study dynamic and important to the students

*A school math class studied a construction site near the school that seemed to be creating a potential for traffic accidents.--While students participated in direct instruction on key computation skills they studied the construction site, and ultimately they made recommendations to the construction company and town council.  Most of what they recommended was implemented. 

THESE are the types of things that we need to get our students doing.  These are the things that students think are IMPORTANT and will remember for the rest of their lives.  CHOOSE IMPORTANT activities and assignments for your students to do.