Student Grouping | peaceloveteach

Student Grouping Strategies

Collaborative work is a way of connecting to the material and each other simultaneously. A way to assure an increase in student access to content through your grouping design is to first develop appropriate groups that will complement the activity. Second, put in place a variety of group assessments, ensuring that learning is taking place among each member of the group. Finally, use the power of observation to your advantage, and don’t be afraid to make a change if a change needs to be made. “The underline goal of collaborative learning is to create more meaningful and active learning experiences for students. When working together, not only do students learn and retain complex information – they also form positive and thoughtful relationships with each other. Groups, projects and presentations are all ways to promote teaching and learning in the classroom”(Annenberg Learning, 2003).

There are two primary ways to form groups: heterogeneous and homogenous.

The heterogeneous form of grouping students combines students with a variety of different abilities and strengths. In this style of student grouping there could be high achieving, average achieving, low achieving, ELL, and Special Needs students all in one group. Heterogeneous grouping is beneficial to many different types of learners, and it assists low achieving, ELL, and Special Needs students the most – with them demonstrating the greatest amount of growth do to this grouping strategy. However, some of the high achieving students or average students may feel as though their academic, social, and/or organization and leadership skills are being taken advantage of in this grouping style. These types of students also complain of not being properly challenged during an activity, do to heterogeneous grouping techniques.

The homogenous form of grouping students combines students primarily based on the commonalities of their abilities, level of development, social skills, and interests. This particular grouping technique is beneficial to a variety of students based on their personalities, learning styles, and individual form of intelligence. It allows them to work within their own Zone of Proximal Development, being appropriately challenged according to their level of skill and development – eliminating potential for frustration. However, by primarily maintaining a homogenous grouping style – students are not being challenged in the form of teambuilding, empathy, leadership, adaptation, and patience.

With that being said, Grouping patterns should be balanced and flexible. By employing a myriad of different grouping patterns, the teacher gives students the opportunity to build relationships, empathy, patience, self-esteem, and comradery – while attending to individual needs, intelligences, and personalities.

Intervention programs are another means of differentiating instruction, and another technique to give extra help to low-achieving students is through flexible grouping (Gunning, 2013). Possible groups include whole-class groups, guided reading groups, temporary skills groups, cooperative learning groups, and interest groups.

Below are some grouping strategies that can be implemented through whole groups, small groups, or paired groups:

Whole Class Grouping: is a great tool for conducting a pre-assessment. It will help the teacher to best understand where each student is developmentally and assists in knowledge of appropriate smaller group placement. Whole Class Grouping is also essential to building a sense of community among the students in the classroom. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, aural, verbal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.
Guided Reading: this is a form of homogeneous grouping of students, where students are grouped based on their reading proficiency. Within this grouping style students meet for 10-30 minutes a day to read together. Studies have shown that students who are consistently grouped together build bonds and often remain friends throughout the school year. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, logical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.
Temporary Skills Groups: this is a form of heterogeneous grouping of students, where students are grouped primarily for their specific skill and needs within a group. Once the activity is completed, the group is disassembled – this form of grouping is noncontiguous. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be logical, kinesthetic, and interpersonal learners.
Study Buddies: Are a great tool that allows students to work in pairs, assisting one another with reading and writing assignments. This technique supports teamwork, permitting students to lend a helping hand to their partner when needed – whether in the form of a peer review, editing, feedback, or just a little added assistance with an assignment. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, logical, verbal, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.
Interest Grouping: is a very successful form of heterogeneous grouping of students. By grouping students based on their interest relating to a specific topic, event, genre, or author builds comradery. By implementing this grouping style it will result in a collection of diverse learners in a cooperative learning situation, without creating the stigma of relying on particular students to carry the majority of the groups’ weight. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, aural, verbal, kinesthetic, logical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.
Regrouping: is a form of cross collaboration between educators. This is where two or more teachers of the same (or even different) grade levels combine, and group their students based on student ability. This is a homogenous technique that requires an adequate amount of time and organization, but will serve as beneficial to students with drastically different reading levels. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be logical, kinesthetic, and interpersonal learners.
Think-Pair-Share: A think-pair-share activity is a great way to help the children bridge connections to what is being discussed in the classroom and how it ties into their outside world. This is a form of contextualization, a category in the SDAIE model. Think-Pair-Share builds collaborative working skills, by having to think about what you are going to say, wait to say it and listen respectfully to your peer while they share their thoughts, and respond appropriately. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, aural, verbal, logical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.
Assembly Line: is a great tool to use in either a whole class or small group setting. With a brief explanation of what an assembly line is, how it functions, and how each individual role is responsible for the success of the whole and end result – the students will take pride in their individual responsibilities while working collaboratively with their peers. In accordance to Garner’s Multiple Intelligences, this is a good cooperative learning and grouping strategy for students who are or may be visual, aural, verbal, logical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal learners.

In regards to the strategy or technique used to formulate student grouping, the group size (whether whole group, small group, or paired) and the form that the group will take will be determined on - and greatly influenced by - the type of activity or assignment, grade and age level of the students, and the class size.

In the field of education and psychology, Dr. Spencer Kagan is a world-renowned author and public speaker, known for his research on promoting responsible behavior, and improving student academic achievement and social skills. Dr. Kagan had developed a list of cooperative learning grouping techniques, known as The Essential 5. He had taken these Essential 5 grouping structures and related them to the development of interpersonal skills.

(Kagan, 2009)

Here is a closer look at what The Essential 5 are and how they can be implemented in the classroom during cooperative small groups and pairing situations.

Rally Robin: this is a paired activity where students take turns orally responding to a trigger question or topic. It builds social skills, and communication skills, enhances knowledge-building, procedure learning, processing information, thinking skills, and provides practice in presenting information.
Timed Pair Share: this is a paired activity where students are assigned an x amount of time, and take turns, to share their ideas, belief, agreement or information with their partner. It promotes teambuilding, social skills, and communication skills, enhances knowledge-building, procedure learning, processing information, thinking skills, and provides practice in presenting information.
Round Robin: this is a small group activity where students take turns within the group to respond to a trigger question or topic. It builds teambuilding, social skills, and communication skills, enhances knowledge-building, procedure learning, processing information, thinking skills, and provides practice in presenting information.
Rally Coach: this is a paired activity. In this activity one member solves a problem or answers a question while the other coaches them, then they reverse roles. It builds social skills, communication skills, enhances knowledge building, procedure learning, and thinking skills.
Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up: is another paired activity where students quickly stand, raise their hands and find a partner for an oral discussion on a trigger question or topic. It encourages class building, social skills, and communication skills, enhances knowledge-building, procedure learning, processing information, thinking skills, and provides practice in presenting information.

Other important things to remember when grouping students:

Assign Roles. Provide a chance for personal responsibility among the individual students in the group. The roles and responsibilities can be assigned by the teacher, randomly chosen, or self-assigned by the group members. Such roles can include: resource manager, group leader, illustrator, writer, or process leader. By implementing the use of individual student responsibility within the cooperative group learning activity it will enhance the teacher’s ability to assess individual student learning in a group situation, provide students with the sense of autonomy, and the dreaded ‘hitch-hikers’ of group work will be avoided.
Mix It Up: Change the groups about every 4-6 weeks. This will keep relationships fresh, be beneficial in avoiding compliancy between both teacher and students, and it will allow students to focus on building new relationships.

Differentiation and Collaboration

“Differentiation is the act of recognizing and giving expression to a difference; development from the one to the many, the simple to the complex, or the homogeneous to the heterogeneous” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). By focusing on each individual and their contributions to the group, we will be able to assess that each learner has impacted and comprehended the content of the lesson. . I believe that in certain situations and during certain activities student comfort and familiarity serves it's purpose. However, I feel that the students would receive the most benefit from having to work outside of their comfort zone, to embrace change and differences between group members. In the outside or professional world, we are often grouped with people who we have fundamental differences - if we can learn at a young age to embrace those differences and to work collaboratively strengthening another's weakness, I believe that classroom grouping strategies are a great place to begin.

References

Annenberg Learner (Director). (2003). Science in Action [Video file]. In Groups, Projects, and Presentations. Retrieved November 2, 2016, from http://www.learner.org/resources/series166.html#

Gunning, T. G. (2013). Creating literacy instruction for all students (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Kagan, S. & Kagan, M. Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing, 2009.

Neebe, D., & Roberts, J. (2015). Power up: Making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.