Even though my class does not show that much differentiation throughout the day, I can compare it to the reading we had to do - Ch.6 routines in a differentiated classroom: once the work starts. A couple of things that caught my eye in this reading was when it mentioned working in groups, helping students with transitions, and managing time. Two of these things, working in groups and managing time, seem to be a problem in my classroom. After experiencing my pathwise lesson plan where we broke the students up into groups, it was easy to see that the students did not know how to work in groups. It is important for the teacher to teach the students how to work in groups or they will never know what to do or what is appropriate. It is also imperative that you give them expectations so they know what is expected of them throughout the lesson. Managing time is also something that seems to be having some trouble in our classroom. Some subjects run over the allotted time and some run short. In some cases, if the whole group understands it or does not understand it, it might be okay to cut it short or run it long. But in the case of our class, there is always at least one or two students that do not understand so it would not be good to cut the lesson short because you could use that time to help those specific children. One thing that I think is going pretty well in my classroom is transitions within the classroom. My mentor teacher has an assigned student to pass out books so it runs very smoothly and it does not get too crowded around the book shelf. She also has a student who is assigned to pass out cubbies for everyone for when they are taking a test so they all do not race to go get them. It seems like such a small thing but it helps a lot with many of the transitions in the classroom.
Wondering: what are some ways to help students work in groups?
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