Archive for the 'Group' Category

Build a real class learning community

Teachers can create a class community such as everyone knowing two things about everyone else in the class without having a learning community where students continually work together to better each other.   Likewise, teachers can have students work together (Student A does this/ student B does that….) without really collaborating (interacting and changing the individual or group’s ideas) .

I would propose using formative assessment to build a class learning community. When students continually help each other by peer-reviewing and offering new ideas to others, they  have a learning community.  For example, in pairs, the students have peer-reviewed each other’s brainstormed evidence for an English essay and the teacher has given the original authors time to make appropriate changes. Then they continue being formative by creating groups of three to four.  In turn, each author reads his/her thesis and his/her brainstormed evidence; the group has the responsibility of adding three to four new pieces of evidence to the original list. After they help the first person, they rotate through the group.  Each group has a single purpose: to help each author to have three to four new pieces of evidence.  Those groups are truly learning communities

What learning communities do you have in your class?


Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment


Reponding to Your Students

Situational Groupings and a Spreadsheet

I’ve switched from standard grouping to situational groupings. In situational group, the students are regrouped based on the frequent formative assessments done in the classroom. Therefore, the students in each group and the purpose of each small group differs. These groupings change frequently. This week’s “lack of transitions”group disappears based on the next formative assessment but a new grouping of “run on sentence” students appears based on the assessment of their papers and may last several classes.

The situational grouping is facilitated by the use of a spreadsheet in which I score/rate student’s performance and specific skills so that I can have the computer sort for those who scored in the low 2 and 1 range in the 4 point scale (4 = above proficient). A quick sort and I know the students in my next grouping. The harder part is to find focused instructional materials that help those students overcome that learning gap.

Online Discussion/Conversation Groups: How do we group learners?


How do we organize professional development online discussion groups with educators who are from different disciplines?

Mechanically, the groups could be organized alphabetically such as the last names of A-E, F-I, etc.
Mechanically, the groups be organized by the order in which the educators sign up for the class.

Content wise, the groups could be organized by their disciplines.
Content wise, the groups could be organized from the mixed disciplines when they all have a common problem that each can contribute to and grow from each other.
Content wise, the groups could be organized by the educator’s common interest or chosen area for improvement (structuring online classes, responding to students, etc.)

How we group the learners helps to determine how much they will learn in the online discussion. How do you group people (students or instructors) in online discussion groups to maximize learning?

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