Data & Differentiation in Small Groups
One of the things I am most passionate about is small group learning. I have found that this is where I make the most gains and really get to know my students as individual learners. I do this for reading like most of the world (you can see my blog post here about my center routine that allows me to easily get in 90 minutes of small group reading), but this post is going to focus on how I run my math groups. I LOVE teaching math and I LOVE the simplicity of my math groups. If you are looking to start guided math, I hope you find this post helpful and you can implement a few of the ideas. I will explain how I group my students, what I do with them in my small groups, and what the other students are doing when they are not meeting with me. When I started teaching math consistently in small groups, I saw a tremendous change in the level of progress I could make with my students.
Why small groups in math?
The simple answer: ALL of your students get instruction at their level and therefore will make more gains than they would without the small group instruction.
There are so many benefits of small group instruction. I will try to explain a few that are most meaningful to me.
All of my students are getting what they need. If I taught my lessons whole class, I would be teaching to the middle. My higher students would most likely already know what I'm teaching and potentially be bored. My lower students wouldn't have the skills to be able to keep up and benefit from the instruction. Most likely the pacing would be too quick for them and they potentially would tune me out or become frustrated. When I teach in small groups, I get to give instruction that is "just right." Students are enthusiastic and engaged because they are receiving instruction that is appropriate for them.
I really get to know my students as individual learners. I feel like I truly know each one of my students so well as a learner and I know this is due to the amount of time we spend together in small groups. I don't do small groups occasionally. It is a regular part of my instructional routine and this is the benefit. I know where each one of my student's are in regards to all of the skills we are learning in a way that assessment data alone can't do.
Small group instruction helps students that have attention difficulties. I have so many students this year that struggle to attend for than more than a few minutes unless they are actively engaged. And even in the most hands-on activities, some of these little ones still have great difficulty staying on task. With my small groups, they are right in front of me. There are no more than 6 students. It's pretty difficult for them not to attend to what we are doing. I can not imagine meeting their needs without using small groups.
I can provide immediate feedback. During guided practice opportunities in small groups, I watch or sometimes ask a child to explain what they are doing and right then and there, I can provide more instruction as needed.
Students work at their own pace. Often times I use task cards in small groups. Every student or pair of students is working on their own problem. They can complete a problem, check in with me and move on. So it is very individualized.
The dialogue in invaluable. There have been so many occasions where the light bulb has gone off in MY head as to what the misunderstanding is for a child. By watching and listening to them in this setting, I really get a feel for what they understand and how they are learning. This helps me then provide them with what they need to learn.
I actually put all of my data to good use! Assessments become so much more meaningful when you are using the results daily. My old way of thinking and using data would be to give an assessment and if 80% of my students mastered a concept, I know it would be okay to move on. I would provide interventions to those that didn't and reassess. Doesn't sound horrible does it? It isn't. However, what I do now is far more effective.
Depending on the results, I may choose to do a whole class lesson and then the next day break into groups. Other times, I do a very brief whole class lesson and move in to groups. And there are many days within the unit, that I don't do any whole class teaching for the day and we are in groups for the entire math block. That is the wonderful thing about math groups. It is flexible. You don't have to do the same thing each time.
Here is a link to a product in my TPT store for comparing numbers. It is a whole unit and includes a diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment, task cards etc if you are wanting to try out small groups, but don't want to come up with all of the materials.
All of my students are getting what they need. If I taught my lessons whole class, I would be teaching to the middle. My higher students would most likely already know what I'm teaching and potentially be bored. My lower students wouldn't have the skills to be able to keep up and benefit from the instruction. Most likely the pacing would be too quick for them and they potentially would tune me out or become frustrated. When I teach in small groups, I get to give instruction that is "just right." Students are enthusiastic and engaged because they are receiving instruction that is appropriate for them.
I really get to know my students as individual learners. I feel like I truly know each one of my students so well as a learner and I know this is due to the amount of time we spend together in small groups. I don't do small groups occasionally. It is a regular part of my instructional routine and this is the benefit. I know where each one of my student's are in regards to all of the skills we are learning in a way that assessment data alone can't do.
Small group instruction helps students that have attention difficulties. I have so many students this year that struggle to attend for than more than a few minutes unless they are actively engaged. And even in the most hands-on activities, some of these little ones still have great difficulty staying on task. With my small groups, they are right in front of me. There are no more than 6 students. It's pretty difficult for them not to attend to what we are doing. I can not imagine meeting their needs without using small groups.
I can provide immediate feedback. During guided practice opportunities in small groups, I watch or sometimes ask a child to explain what they are doing and right then and there, I can provide more instruction as needed.
Students work at their own pace. Often times I use task cards in small groups. Every student or pair of students is working on their own problem. They can complete a problem, check in with me and move on. So it is very individualized.
The dialogue in invaluable. There have been so many occasions where the light bulb has gone off in MY head as to what the misunderstanding is for a child. By watching and listening to them in this setting, I really get a feel for what they understand and how they are learning. This helps me then provide them with what they need to learn.
I actually put all of my data to good use! Assessments become so much more meaningful when you are using the results daily. My old way of thinking and using data would be to give an assessment and if 80% of my students mastered a concept, I know it would be okay to move on. I would provide interventions to those that didn't and reassess. Doesn't sound horrible does it? It isn't. However, what I do now is far more effective.
How I Use Data to Group My Students
Another one of my passions is the USE of data in the classroom. I believe in order to really make gains (especially with my struggling students-and let me tell ya, this year I have a lot of them), I need to be assessing their learning in all kinds of ways and using what I find in those assessments to guide my lessons and interventions. How do I do this?! Small groups and my math rotations. Here is how it works.1. Give an assessment
I always start with a pretest. I make my own. I say this because I have found that the assessments that typically come from the math series have more than one skill in a single assessment. For me, I like to isolate the individual skills. I take each common core math standard and create a 10 point assessment. And I really can't plan the unit until I look at those pretests. Sometimes I have several students that score 100%. Other times the results are quite different with all of my students scoring below 40%! For me, it's so important to know what my students already know. And I admit that I did not always pretest. I spent many years teaching where if I gave a pretest it would be one from the math series. The results would give me a general score of where my students were with many skills and I didn't actually do much with the results. But now I can't imagine starting with out my pretest information. (If doing a pretest is too overwhelming, just use any formative assessment. Throughout my unit on a specific skill, I give many assessments and groups the students according to those results. Simple exit slips work well.)Depending on the results, I may choose to do a whole class lesson and then the next day break into groups. Other times, I do a very brief whole class lesson and move in to groups. And there are many days within the unit, that I don't do any whole class teaching for the day and we are in groups for the entire math block. That is the wonderful thing about math groups. It is flexible. You don't have to do the same thing each time.
Here is a link to a product in my TPT store for comparing numbers. It is a whole unit and includes a diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment, task cards etc if you are wanting to try out small groups, but don't want to come up with all of the materials.
2. Break students into 4 groups based on their performance on the assessment
So then after the students papers are graded, I make 4 groups. I do this several ways. Sometimes I simply just sort the papers into 4 piles. Sometimes, if I entered the scores into google docs, I sort the data on there. Then I grab my group cards and move their name tabs.
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| Nothing fancy-Just sorted the assessments into 4 groups |
These are just laminated cards with a magnetic on the back since we keep them up on our chalkboard. Laminated large colored index cards would work great. I used to use dry-erase marker and write their names, but this year invested in the heavy duty post-it tabs and it is much easier! I also can make a change more quickly if while meeting with the students, I feel I need to move a student to a different group.
3. MATH Rotations
M=math facts
A=at your seats
T=teacher time
H=hands-on
Students spend between 10-15 minutes in each math station. I have them labeled on the board and I just move the cards with the names down for each rotation. Since I teach first grade, it is very important that I keep the routine consistent so that I am not using lots of valuable instruction time going over new math centers or new routines. Not wasting instructional time is important in all grade levels of course, but in first grade it is very easily lost because so many of them require a lot of instruction and support in new activities. In my math rotations, the amount of time needed to go over procedures is very minimal so not only am I not using instructional time, but the students are on task and transition quickly because they know the routine so well.
M is the math facts station. Each student in my room has a colored set of addition fact cards that they keep on the front of their desk. The colors follow the order of the rainbow (red is plus 0/plus 1, orange is plus 2, yellow is plus 3 etc). Students spend this time with a partner practicing their flash cards. If we recently learned a math game, I sometimes put that out for them to play as an option during their math fact time. Anything you have already going in your classroom for math facts would work for this rotation.
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| Two students getting ready to practice their facts |
A is the at your seat station. This is a great time to assign a math workbook page that focuses on review skills. This is always some sort of paper/pencil assignment. If you use interactive math notebooks or do math journals with a focus on writing, this would be a great time for students to work on those things. This rotation can of course be easily differentiated if you choose.
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| At your seat work-just using a workbook page from our math series |
T is teacher time. This is where I have the opportunity to meet with each student in a small group setting to provide intervention, on-level instruction, or enrichment. Some of my favorite teaching moments happen here. And one of the most motivational parts, is that almost every day, I have at least one student say that the teacher time is their favorite part of their day. Yes, you heard that correctly! They like it better than the iPods! How can that be?! I find that because they are getting just the right amount of challenge, they love their small group instructional time. The struggling student gains confidence because I am doing activities at their level and they see their progress. The high student is engaged and energetic that they are often working on the next grade level standards and they love the challenge.
H is the hands-on station. We are fortunate enough to have plenty of iPod touches and two iPads. So for my students they work on math apps on the iPods. If technology is limited in your classroom, anything that involvers manipulatives or a math game would be great. I know lots of people do math tubs that they rotate with various math activities. This is where I would implement that if I didn't have iPod touches.
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| Hands-On Station |
4. Reassess!
After one or two days in math rotations, I make sure to reassess. This may be a more formal 10 point formative assessment or quick exit slip. I take those results and regroup my students. My groups change a lot! So often I have a student in my lowest group and after two days, they move up to my top group. Depending on the results, I may continue to run small groups and reassess in another day or two. If there are only 2 or 3 students still needing work with this skill, then as a group we will move on, but I will continue to work with those couple of students during my IE time.
So hopefully this gives you an a clear idea of how the math rotations work. Each group of students start at one of the 4 stations, and rotate through each one. They may start at the teacher station, but then rotate to h (hands-on), m (math facts), and a (at your seat). I do not have a set schedule for which days I meet in small groups. I adjust it based on how the students are progressing and what I feel they need.
So hopefully this gives you an a clear idea of how the math rotations work. Each group of students start at one of the 4 stations, and rotate through each one. They may start at the teacher station, but then rotate to h (hands-on), m (math facts), and a (at your seat). I do not have a set schedule for which days I meet in small groups. I adjust it based on how the students are progressing and what I feel they need.
Differentiated Instruction
The power of all of the MATH rotations is in the teacher station. This is where I provide the differentiated instruction that each student needs. What I have learned is not to make this part too complicated. Sometimes just by having the students in a small group and being able to provide them with an adjusted pace and amount of support is all the differentiation I need. There are seriously times where all 4 groups do the exact same paper or activity, but each group does it with varying levels of support. For example this was the case when we were learning the counting on strategy for addition. My highest level worked independently on the paper. Then on our dry-erase circles, I gave them more challenging addition problems where they applied the same strategy: start with the larger number and count up (drawing dots if necessary) to find the sum. This was extremely simple and I thought might not be very exciting, but you wouldn't believe how their faces lit up when we were working with number in the thousands. That's all it took. As we were working with larger numbers, we talked about how to write these larger numbers and the value of each digit in the number. For my more struggling students, we physically got out counters. On their paper, they would circle the larger number and physically get out the blocks to count on.
I tend to use task cards a lot during my instruction time with small groups. This way students can work independently or with a partner at their own pace getting support as they need it. For example, we spend a lot of time working on solving word problems. In my TPT store, I have created themed word problem task cards (Back to School, October/Halloween, November/Thanksgiving, and I'm working on December ones right now). The October and November ones have two sets of problems included. One with sums to 10 and another with sums to 20.
One way I differentiate with these task cards is to use the word problems that use lower numbers with my struggling students and challenge my higher groups with the larger numbers. I also can differentiate by the cards I choose to use with a particular group. For my challenging group, I might give them all the different types of word problems (adding to, take apart, putting together, unknown number, comparing etc) but in my lower group I might only work on one type of word problem so we could really focus on the strategy (like just comparing word problems and I would model how to draw the two rows of dots/circles to compare). A third way I differentiate with these cards is by altering what they need to show/write to demonstrate how they got their answer. For lower groups, I might just ask them to draw a picture. For my middle group, maybe a picture and number sentence. For my higher groups, I could require them to write a number sentence and use an empty box to identify what they are solving for. Or sometimes I might have them draw a picture and write in sentences to explain the strategy they used also. And finally, another way I could differentiate using these task cards is simply by changing the level of support I provide. For my lower group, maybe I do a think aloud for how I solve one of the problems and display the card on the easel. I could give them all the same problem and provide an opportunity for guided practice or shared problem solving. For my higher groups, they love to have a choice to work alone or with a partner and solve problems at their own pace. They stay right at our small group table while they are working so they can ask questions or I can provide feedback.
And here is just one more example of differentiation in small groups. Sometimes, I differentiate by working on different grade level standards for the same topic/skill. For example, if I needed to teach the first grade standard of telling time to the hour and half-hour, I would begin with a quick diagnostic assessment. I would divide the class into my 4 groups. In my lowest group (I call it intense intervention in my lesson plans), I might need to work on telling time to the hour. Maybe in my next group, we are working more on grade level and work on telling time to the hour and half hour. The next group, might move up to the second grade standard and work on telling time to the nearest give minutes. And perhaps I even have a couple of students in my highest group that are ready to work on telling time to the minute and doing some word problems involving elapsed time (third grade standard). My students love when I do this (and parents too) because they are truly working on where they need to be as individual learners. Not to mention, their scores on tests like MAPS raise significantly because they are exposed to concepts/skills beyond their grade level. I think the days of here are my grade level standards and I just need to make sure my students meet these are long gone. Instead it's about looking at individual learners and giving them each the instruction they need.
I tend to use task cards a lot during my instruction time with small groups. This way students can work independently or with a partner at their own pace getting support as they need it. For example, we spend a lot of time working on solving word problems. In my TPT store, I have created themed word problem task cards (Back to School, October/Halloween, November/Thanksgiving, and I'm working on December ones right now). The October and November ones have two sets of problems included. One with sums to 10 and another with sums to 20.
One way I differentiate with these task cards is to use the word problems that use lower numbers with my struggling students and challenge my higher groups with the larger numbers. I also can differentiate by the cards I choose to use with a particular group. For my challenging group, I might give them all the different types of word problems (adding to, take apart, putting together, unknown number, comparing etc) but in my lower group I might only work on one type of word problem so we could really focus on the strategy (like just comparing word problems and I would model how to draw the two rows of dots/circles to compare). A third way I differentiate with these cards is by altering what they need to show/write to demonstrate how they got their answer. For lower groups, I might just ask them to draw a picture. For my middle group, maybe a picture and number sentence. For my higher groups, I could require them to write a number sentence and use an empty box to identify what they are solving for. Or sometimes I might have them draw a picture and write in sentences to explain the strategy they used also. And finally, another way I could differentiate using these task cards is simply by changing the level of support I provide. For my lower group, maybe I do a think aloud for how I solve one of the problems and display the card on the easel. I could give them all the same problem and provide an opportunity for guided practice or shared problem solving. For my higher groups, they love to have a choice to work alone or with a partner and solve problems at their own pace. They stay right at our small group table while they are working so they can ask questions or I can provide feedback.
And here is just one more example of differentiation in small groups. Sometimes, I differentiate by working on different grade level standards for the same topic/skill. For example, if I needed to teach the first grade standard of telling time to the hour and half-hour, I would begin with a quick diagnostic assessment. I would divide the class into my 4 groups. In my lowest group (I call it intense intervention in my lesson plans), I might need to work on telling time to the hour. Maybe in my next group, we are working more on grade level and work on telling time to the hour and half hour. The next group, might move up to the second grade standard and work on telling time to the nearest give minutes. And perhaps I even have a couple of students in my highest group that are ready to work on telling time to the minute and doing some word problems involving elapsed time (third grade standard). My students love when I do this (and parents too) because they are truly working on where they need to be as individual learners. Not to mention, their scores on tests like MAPS raise significantly because they are exposed to concepts/skills beyond their grade level. I think the days of here are my grade level standards and I just need to make sure my students meet these are long gone. Instead it's about looking at individual learners and giving them each the instruction they need.
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