Group Work Success!

Our Elementary Teacher Leaders recently shared some of their strategies for supporting students with group work.  Read on!
Set-up
  • Firmly establish group norms and post them.
  • Review expectations for group work .
  • Lots of talking with partners before actually doing the group work
  • Using community building and play time to make conversation related to numbers more natural.
  • Have routine activities that encourage students to share ideas
  • Have different roles for every student in the group
  • Allowing students to have a say in how groups are partnered
  • Assign roles to group members based on strengths in multi-level groups
  • Deliberate pairing based on skill and behavior
  • Practice scenarios for conflict resolution, compromise, & problem solving 
  • Use clock partners to make partners or groups to allow students to learn from one another and see other points of views/methods
  • Require that kids do not work with “friends”
  • For games that don’t require higher-level or “scaffolded” skills, allow students in kindergarten to choose a partner with whom they work well. The skill of cooperation is as important as the skill of the math involved
  • When you’re making your heterogeneous groups, consider CELDT levels. Put students with lower levels with higher EO students to help scaffold the language.
  • Talk about what you expect to hear throughout the activity, including specific vocabulary you want students to be using.
During
  • Think Pair Share so all students get a chance to share out loud
  • Fish Bowl Strategy: Students model activity in the middle of a circle 
  • Use agree/disagree signals to lower the anxiety of students
  • Use Rule of 4 to make sure all students participate and have a “job” in their group
  • Check-Ins with each group throughout the activity. 
  • Whole class check-ins: Put your thumb near your heart if you are... 
  • Think-write-pair-share Sentence frames and verbalizing their thinking process
  • In small groups, each person must have a turn and share for at least 20-30 seconds about the task at hand. There is a sentence frame they must use (also the target math vocabulary). Then someone from the group will share that group’s idea to the class.
  • Give students time to process what is expected of them. Circle and praise Ss who are showing exemplary group work effort. Encourage and guide students who need support
  • Circling the room to closely monitor groups.  Assisting students with their roles.  Otherwise you’ll have students sitting down and reading when they are “finished” with their part of the project, not realizing that if the rest of the group is still working, the group project is not finished.
  • Whisper in my ear.  Each student in a group has a number (1-4).  Present the group with a question and they must work together to solve it.  Students do not know who will be picked to go up to whisper the answer in the teacher’s ear.  Students must make sure all group members can explain the answer.  Randomly select a number to see which student from each group will come up to whisper the answer. 
  • All students must have the same question before asking the teacher. 
  • Give each student a different color marker when making posters so you know who did what.
  • Math centers - one center with students working on a group task/group work, another center with students working on logic/puzzle - ish activities where they can collaborate
  • A student tally tracks participation, with a class participation percentage at the end of discussion.
  • For children with less verbal abilities, teacher or a more verbal partner can narrate what children are doing during math talks. This allows them to participate in these conversations. 
  • Use a video projector such as an Elmo to show what students might do to solve (use finger, see triangles, group dots by fours).
  • Math Task Problem Solving Protocol
    • Step 1 - Read Problem 2-3 times
    • Step 2 - Identify key information (underline/highlight)
    • Step 3 - Ask yourself - what is the question asking you to do?
    • Step 4 - Talk to your math partner about what strategies would work for this problem
    • Step 5 - Try to solve the problem using multiple strategies
    • Step 6 - Check your work
    • Step 7 - Explain your math thinking
  • For Group Participation Feedback, when not enough adults are present to observe every group and take notes, have a group leader become the observer and present what s/he sees to the class.
  • Sharing the pen, taking turns “Being the teacher” when reviewing basic skills
  • Sharing talk time.  You have to wait for two other children to talk before you talk again.  If no one is talking, that person can ask questions only, and cannot share answers or strategies.

Reflection
  • Reflect on group work after; what worked, challenges, etc
  • Set up norms - save 5 minutes at the end of the class to review how we did with the norms.  You can also highlight one norm in particular to focus on for the next time.
  • Group Work Expectations are set and reviewed at the beginning. Then, class checks in at the end to see how they did with the expectations.
  • Use a gallery walk to share group work and give constructive feedback about the clarity of the explanations.
  • For 2nd grade, work in pairs. Each partner presents the work/strategy/explanation of their partner… this allows for true understanding of their partners’ math thinking/strategy.
  • Sometimes I need to let go of the product and better allow for an organic conversation/discussion. Our walls and bulletin boards will live without a new poster.