The days of sitting in single file rows is out and the wide world of group differentiating is in. For my classroom, I provide 3 different types of grouping; Home base, Support groups, Peer stations.
"Home base" is the original seating arrangement in which I place the kids. During whole class learning, my students sit in a horse shoe configuration in multiple rows of 3-4. I try to place EL students, students with IEPs and 504s, or students with other behavior/learning needs, near those that they can turn to quietly and ask for personal help if needed. I enjoy this set up because proximity monitoring is easy for me to walk around and reach struggling students. Whole class learning "Home Bases" change every grading period (approximately 6 weeks), and upon entering the room, students always start class in their "Home Bases".
"Support Groups" are specific groups that are based on student needs for support. This is the mixed grouping strategy of high-level learners, medium-high, medium-low, and lower-level learners, as some of you might remember from Kagan training. These support groups are formed after the whole class learning portion of the educational chunking. I enjoy pairing students with different levels of learning needs, because then they are able to 'report' back to their home base for reflection of the daily lesson. These are usually the particular groups I use for "Round 1" of station work. This grouping stadegy also allows for me to assign roles or jobs to each student within the group, without any particular one feeling left out. It is important to have roles during small group learning to promote accountability and collaboration skills. Support groups also change as the learning/behavior needs of students change.
"Peer Stations" is the grouping in which I pair students based on their abilities following an assessment. From previous station work, students have been paired based on the following: integration and citation of quotations, commentary and analysis development, grammar and sentence structure, sentence frames for various paragraphs, and those that did not complete the assignment at all. This allows me (and my student teachers assistant) to work with specific groups of students that need extra one on one time. My Academic Tutor usually works with the Higher-level learner students working on proof reading and editing or with the larger groups of students that scored proficient/advanced. I work with the students that scored below average and those with behavioral issues that require more attention from me.
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