When planning your lessons, instead of defaulting to whole group teaching, consider splitting the class up into smaller groups. There are several ways to do this including interest, ability, random choice and student choice, and depending on your desired outcome and particular mix of students, one grouping may work better than another.
Grouping Students by Interest
When assigning a group project in social studies or science, it may be helpful to group students together by interest. Allow those students who are interested in the same topic work together. This can be done through student choice, where the students are allowed time to talk to each other about what topic they would like to do their project on and group themselves accordingly. Or you can write topic choices on the board and allow students to assign themselves to a group based on their interest.
Grouping Students by Ability
Although controversial, ability grouping is one method of grouping students. With this method, you would look at the ability of each student, and place him in a group with other students with the same ability. So for example the advanced math students will all be placed together in a group, just as the advanced reading students are all in their own group. These groups may look different based on the subject and abilities in the classroom.
You can also use ability grouping to specifically group students with different abilities. Spreading the student abilities throughout each group is heterogeneous grouping, and allows students of all abilities to assist each other.
Random Student Groupings
Grouping students by random can help prevent the students from pegging other students as slow or advanced. It also may allow for improved classroom management as you will not always have the same troublesome students in the same group, and provides you opportunities to separate students who need to not work in the same group. Random student groupings can be accomplished by having students count off, pair up, or any other method of class division you come up with.
Grouping by Student Choice
Allowing students to choose their group partners is another method of grouping that may work well for some projects. As in student interest groups, students can be allowed to pick a partner or group of students whom they desire to work with. This runs the risk of having students left out, or having a group of students who instead of working together, simply goof off. Careful planning and a watchful eye can help prevent these problems though.
Your particular choice of student grouping, whether by interest, ability, random choice or student choice depends on what your desired outcome is for the group. Think through your grouping choice as carefully as you do your lesson plans and group students in a way that will most efficiently complement your teaching style and desired learning outcome.
Read more information on classroom organization.
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