Sixth Grade Classroom Management: Grouping Tips

   Sometimes the trouble with teaching for 20+ years is the curse of knowledge. I have tried so many different techniques and noticed so many different results that I get to feeling paralyzed by choices!  I've also learned that some strategies are great for winning the battle, but losing the war--they work really well in the short term, but leave me with greater challenges in the long term.

    But last month, I learned that sometimes techniques that I discarded a decade ago are worth a closer look.

Table Competitions

    Enter Star Table. In the research compilation library of my mind, assigning points to different tables as a competition has as many entries in the "Con" column as it does in the "Pro" column. In the short-term, it is highly effective, as groups will quickly learn how to manage their behaviors to earn points. In the long-term, well, are the students really shaping up to improve as learners, or are they just performing to win points? Because of these issues, I really had abandoned table incentive schemes ten years ago.

Star Table for Cleaning

    In October, I added a "Star Table" incentive, but it was only for cleaning up under the tables and putting up chairs at the end of the day. For these small chores, I feel that a tangible incentive is both helpful and necessary. Each day I'd assign points to table based on what their desks looked like at the end of the day, and at the end of the week the Star Table got to "spin for dollars" with my wheel of fortune and the classroom economy. It was pretty simple, actually, and got the classroom cleaned up with a minimum of fuss.

Group Norms

    But Star Tables were on my mind when I rearranged tables for the month of November. To build a better climate, I started the new groups by having students create group norms for their table. (I picked up this idea from a NASA STEM workshop, and as a teaching tip, is the one of the BEST little tricks I've ever learned.) The idea is that students have a dialogue with each other to dream up what they want for themselves. When issues arise, it's easy for a leader to refer students back to the group norms to address problems.

    Group norms are also great for finding out what you value as a teacher, because to a degree the norms that students create tend to echo what they hear a lot of in the classroom. (I know this from working with group norms in after school clubs, in which we have a mix of students from different classes.) If the group norms come out anemic or weak, that can be hard to face, because it means that somehow my messaging as a teacher is not coming through.

 November's norms were an interesting assortment! Notice in this one the students in the group took turns writing the norms, which I hadn't expressly suggested. They also used a nice numbered list format--again, not something that I had directed them to do!

What do these norms say about our classroom? I was really happy to see #1, but I can see the impact of Star Table right there in #3: "Stay clean." I especially love #4: "Have a sense of humor but not to much."

    In this next set, I really liked that they started with kindness and respect. Once again, though, I could see the influence of Star Table.

    As I'm writing this, I wonder if maybe I should have backed off from Star Table. However, in the first week of November, I made a different choice. I looked at these norms and realized that my casually implemented Star Table was a powerful force in the classroom. What if I could harness that force to achieve more good? What if I kept points throughout the day, for things beyond cleaning?

Star Table Throughout the Day

    For the rest of November, I created a chart on the dry erase board each day, and put up points for tables throughout various classes. As I recreated the chart every day I could never help but reflect on how this method of management has gone wrong for me in the past. As I wrote the table names each day I berated myself for employing such a meaningless technique.

    Once I defeated my anxiety each day, I added or subtracted points as issues arose. Because I prefer to be the Generous Benefactor instead of the Evil Deductress, I was often quite generous in the giving of points. Each table could earn 3 points for every session, and I would add an X or a star in the box as needed. I have to admit, sometimes adding that X felt satisfying, like when it was five minutes into independent reading time and AN ENTIRE TABLE had digressed to a conversation about Fortnite.

    Of course I never gave or took away points for academic work, like getting answers right or wrong. Instead, I looked for things like having out assigned tasks, being ready for the next part of class, showing kindness to one another, and walking through the hallway quietly. (Ugh, like 50% of my classroom management stress comes from trying to keep my class quiet in the hallways!)

    When there were issues that involved only one student, I addressed them with that one student instead of marking down the whole table. I know from experience that taking points off a table for the behavior of one student is the pathway to ruin!

    What was different with this year's implementation of Star Tables? First of all, this was the first time that I explicitly linked them to the group norms that students created. Another innovation was to give minutes to our entire class's Preferred Activity Time if all four tables earned all of the points for a class. This helped to provide an incentive to benefit everyone instead of focusing on the competitive aspect.
   
    I just finished Week 3, and it was still working harmoniously in the background. Working to the point at which I can just pick up my dry erase marker and frown at the board for a moment to encourage a class to get started! Instead of taking too much time to implement, this method has really allowed me to spend more time working with students and less time giving directions.

Lessons Learned

    The curse of knowledge can be a huge obstacle for those of us in our third and fourth decades of teaching. However, by pairing new tricks with old techniques, we can dust off some strategies and make them work again.

Warnings, Side Effects, and Contraindications

Thinking about Star Tables for your classroom? Consider these warnings:

• De-emphasize the competitive aspect to build cooperation in your room.
• Start with a robust set of group norms to guide how tables will behave.
• If one table is significantly behind the others, make adjustments to the seating chart.
• Do not punish the entire group for the misdeeds of one. Instead, let that one student earn points or minutes for the whole class.
• You will be much happier if you are generous with points.
• This works best for short periods of time, especially the period of November-January. Eventually every management scheme gets stale!
• Encourage group members to help each other: "In one minute I'll be checking to see how tables are doing. Does everyone have their ____ and ____ ready to go?"
• Try random point awards: "I'll be pulling popsicle sticks at random times through that work session. If I pull your name and you're on task, your table will get a point."
• Pair up Star Tables with Preferred Activity Time: http://www.fredjones.com/pat

 

Station Rotations in Sixth Grade Math

    My math classroom is quite the collection of students this year! I have 24 sixth graders of all ability levels. We have a demanding curriculum (Math in Focus). The bumpy rollout of our curriculum when these students were in fourth grade has left them with a few holes in their math knowledge, holes that I didn't even know to look for at the start of the year.

    But most importantly they are a collection of delightful individuals who need the most math that I can teach them. This year, I've been trying to figure out the best way that I can do this. One thing that I know from my years of teaching ELA is that there often is no single best way--that I must be constantly changing up my strategy, working on my plans, and altering routines to fit my students at that moment.

    In October I attended a workshop about hybrid station rotation, and I decided to implement it right away. My class does break pretty evenly into three groups. I'm really lucky this year in that the gifted teacher can take a group for enrichment during two days of the cycle, and an instructional assistant comes in during all of math.

    With these advantages, hybrid rotations should have worked out perfectly, right? Well, it was bumpy.

    My first problem was in my arrangement of teacher lessons. In the first week, I saw the middle group first, the struggling group second, and the enrichment group last. (With students, of course, I called them by content-based names instead of these terms.) This arrangement

crashed and burned. My enrichment group consisted of the largest personalities in my class, and leaving them to their own devices for the first 40 minutes of math was not successful.
   
     Technology use was another issue. I needed at least 5 computers per class, and these was not always easy to secure. While students said that they liked watching the videos, they struggled with learning from them. Another issue was that the method required 100% of my focus and attention. There were at least 12 discrete tasks that I needed to complete for each math lesson!
It took a great deal of Saturday time to plan each lesson, and most of my lunch to get ready for it each day.

Workshop Station Rotation
    We took December, January, and part of February off from station rotation, moving to a more traditional model. Special events in December made this essential, and we kept the routine in January as students were enjoying it.
    In the middle of February, though, we were all ready to try stations again. But I had some changes in mind! First of all, I changed my rotation. The hybrid model works wonderfully in

some situations, but I wanted something different.

Whole Group Lessons
    I've limited my stations to 15 minutes each instead of 20, which means that I have 20 minutes for a whole group lesson in each class as well. This helps us all to stay on track.

Homework/Review Station
    I've been having great results with a homework packet due Friday mornings. I use great materials put together by Maneuvering the Middle. When students have questions or problems, I have used time in the morning before school, at the start of recess, or at the end of math to help them.
   Why not use class time for this? The homework and review station is time each day for students to work on their homework packets, reviewing key skills from the entire school year. Even better, students could help each other by explaining their work and showing their steps.
    In the middle of the week, as students are finishing their homework, I add some Reteach or Extra Practice pages from my math curriculum to this station.

Teacher Station
    Now, instead of planning a lesson to fill my entire 20-minute block, I prepared a single problem or technique to show students. The remainder of the time I kept open for emerging issues. What problems did you encounter at the other stations? What would you like me to show you?
    This method works perfectly with our current unit, Area of Polygons. After I started with some basic whole group lessons, students moved on to finding area of more complex shapes. They would bring their questions to me and we would work on those tougher problems together.

Lab Station
    This station is especially useful for manipulatives-heavy topics like geometry. Here, students extended our learning in projects or activities. I use a combination of prepared activities, like these, and homemade projects here. An example of a homemade project is pattern blocks--we worked in the teacher small group to calculate the area of pattern blocks, and then students made composite shapes and showed the area of them.

Entropy
    The Workshop Station Rotation model is prone to a beautiful entropy. In the last few days I've found that the structure is not as necessary. Students are moving into a workshop model in which they are trying things out, doing the math, and working with each other. And that is amazing!

Is it the model or the content? Are students doing well because the routine works well for them, or because they enjoy working with area? I'm not sure if the answer is necessary.

Every classroom routine has its ups and downs, its pluses and minuses. Have you tried station rotations? How have they worked for you?

Two Ways to Get Kids Invested in the Classroom

(I know that I was going to write about summarizing and the Common Core again, but I just didn't feel like it. Hey, it's summer!)

I invest a great deal of time thinking about the classroom. And I want kids to be as invested in the classroom as possible. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I've had students ask, "What subject is this?" Moving from science to social studies to writing in one classroom in one morning makes for a whirlwind time. The topics that I can keep so clearly delineated in my head tend to all blur together for students.

As I plan for the coming school year, then, one of my important questions to consider is, "How can I make sure that kids are invested?" I want kids to do more than just go through the motions. I want them to know what subject it is!

Here are two things that I plan to do this year.


1. Weekly Bulletin
I started using this again in the middle of last year, shortly after the "What subject is this?" incident. This is a great tool to use to keep everyone on track. With the Weekly Bulletin, I plan out the essential questions and assignments for the week. Students get their own copies of the Weekly Bulletin. This way, everyone knows the essential questions and what they need to accomplish.

Is it hard to create? Well, yes and no. On the example, you'll notice that my Weekly Bulletin only covers the classes that I teach to my homeroom--science, social studies, and writing. Too many subjects can be overwhelming for kids (and teachers!) From a planning viewpoint, the Weekly Bulletin forces me to think about the upcoming week in advance and get everything ready. Definitely a good thing!

Morning and dismissal work becomes much easier. Students know to consult their Weekly Bulletins to look at what they should be doing. Instead of making extra work for students to do during these times, I can keep them working on our regular curriculum. With the Weekly Bulletin, I was able to accomplish at least one writing prompt per week in the content areas.


2. Self-monitoring chart
Another goal that I have is to help students pay attention to their own behavior. Can they make good choices? Are they able to see the patterns of their behavior across the day? I made a simple self-monitoring chart to help them consider this. When there are problems in the day, I ask the students to record the issues themselves. This helps them to see what is happening and take responsibility for their actions. It works well for smaller issues (forgetting a pencil = not being proactive) and bigger issues (unkind words on the playground = not thinking before acting). I sometimes observe kids putting tallies on their sheets without my prompting, both positive and negative. This kind of thinking shows that students are taking notice of what goes on.

 I change the goals at the top frequently to reflect what is happening in the classroom. Sometimes students even make suggestions for what to add there.

These two tools help students to understand what is going on in the classroom--and become more invested in our daily routines and activities.