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As an instructional coach, I find
myself telling teachers, “If you are running low on time and have only enough
minutes left for either a whole class lesson or small group instruction, always
choose small group.”
This is because so much happens at “the
table”. When we have a homogeneous small
group of readers or mathematicians as a captive audience, the purpose of our
time together is to literally move learners forward in 20 minutes. There is a feeling of intensity and purpose
when we are working with a small group. Because
we choose texts, skills, or strategies that are purposefully at a student’s “cutting
edge” of learning, we actually move learners forward every time we meet!
To help make our time at the table
matter, we have to be intentional as we introduce them. I love explaining to my students the
difference between the independent work that they are doing during our reading
block, and the work that happens in small group. Stations, independent reading,
and response to reading are awesome opportunities to think about their thinking
and to practice what they know. In
contrast, I tell students that they should not
know all of the answers during small group time. Kids should be grappling and
understand the importance of the work. This
is not a time for practice, but instead a time that is intentionally focused on
individual learning. I explain what it
means to be working at the cutting edge of your knowledge and we talk about how
that feels. I always tell them that they
should be sweating when they leave!
My work at the table is different too. I am a facilitator, a pusher, a
challenger. I do not impart much information
or even share much of my thinking when I am with a small group. My job is to question, to rephrase my
questions, to give LOTS of wait time, and to create opportunities for students
to improve as a reader. My favorite question
at the end of a small group session is, “So, what do you know now that you didn’t
know 20 minutes ago?” Don’t be afraid to
ask this. It brings accountability to
the table, both theirs and yours.
The last way to insure that our
time is spent purposefully and intentionally is to take the best anecdotal
records possible of the magic happening at the table. How can we possibly let
this time just happen without capturing the learning that is taking place? How will we know the best thing to do
tomorrow if we haven’t been intentional in our collection of what happened
today? Let’s face it, we are teaching
all day long, dealing with a million things by lunchtime, if we don’t write down
what happened, we will not remember what one student did, or what we did to
help him/her.
As our school moved through the
process of improving our anecdotal note forms in both math and reading last
year, our whole staff worked together to streamline the process and to pack as
much information about our check-ins with kiddos as possible. One great idea that we added to our form is a
T P
R inside each square. These letters stand for Teaching, Prompting
and Reinforcing. Each time we write down
a student behavior, we circle one of the letters so that we not only capture
what our students are doing, we also record how much of us (the teacher) was
required for the students to show what they know.
It's an exciting time of the year
in our schools! Teachers and students are settling in to procedures, and
schedules, and to each other. The beginning
of the year data has been collected, the individual student conferences have
taken place, and we are ready to take on the most exciting work that we
do. It’s small group time! Teach!
Indiana!!
