Collaborative Grouping 6-12 Math Teachers

Workshop Outcomes Participants will gain effective strategies for forming and facilitating a classroom culture that supports effective collaborative groups. Participants will recognize what types of tasks are appropriate for collaborative group work. Participants will understand and be able to describe instructional benefits of collaborative group work and how group work supports the Common Core State Mathematical Practice Standards.

Workshop Activities Participants will experience four things during this workshop: 1. Use a variety of strategies for forming and organizing collaborative groups. 2. Complete tasks that lend themselves to collaborative group work. 3. View and reflect on short videos illustrating a variety of collaborative group work activities in classrooms. 4. Discuss and make connections between their experiences during this workshop and the Mathematics Practices Standards.

Forming Groups with Quotients & Remainders We will number off, remember your number! Next we will divide by the next larger integer N of the quotient #people/4. (For example N =8 for 29 people) Your group is the remainder when dividing your number by N. Check with a neighbor if you are not sure! (person 23 is in group 7) Introduce your group members. Take notes, since a random person will be chosen to introduce the small group members to the large group

Broken Squares Activity Read the rules of the game Any questions? minutes

Broken Squares Individual Reflection To what extent did everyone in your group keep working until everyone was done? What supported and/or got in the way of that? How did your group meet the need of completing your square? How did your help meet the needs of other group members?

Broken Squares Group Discussion Share ideas from your individual reflection What norms or working agreements should be in place in order for this activity to have the greatest chance for success? Make a list.

Norms for Group Activities Circle the norms you used for this activity Which norms were needed for the activity to be effective? What norms were similar to those in the list your created?

Choosing our Norms Let’s decide upon some norms that will guide our collaborative work today

Talking Chips Question: How will you as teacher make these norms a part of your classroom culture?

A Strategy for Facilitating Productive Discourse: Go Around One Protocol The first person person makes one comment Move on to the next person to share a comment with no repeats Continue around the table to share until time runs out or all ideas have been shared

Forming New Groups New Strategy:

Examples of Groupwork in Classrooms: Video 1 math-lesson Reflection Questions: (on reflection sheet hand-out) Why did Irina choose the groups the way she did? How can this strategy increase student engagement and productivity? What strategies did she use so that her groups could function effectively? Compare and contrast the learning that occurred here versus as worksheet. Use the Go Around One Protocol for small group sharing

Examples of Groupwork in Classrooms: Video 2 Reflection Questions: (on reflection sheet hand-out) How would the teacher effectively monitor the learning of the individual students? Who had access to the activity and learning? What was each student gaining from this situation? How do you know? How would you have designed the groupwork more effectively so that each student had equitable access to the learning? Use the Go Around One Protocol for small group sharing

Examples of Groupwork in Classrooms: Video 3 ccssmdc Reflection Questions: (on reflection sheet hand-out) What do students learn from collaboratively viewing student work samples? How would you decide to group the students for this activity? Why is it important for the groups to have guiding questions for the activity? What other ways can we use collaborative learning that are not focused around a specific math task? Compare and contrast how group work was used in this video versus the first two. Use Think-Pair-Share for this small group sharing: Reflect on your own, then exchange comments with a partner, then exchange several key insights with the other pair (a group of three if necessary because of odd group size).

Examples of Groupwork in Classrooms: Video 4 group-work Reflection Questions: (on reflection sheet hand-out) Why did Ms. Warburton feel it was important for students to think on their own before they had group time? How did the two approaches compare to each other? What structures did each of them use? Use either Think-Pair-Share or the Go Around One Protocol for small group sharing—explain why you chose that strategy during the discussion!

Large Group Discussion Groups share one comparison or contrast they observed between the group work videos. Use this Share One Protocol : Each group chooses a list of ideas to potentially share Each group shares one idea from their list Subsequent groups do not repeat or restate earlier ideas After going around once, reverse direction with the same procedure if there are still important ideas to share

Form New Groups This time, choose your group of 3-5 based upon similar interests/topics: Grade level and math content. Each group will choose a different task from one of these areas: Algebra, Geometry, Middle School, Pythagorean Proof, 3 Miscellaneous, Group Project.

Individual Task Time 5 minutes to read your task and analyze how to begin (without talking) and think about the following: How would I begin this task? What other strategies could be used? How would I facilitate this task in a collaborative group setting?

Group Task Time 5-10 minutes completing the problem as a group, simultaneously recording work on your poster paper As you work, consider: Different methods or strategies The Mathematical Practices that you have used What you gained from the experience of doing the task as a group.

Small Group Discussion Share in small groups using the strategy Go Around One with this twist: Before giving your comment, paraphrase the previous comment (the first speaker paraphrases the last comment). Go around one time for each of the following questions: (10 minutes) What did you gain from this group experience? What might students struggle with and how would you address that? What Mathematical Practices were used in the process of solving the problem collaboratively. How would you best design this as a collaborative group task for your classroom? (how many per group, structure, norms, directions, etc.) Add a summary of your discussion to the bottom of your poster

Whole Group Share out/Gallery Walk (If choosing to do the share-out have participants:) BRIEFLY describe the task What did the members of your group learn from this collaborative group work experience? (Otherwise, have participants do a gallery walk to:) Observe the findings of each group

Form New Groups New Suggested Strategy (this can be used when students in a class have already worked in several groups—it allows their choice but also encourages mixing of participants): Form new groups of 3-4. The only condition is that everyone in each group must be able to identify at least one person in their new group they have not already worked with previously.

Final “Aha” Activity Side A Check the envelope for your topic in order to answer: What does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What are students doing? What is the teacher doing? Side B

Final “Aha” Activity Pair up one Group A with one Group B Each pair compare your posters: Each group describes their task to the other group. Circle any similarities What are the implications?

Individual Reflection Take 5 minutes to reflect on the poster activity & write down any insight or take-aways you have Also answer the following questions: What is my plan for incorporating collaborative group work? Think about what you need to do to get there: What must be taught, planned, re-taught, or reinforced to make collaborative group work successful? What other information do I want to seek out from other resources?

Evaluation Please fill out the form to give us your feedback! Also, please take the “ Keys to Successful Groupwork ” NCTM article for further reading and investigation