Discover the basics of flexible grouping, including why organizing students into groups in a variety of ways can improve their learning, self-esteem, and interpersonal communication.

Master flexible grouping and differentiation strategies to challenge every learner, every day. Grouping learners purposefully throughout the school day based on their needs and the curriculum remains the single best way to differentiate instruction. This award-winning guide will help teachers expertly use flexible grouping and differentiation strategies to respond to students’ diverse learning needs, abilities, and interests. Included are methods for creating groups based on assessment data, planning group lessons and tiered assignments, engaging learners at all levels, supporting personalized learning, grading collaborative work, and communicating with parents about the benefits of groupwork and productive struggle. Digital content contains all forms from the book and a PDF presentation. A free online PLC/Book Study Guide is available at freespirit.com/PLC.

Want to make your instruction more equitable and effective, more interesting, and more fun? It's time to try flexible grouping. Unlike traditional grouping, which typically puts like with like or combines students without regard to the best way to promote their individual growth, flexible grouping is both purposeful and fluid, regularly combining and recombining different students in different ways to pursue a wide range of academic and affective goals. In this comprehensive guide to flexible grouping, author Kristina J. Doubet shares a staged implementation approach that takes students from simple partner set-ups designed to build cooperative skills to complex structures ideal for interest and readiness-informed academic exploration. She covers the key factors to consider when forming groups and highlights how this approach to organizing learning can help you disrupt rigid tracking, deliver targeted instruction, connect to student interests, boost collaboration, and build community. Focused, practical, and written for teachers of all subjects and grade levels, The Flexibly Grouped Classroom provides * Dozens of strategies to expand your instructional repertoire, along with links to additional models and resources; * Guidance on setting the tone and expectations for group tasks, ideas for student role distribution, and tips for monitoring progress, noise, and time; * A planning template and sample grouping plans for an elementary and secondary classroom; and * Specific troubleshooting advice to help you navigate common complications. Choosing to make your classroom a flexibly grouped one means positioning every student to learn better—without feeling superior or inferior, without being overburdened or underchallenged—and to discover for themselves how much farther they can go together than they ever could alone.

Want to make your instruction more equitable and effective, more interesting, and more fun? It's time to try flexible grouping. Unlike traditional grouping, which typically puts like with like or combines students without regard to the best way to promote their individual growth, flexible grouping is both purposeful and fluid, regularly combining and recombining different students in different ways to pursue a wide range of academic and affective goals. In this comprehensive guide to flexible grouping, author Kristina J. Doubet shares a staged implementation approach that takes students from simple partner set-ups designed to build cooperative skills to complex structures ideal for interest and readiness-informed academic exploration. She covers the key factors to consider when forming groups and highlights how this approach to organizing learning can help you disrupt rigid tracking, deliver targeted instruction, connect to student interests, boost collaboration, and build community. Focused, practical, and written for teachers of all subjects and grade levels, The Flexibly Grouped Classroom provides * Dozens of strategies to expand your instructional repertoire, along with links to additional models and resources; * Guidance on setting the tone and expectations for group tasks, ideas for student role distribution, and tips for monitoring progress, noise, and time; * A planning template and sample grouping plans for an elementary and secondary classroom; and * Specific troubleshooting advice to help you navigate common complications. Choosing to make your classroom a flexibly grouped one means positioning every student to learn better—without feeling superior or inferior, without being overburdened or underchallenged—and to discover for themselves how much farther they can go together than they ever could alone.

Promote cooperative learning more effectively by transforming your classroom into a learning community. Experienced K–12 educators Paul J. Vermette and Cynthia L. Kline offer their Dual Objective Model as a tool for improving your students’ academic achievement and problem-solving skills, while encouraging their social and emotional development. You’ll discover how to: assign meaningful tasks that require students to rely on one another; build efficient teams, purposefully monitor group dynamics, and assess group projects effectively; engage students in schoolwork while developing crucial career and life skills; motivate students to see the importance of personal and group responsibility; maximize the benefits of student diversity in your classroom. Emphasizing teamwork, persistence, communication, self-regulation, and empathy in a complex, diverse, and technological setting, these strategies can be easily incorporated into any curriculum. The book is filled with vignettes and sample exercises to help you apply the ideas to your own classroom. Each chapter includes a list of "Big Ideas," which invites you to consider how these strategies can evolve over time.

We constantly hear cries from politicians for teachers to have high expectations. But what this means in practical terms is never spelled out. Simply deciding that as a teacher you will expect all your students to achieve more than other classes you have taught in the same school, is not going to translate automatically into enhanced achievement for students. Becoming a High Expectation Teacher is a book that every education student, training or practising teacher, should read. It details the beliefs and practices of high expectation teachers – teachers who have high expectations for all their students – and provides practical examples for teachers of how to change classrooms into ones in which all students are expected to learn at much higher levels than teachers may previously have thought possible. It shows how student achievement can be raised by providing both research evidence and practical examples. This book is based on the first ever intervention study in the teacher expectation area, designed to change teachers’ expectations through introducing them to the beliefs and practices of high expectation teachers. A holistic view of the classroom is emphasised whereby both the instructional and socio-emotional aspects of the classroom are considered if teachers are to increase student achievement. There is a focus on high expectation teachers, those who have high expectations for all students, and a close examination of what it is that these teachers do in their classrooms that mean that their students make very large learning gains each year. Becoming a High Expectation Teacher explores three key areas in which what high expectation teachers do differs substantially from what other teachers do: the way they group students for learning, the way they create a caring classroom community, and the way in which they use goalsetting to motivate students, to promote student autonomy and to promote mastery learning. Areas covered include:- Formation of teacher expectations Teacher personality and expectation Ability grouping and goal setting Enhancing class climate Sustaining high expectations for students Becoming a High Expectation Teacher is an essential read for any researcher, student, trainee or practicing teacher who cares passionately about the teacher-student relationship and about raising expectations and student achievement.

Student engagement is a crucial catalyst for positive learning outcomes, and educators must plan for engagement in all aspects of teaching. In this quick reference guide, Susan Hentz and Michelle Vacchio present strategies to foster student engagement through four key steps:* Build a community of learners.* Establish effective classroom management.* Plan for collaboration in flexible groups.* Develop questioning and discussion.Engaging Students in Every Classroom helps teachers facilitate, guide, and encourage learners to become active participants in the classroom; provides reflection questions educators can use to monitor their own progress; and supplies the essential structures and actions that best set up every classroom for engagement.8.5" x 11" 3-panel foldout guide (6 pages), laminated for extra durability and 3-hole-punched for binder storage.