Beginning of the Year Procedures
The most important part of starting small groups in your classroom is the environment that you as the teacher establish the first few weeks of school.
Making your classroom a welcoming, inclusive environment where student voice is heard and respected will go a long way toward setting up success for small groups.
This is also the perfect time to clearly state the expectations you have for your students.
Below are some helpful tips on how to make this all happen!
Small Groups
Implementing small group instruction in a social studies classroom can be highly effective for engaging students, promoting critical thinking, and accommodating diverse learning needs.
This strategy can be used in any K-12 classroom with planning and practice. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you integrate small group instruction.
Set Clear Objectives
Define the purpose of the small group activity (examples - analyzing primary sources, discussing historical events, solving a problem, learning a standard, enrichment for gifted and higher-level students, re-teaching a skill, etc). This is a perfect time to use the data from Exploros to guide instruction!
Align the activity with your learning goals for the lesson or unit specific to the standards being addressed.
Pro-tip: Display the learning goal and refer to it when you begin your small group lesson. This will help clearly define the reason and goal for the time period.
Organize Groups Strategically
Here are some ways to organize small groups:
Homogeneous Grouping: Group students with similar skills or needs together for targeted instruction or intervention. This can be assessed using data from Exploros quizzes, unit tests, or teacher observations during class.
Advantages: Allows for targeted instruction, especially in differentiated learning. Students with similar needs can focus on specific skills.
Challenges: This will take some planning and practice, but it is worth it in terms of student engagement, skill mastery, and establishing relationships. Ideas on how to structure the classroom schedule for small groups:
Best For: Intervention, enrichment, establishing relationships, ensuring mastery of a standard or skill.
Group Size: Keep groups small, ideally 3-5 students, to ensure everyone participates.
Pro tip: Don’t just work with students who need intervention. Rotate all groups through teacher-directed small group instruction. In addition, keep groups flexible depending upon need.
Heterogeneous Grouping: Mix students with varying abilities, backgrounds, and perspectives to encourage peer learning.
Advantages: Promotes diverse perspectives and peer learning, as students with different strengths can support each other.
Challenges: Managing varying abilities can be complex; stronger students might dominate discussions if not properly managed.
Best For: Activities that require multiple skills (e.g., research, discussion, critical thinking) and when you want to encourage collaboration among different ability levels.
Group Size: Keep groups small, ideally 3-5 students, to ensure everyone participates.
Pro-Tip: Know your students. There may be cases where students may choose their group members or you may decide to set up the groups prior to setting up the task. Use your best judgment depending upon your class, needs, behavior, and time.
Random Grouping: Students are assigned to groups without considering their abilities, skills, or other characteristics. The assignment to groups is entirely random, which can be done using various methods such as drawing names from a hat, using a random number generator, assigning numbers or colors, or simply counting off.
Advantages: Simple and quick to organize, and can prevent students from always working with the same peers.
Challenges: Can result in uneven group dynamics or ability levels.
Best For: Short, low-stakes activities or when you want to mix up instruction.
Group Size: Keep groups small, ideally 3-5 students, to ensure everyone participates.
Pro-Tip: Know your students. There may be cases when you are aware that certain students are not going to be able to be in the same group or you prefer some students to be together because it works well and they are supportive of one another. Use your best judgment depending upon your class, needs, behavior, and time.
Plan the Activity
Plan for Small Groups and the Class
Ensure that those students not in the small group have a task or set of tasks to complete while you are working with the small group.
Establish norms and expectations around how you would like students to handle issues such as questions about assignments, restroom breaks, behavior, etc. If you are lucky enough to have another adult in your classroom, he or she can monitor or work with the rest of the class on a whole group instructional task.
Hold Students Accountable To ensure participation, assign students tasks to either share with the entire group or with a partner during the small group instruction block. This also includes all of the students who are not in the small group.
Content: Exploros provides activities that can be completed in small groups, individually, or with a partner. The evaluation section of the experience provides data on how students are doing as far as mastery of the material. The 5-E model gives you access to activities that will drive your instruction.
Engage - Bell Ringer or Introduction (Time estimate: 20 minutes
Explore and Explain - Deep learning of standards (Time estimate: 50 minutes each)
Elaborate - Extension and practice of standards (Time estimate: At least 50 minutes or more)
Evaluate - Exit ticket or assessment of learning (Time estimate: 20 minutes)
Pro-tip: Don’t feel as though you have to grade everything! If you assign a list of tasks, tell students to complete them all but you will decide which one to grade. Sometimes just making sure an assignment is completed can be a grade. Pick and choose the best assessments of student work. Exploros does the grading for you so that is one item you don’t have to worry about!
Provide Clear Instructions: Give step-by-step guidance on what students need to accomplish.
Whole Group - Be Specific. For the whole group, this may entail writing instructions on the board, displaying instructions using a projection device, giving students a paper list with instructions, etc.
Small Group - Ask Guiding Questions: Prompt deeper thinking and discussion by asking open-ended questions. Be prepared with these questions ahead of time.
Use Diverse Materials: Include a variety of resources (texts, videos, maps, primary sources) to cater to different student strengths.
Facilitate and Monitor
Monitor: While you are working with a small group, scan the classroom every minute or two to make sure the rest of the class is on task. If you have an inclusion teacher or assistant, he or she can also help monitor and teach.
Provide Feedback: Offer immediate feedback to guide students' understanding and progress. Practice, practice, practice procedures and expectations! It will take about 2-3 months for students to completely master these expectations so patience is key.
Encourage Collaboration
Establish Norms: Teach and reinforce norms for respectful communication, active listening, and constructive feedback. Even in small groups, there should be expectations for students.
Foster a Supportive Environment: Create an atmosphere where students feel safe to share ideas and take risks.
Assessment and Reflection
Assess Group Work Prompt students to either write or share with the group what they learned during their small group time.
Debrief:: After the activity, think about the learning; how the group work went and what could be improved.
Adapt and Differentiate
Differentiate Tasks: Tailor activities to meet the diverse needs of your students (e.g., offering different levels of reading materials).
Flexible Grouping: Regularly change groups based on the task or learning needs, allowing students to work with different peers.
Pro tip: Keep data on your students and how they performed in their small group. This helps you as a teacher target areas of need for each student and make instructional adjustments. Here are some organizational ideas from The Simply Organized Teacher. While this site specifically refers to elementary, it can be used for secondary teachers, too!
Example Activities
Jigsaw: Each person reads a different part of a selection, then shares their findings with the group.
Debate: Small groups prepare arguments for or against a historical decision or policy.
Case Studies: Groups analyze historical case studies, discuss implications, and present conclusions.
Role-Playing: Students take on roles of historical figures or groups to explore different perspectives.
Reflect and Iterate
Evaluate Effectiveness: Reflect on what worked well and what didn’t. Ask students their thoughts.
Adjust Future Lessons: Use insights gained to refine future small group activities.
Believe it or not, all students no matter if you are teach kindergarten or seniors in high school, all love small groups. This is because it allows them to have a time to have their learning needs met and to establish and build a relationship with the teacher and other students in the group. By thoughtfully planning and facilitating small group instruction, you can create a more dynamic and engaging social studies classroom that supports all learners.
Want More? Below are links to outside resources on small group instruction: