Student Grouping Labels

Welcome to Management Monday! Each Monday we'll tackle classroom management and include a little technology as well. This week we are looking at student grouping labels and all they can do in the classroom!

When I was still in college at SBU taking education courses for my undergrad, we used something similar to these in my block classes. Everyone had a sticker. These stickers stayed on our notebooks that we took to all our block classes (Teaching Math, Teaching Social Studies, etc.). On the sticker was our name, a colored shape, and a picture representing a season. There were basically four groups formed with each item (color, shape, and picture). The teachers used these groups throughout our classes to differentiate our groups. I will explain more as we go along.

I am teaching 8th grade math this year and I am SO excited to bring this idea to my middle school classroom. I made a template for these and you can find it here. Here are a couple pictures of my room arrangement and the stickers on desks.

My desks are hard to maneuver, but I have them arranged in 7 groups of 4.

Each group has an A, B, C, and D student and each sticker has a letter, color, number, and shape.

So here is how I am using these. They will stay on the desks so that each group of four has an A, B, C, and D. The way my desks are situated, I am already set up with 7 groups of 4. We will discuss procedures on the first day and my students will understand how these labels are going to be used. If I tell them to get into their letter groups, all the As will be together, Bs will be together, etc. In this arrangement I would have 4 groups of 7. (Note: There are 30 stickers plus blanks built in for extra or replacements. However, my classroom only has 28 desks.) I could also arrange by color, number, or shape. I designed these stickers to allow for different group sizes. I have included 6 colors to form 6 groups of 5, 5 shapes to form 5 groups of 6, and 10 numbers to form 10 groups of 3. (You may have some smaller groups if you are not using all the labels.)

Here are a couple ways I would use these (OK, quite a few ways...I got carried away):

For technology use:

Let's say, for example that you have the privilege of having 10 tablets of some kind in your classroom. You could have your students get into their number groups to use the tablets. You definitely want to plan ahead as far as how multiple students are going to share one device and have procedures set up that students know and are ready to follow. 

Another example would be if you only have 5 computers in your room. You could use stations (discussed below) and one station could be the computers. You would form 6 groups of 5 so that when a group arrived at the computers, all students would have one to themselves.

For classroom management:

This is a great tool for those rowdy or talkative classes. Some groups just need to talk! When a group has clearly been sitting for too long, get them up and moving by choosing one grouping and allowing them to share their work, comments, or questions with those group members. The best way to manage the classroom when using these groups is to have signs on the wall for each group. Perhaps in each corner is a letter sign. Also spaced around the room are number, color, and shape signs. Now when you have students get in their shape groups, they know exactly where to go and they are not wondering around the room saying, "I'm a star! Where are the other stars!" Putting signs up in my room is one of my next tasks and certainly something I will have done before school starts. If you are using these with stations (discussed below), you could use the locations of the signs as the starting  stations for each group. One less thing for you to figure out!

For stations:

Stations are a great way for you as the teacher to be able to meet with all students in one day. First, you need to figure out how much time you have, how much time you want with each group, and how many students you want in each group. These things will help you decide your group sizes and therefore, which grouping option to choose. Then you just need to give each group a place to start. Students will know immediately where to go and what to begin doing. You can meet with a group, a group could be working on homework, another group could be on the computers, while a fourth group practices on the smart board or works with manipulatives. These groups will look different depending on the class and activities. Using stations is also great with differentiation (discussed below).

For differentiation:

Another way to use these are for differentiating in a very discreet way. When you originally set up your classroom, you may not have enough information to ability group. But, you can always do this later. In elementary, you are probably given at least one set of test scores for one subject. You could group your students at the very beginning. If you want four ability groups, your letters would be your ability grouping. Then you know when you do stations by letter, that your A group is high and your D group is low (for example). I would suggest mixing up the letters so the students won't catch on so fast. In middle school, you are probably not given this information up front. But that is just fine because you are probably not giving every student their own sticker. Instead, you are placing the stickers on the desks. After the first week of school (maybe sooner depending on pre-tests), you could arrange a seating chart that used colors, for example, as ability groups. Then you could put them into color groups to work on a particularly difficult assignment or project and automatically know what groups are probably going to need your help more. At the same time, you could know that if you used colors for ability grouping, your shape groups will be fairly heterogeneous.

In elementary classrooms:

Each student would have their own sticker. They could keep it on their planner or agenda so they would have the same one even when you changed seating arrangements. You could include their name and class number if you did it this way. If you knew enough about your students in advance (or had their test scores from the year before), you could set up one of the options to use for differentiation (discussed above). These groups could be used in any subject, line order, etc. You could also use it to call on students by asking for only stars to raise their hand on a question. If you only had a few classroom jobs but wanted all students to rotate, you could have Red Job Week, where only red students would have jobs and you would switch after 2 or 3 weeks. (I NEVER suggest switching jobs after just one week, but that is a personal opinion and a rant for another day!)

In middle school classrooms:

Middle school is a whole other ballgame. You may teach the same material 5 times during the day. Choosing groups randomly may work out just fine for you. However, if you need to finish up that work the next day, are you going to remember who was in what group? The kids probably won't either! And what if a student is absent? You'll have to figure out a place for them the next day while keeping the groups even. If you arrange by a previously decided set of groupings, all you have to remember is whether you told them shape groups or color groups! If a student was gone, they know exactly what group to join and you don't have to hear, "I don't have a group!" In short, it's one less headache for middle school teachers.

Visit TPT to purchase these stickers already made and formatted for you. Just click here to go directly to the product. They are only $1.00 and come with instructions and tips for use.

So tell me, how would you use this tool? What other ways could it help in classroom management and everyday tasks? How could it be made even better?

Happy Monday and happy grouping!