Too many times my classroom has sounded exactly as it did yesterday. The concept was simple – a jigsaw over four articles that each contained a real-world scenario related to themes from Romeo and Juliet. Each student would read one article, meet in their expert groups to discuss their article, and then regroup to share out with students who read something different.. I numbered them off with 1’s reading Article 1, 2’s reading Article 2 and so on. Simple enough, right? Wrong.
“Miss, I forgot my number?”
“Miss I accidentally read the wrong article.”
Suddenly, I look up and I have seven students in my expert group for Article 1 and only two students in my expert group for Article 2?
It was chaos.
To be fair, this was mostly a rookie mistake. I had peeled my miracle garage sale stickers off my desk in preparation for summer and my system of managing groups completely fell apart. I am a firm believer in having the onus of learning on students so I do whatever I can in my classroom to make sure students are reading, discussing, and writing about grade-level complex text. Except for the longest time that “discussing” piece would fall apart – mostly for reasons like what happened yesterday. Then I saw an elementary school teacher putting garage sale dots on her students’ desks and an idea was born.
I teach high school English, but I can borrow from my elementary school friends if they have genius ideas, and this was, in fact, a genius idea. The concept is simple and truly only cost about $2.00 from Amazon. I have students in pods in my classroom (but this works even without pods). Each desk has a colored garage sale sticker on the corner of the desk (packing taped down, because high schoolers).
Each pod has one color per desk (so one desk has green, one pink, one blue, etc.) From here I can use the dots as I please to make groupings and jigsaws feel seamless. Blues are all reading the same article. And if they forget? They need only look at the color sticker on their desk.
The stickers also do more than organize jigsaws or seamlessly put students into groups. On any given day I can say “Greens, you’re the sharing for your pod first.” Or, “pink you are timekeeper for this activity.” That way I don’t have to wait for kids to volunteer, I’m not calling on the same reliable kids every time, and the kids are on their A-game because they know at any moment their sticker might be assigned with a task. I’m not saying this is a perfect engagement tool and you no longer will have apathetic kids, you have to build some other structures in place to make students know that you will hold them accountable for their assigned sticker task but it definitely makes the process smoother.
It also takes the embarrassment out of it for students. They know ALL the other “blues” or “pinks” or whatever are in the same boat and therefore are far more willing to share.
The other tool I have in my rotation is something I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. They are Random Grouping Cards by Mya Victoria. These too have been a lifesaver in my classroom management.
If I need more than five groups, or the stickers just aren’t the vibe for the day, I pass one out to every student. Each card has 14 different categories on it: Marvel characters, Hogwarts houses, popular snacks, board games — all things my students actually recognize. The magic is in how you use the groupings. I decide the category based on how many groups I need to fulfill the task. Hogwarts houses gives me four, Marvel characters gives me six. All the Thors can go to this corner of the room and work on this part of the activity where Spiderman can do the opposite and so-on. This is brilliant because the kids can’t game the system. When I used to use other grouping cards or popsicle sticks, kids would be trading before I finished the directions. With this, it’s much harder because they don’t know which category I plan to use until it’s too late. No trading to be with their friends.
Both of these tools serve the same purpose – getting kids into the work faster and keeping them there longer. The novelty of the random grouping cards and the utter simplicity of the garage sale stickers removes any class time that gets eaten up through transitioning to these activities. I no longer have to pull kids out of learning. Because at the end of the day, I’m not trying to sell some gimmick about grouping students, I’m just trying to make sure every minute in my classroom counts.