Small Groups, Big Impact: A Closer Look at Dynamic Instruction

In Season 2, we're looking to share the voices of teachers and reflection on the work that they're doing. In this episode, we visit Mrs. Peach's classroom. As she teaches her her small group math lessons, we'll see what we can learn from her decisions and thought process. No matter your grade, experience level, or content area- this episode has something for you.

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Core Teaching Practices Episode
Core Teaching Practices

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Transcript

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Ashley O'Neil: 0:00

For people who want to look under the hood of a classroom, have we got an episode for you? When I was a teacher, one of the things I missed was learning from my colleagues. Yeah, we would meet at committee meetings, we'd swap ideas via text, but I never really got the chance to see anyone but myself teach. And when I had an activity that didn't go well, and my colleagues would teach the same lesson with more success, we might debrief after, but it wasn't the same. And I always wondered what it was like to sit in their room and experience a lesson like a student. And beyond a debacle lesson, I knew that if I could observe someone who taught in a different school, a different grade a different subject, it didn't matter, I knew that I could have learned so much from watching their interactions with students. This episode is what I would have liked that experience to be observing a teacher in your class, reflecting on what I noticed, and the questions that I had, learning by being a fly on the wall and the day to day of a classroom. Because when managing the social emotional care of a group of children, you're making a lot of decisions. And when you couple that with trying to teach them fractions, or history or phonics, you've compounded those decisions, making opportunities by a lot more. So this episode, and the several that follow it in this season are a deep dive into the thinking of students and teachers. Because good teaching is both proactive and reactive. It is a skill to anticipate where your students are and what they need. And it is another vital skill to be able to be responsive to the kids in front of you. Balancing your goals with the student conceptions and the needs they bring is a forever fine tuning that teachers are doing in their own practice. Now there are a ton of angles we could dive into here, ways in which the teacher manages last minute groups which because of another teacher schedule conflict, how they're building relationships, while holding students to an academic standard. There's a lot and we'll point out a few of those places along the way. But the big focus in this episode, we'll be looking at the ways that these teachers elicit and interpret student thinking, and the ways in which they coordinate and adjust instruction during the lesson. For all of you core teaching fans out there, we're focusing on practices three and six. A few caveats before we get started. Teaching is a difficult, unpredictable and responsive profession. And the work that these teachers are doing is grounded in a desire to build a safe and collaborative learning environment. And I was an outsider who came in for snippets of time, their backstories that I don't have, and neither do you. So the interjections that I'm making are built on some assumptions that I had to make during my brief visits. And as we listen and debrief these lessons together, I challenge you to keep your head grounded in the opportunities that hearing these snippets can provide. And also the limitations that come from not having the full story. So with that in mind, let's get started

Mr. G: 2:41

(fade)...two one zero, thank you. Thank you, Byron. Alright, my friends, so...(fade)

Ashley O'Neil: 2:55

So these two teachers are in a unique position. Their classrooms are connected with a set of double doors, they plan together share students for activities, and really try to maximize the potential that co teaching can provide. You'll hear from both of these teachers as some directions are given to both classrooms during math groups, and the kids are assigned to groups based on the skill they're building instead of the teacher they're formally assigned to. They build groups based on a pretest that we'll get into more later. But for now, let's know this. The rhythm of each small group is about 13 to 15 minutes. Each kid has access to a whiteboard marker and is either drawing on the table itself or on the whiteboard, depending on the classroom. If I were to give you a bullet point lesson plan for each group, it would go like this. One, introduce objective two review vocab of product multiply and groups of three, practice one to two problems on the whiteboard. That's it, that's what would have been documented. Now, let's listen to how those plans play out in the classroom. We start by getting students into the right physical spaces. (Sounds as students move and get ready) So. Mr. G finished walking the students through the station groups because they'll be going to different activities in each room at this point. He's just focused on orienting the students to the board so they can see who's in what groups the students find their groups and then some of them move to Mrs. Peach's room and the rest stay with Mr. G.

Mr. G: 4:39

(Sounds as both teachers give directions to students.) so we're going to be doing multiplying by six for the Mr. G don't already you guys will be doing a number line multiplying by six with with Yes. All right.

Ashley O'Neil: 5:00

As the students move into their spaces and get settled, Mrs. Peach and Mr. G are both working on specific skills with their table groups.

Mrs. Peach: 5:08

All right, my friends, we are quiet so let's bring our voices down a little bit. Thank you. Alright guys, can tell Mrs. Peach what we learned about yesterday? What do we learn about yesterday?(fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 5:24

Yesterday in math, both Mrs. Peach and Mr. G introduced multiplication strategies. They modeled visual thinking skills like arrays, making groups of dots and skip counting. The stated goals for both Mrs. Peaches groups and Mr. G's groups is to understand multiplication properties. Throughout the lesson, we'll pause and make note of the other embedded goals that each teacher has. Think of what you had on your desks yesterday. Everybody was given something, we used cubes. Okay, nice job. What do we do with those cubes? What did we do with the cubes yesterday? Sariah.

Student: 6:02

We use them into groups?

Mrs. Peach: 6:04

We use them into groups. Okay. Now what what were we working on it when we were making groups? What are we doing? Are we adding, subtracting, multiplying? We'll be doing yesterday.

Ashley O'Neil: 6:18

Now with this first group, Mrs. Peach tries to elicit the response of "making groups" or "multiplication" or"repeated addition" from the students at the table. She reminds them of objects that they worked with the previous day as a way to trigger a memory. Now the first group eventually does remember, but for the second group, she initiates the group discussion in a different way.

Mrs. Peach: 6:37

So we were using a strategy making groups right, so we made groups, right? So Mrs. Peach is going to write an equation on this board. And I would like to see if you remember what we did yesterday. So you're going to show me on your board. Okay, and Mrs. Peach is going to put the equation up

Ashley O'Neil: 6:58

So remember, the overall goal on the board is(fades) multiplication strategies. And the method these teachers used was showing different strategies visually, arrays, groups have skipped counting. And so when the students are asked to start building groups on their whiteboards, one of them pairs, the images, he sees his peers drawing with the vocabulary word he heard the day before.

Student: 7:18

So I have a good questions. When you're doing arrays, and like when you go straight down, and there's only four and it's not five- would you still count that?

Ashley O'Neil: 7:27

it makes sense. Six times eight drawn as groups of six boxes with eight dots in each box. And an array is a grid made by splitting a box into eight rows and six columns, counting the total number of small boxes made. So Mrs. Peach validates his question and clarifies

Mrs. Peach: 7:44

you know why honey an array is a little bit different? That's a great question, honey, because yesterday we taught that and so in an array (Fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 7:51

She quickly draws an array and points out the differences between the two strategies. You can see Mrs. Peach watching the students face for cues that he's on board with this differentiation. When it's clear that it makes sense to him, she pulls the rest of the group into their conversation.

Mrs. Peach: 8:06

Thank you for asking that. Did you hear that question?

Ashley O'Neil: 8:09

This does two things. It further validates the thinking of this student. And it helps provide clarification to any other student who may have been thinking something similar, and just hadn't said it out loud.

Mrs. Peach: 8:20

Alright, so let's go ahead and let's do six times(fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 8:27

So this is the first week of small groups on this topic. And in all of the groups today, it is taking some time for them to remember the language of multiplication. What is the answer? Words like groups of times multiply and solutions are barriers between them and the problem on the board. And all of the groups Mrs. Peach is balancing wait time as she lets them consider the words in the language that go along with these numbers with humor and gently supplying the answers for them to keep them on track.

Mrs. Peach: 8:58

Product... (laughs and "ohs" from students) you guys remember talking about that? We haven't talked about that for a while.

Ashley O'Neil: 9:08

So now the students are getting into the problem making phase of the small group, Mrs. Peach's plan is to give them something times six but quickly has to pivot.

Mrs. Peach: 9:16

Mrs. Peach has an equation written on the board. It is six times seven. It's a pretty big one. This happens to be my favorite location. (kids share they just did this problem and say the answer).

Ashley O'Neil: 9:25

based on conversations with these teachers and my own experience, the problem choices here are intentional. When you're teaching multiplication and require some strategy, students tend to naturally understand in group numbers times one times 210s and fives quickly thanks to the hard work that has been put in building number sense in K - 1. For some students fours make a lot of sense because they are double twos. So Mrs. Peach looking for numbers that students may not already be grouping naturally in their heads, giving them a strategy for when that number isn't easy to mentally visualize, while also helping them practice a problem that might make it easier to visualize later.

Mrs. Peach: 10:02

Wow, you guys are so smart. All right, I'm gonna give you a different one. Don't blurt it out this time we're gonna make groups up. All right, so let's try this one.(fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 10:17

Without pause, she picks a new problem. But now the students are on a roll, excited that they can share the answer. But Mrs. Peach knows that if they just say the answer quickly, it isn't going to serve the students and the whole group to dig into the strategy she has in mind. She needs them to draw it out and talk about what they're actually doing with those numbers. So she gets a bit playful and she dares them not to blurt out the next answer. This encourages and playful laughter from the group and gets them back onto building those numbers in their whiteboard. Now, this is a moment when a way a lot of us were taught math deviates from what's happening at this table right now. The kids knew the answer, right? Why do they have to draw it? Shouldn't we celebrate and move on? Yes, let's celebrate. And let's take a minute to consider the planning that went into this group. These two teachers met and looked over the students pretest for the unit, the pretest assess their ability to understand what it means to multiply not just do they have their facts memorized. And we in education are learning and know that memorization is helpful for speed and efficiency in later math work. But if students don't understand what it is those numbers are doing, they'll have a harder time applying those same skills to more complex tasks. dribbling a recipe for a family gathering. It's great if you have your three facts memorized. But you won't be able to apply that knowledge until you've been able to establish that needing more cookies than the recipe calls for means making a bigger batch. And if you're not firmly cemented in your understanding of numbers as quantities, it's really tricky to check your own work, make you more likely to add too much flour or not enough chocolate chips. Recipe disaster.

Mrs. Peach: 11:52

Okay. So I'm gonna read this equation to you. Okay? When we see a multiplication problem, you guys can read it like this as well. Okay? What this is telling us is that we have six groups of eight. So guys, even the word of means to multiply. Okay, so we have six groups of eight objects. Can you guys show that to Mrs. Peach? Show me six groups of eight objects. And you guys show me that? Six?

Ashley O'Neil: 12:23

Okay. Here, Mrs. Peaches embedding that language again, whether it's from the pretest, the student responses she's getting in the moment, she's being really mindful of her language and her response to student needs of the students to start drawing right away. And I noticed a few things. The students are being suspiciously careful of the boxes that they're drawing, erasing them if they're not the same size. One student even uses her finger to kind of space plan where the boxes will go on the whiteboard before starting. I'm confused. And then I get some clarity.

Mrs. Peach: 12:53

Eight objects. So are we going to make them look the same?

Student: 13:00

Yes,

Mrs. Peach: 13:01

they are equal groups. So show me them. And remember, like we talked yesterday, whatever box one looks like, the rest of the boxes need to look like.

Ashley O'Neil: 13:11

another responsive skill building woman, when we multiply we're adding equal groups of numbers together. So as the students are drawing, they're being mindful of the sizes of their boxes, which represent the groups. Both to make sure their work is neat and easier to look back on and count. Mrs. Peach reinforces this several times, and to reinforce the idea that we're adding equal quantities.

Mrs. Peach: 13:34

Buddy you're going a little big so how about Mrs. Peach gives you a second word that you can add to it if you need.

Ashley O'Neil: 13:42

Okay, I'm dwelling on this moment, just a bit. But just one more thing. Teachers know that we have to balance a student's skills and practice with their own patients and current skill level. Now Mrs. Peach doesn't want the students to get too bogged down by redrawing boxes at nauseum and miss the math. But also, she's established that consistent sizing is important. So when she notices a student is drawing boxes too big to fit on one board, she makes a decision. Instead of having them start over, she gives him a second board and puts another on the table. This way the student and any others who need it can keep the boxes they have and keep going. It's smooth and quick and seemingly effortless. But for a student who may get frustrated easily, who may need to like draw larger boxes for their own dexterity, who may lose learning time by starting over. This was a potential sticking point in the lesson and she sidestepped it. She met them where they are. This moment builds trust and security between the student and the teacher and keeps the group on track. We'll jump over to Mr. G's class in just a minute. But before we do, I have two other moments from Mrs. Peters small group that I want to point out. One this moment. What she's seeing is a student who's lost count of his dots. He's got about 15 dots inside of the box that he's drawing to make six times eight. Now remember six groups of eight So we have six equal sized boxes that are supposed to have eight dots inside of each box. The part that's interesting here is how she starts the conversation with a question and how she facilitates the group when a second student joins in.

Mrs. Peach: 15:15

So, Ryker honey, what's going on in that box? Is that is that eight objects?

Student: 15:24

Wait did you stack it? You can't stack more than groups of five. Oh, yeah. But look at your

Mrs. Peach: 15:33

I stacked too!.

Ashley O'Neil: 15:35

She doesn't say much. But she's watching both students. Now the stacking that they're referring to is a number sense tool that the class has been using. So our numbers are in a base 10 system, everything we do is grounded in groups of 10. And then making those groups of 10 into hundreds and on and on. And the students have been practicing this groups of 10. In all of the grades leading up to third, they make groups of 10 by using a 10 frame, which is two rows or two columns of five, depending on how you drive. And the students have been trying to draw their groups of eight by making stacks of five. It's a solid strategy, but they've gotten their numbers mixed up. So Mrs. Peach uses a few more questions to get them thinking about a different strategy that they've been practicing to quickly visualize groups below 10.

Mrs. Peach: 16:18

Oh, right. We want it to be quick and easy for ice to see. Right. So if this is ours, maybe Mrs. Peach wants it to look like a dice on the top. And I'm going to put a space and make it look like a dice on the bottom line. Is that easy for your eyes to see?

Student: 16:33

Yeah.

Unknown: 16:35

Right, and now Mrs. Peach looks and I say well, that's her before. That's a group before. Remember those cards we looked at yesterday? And how hard it was for it

Student: 16:43

they were messy. especially windows that black dice was bad because it's hard to see.

Unknown: 16:50

Yeah, you know what, buddy? I love it. Because you see how nice and big those are, is that easier to see. (fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 16:54

She never said they were wrong. She never made them a race and start over, she never really been focused on what was in front of them. Instead of focusing on the number in the box, that wasn incorrect. She talked through a strategy, drawing numbers in a way that helps them to subitize, which means to visually see the amount quickly. Mrs. Peaches focus is both on the lesson in front of them and on the future. Because down the road, the goal will be for students to draw these groups quickly count them by eight and know the answer. And further down the road. The goal is for these students to visualize these groups before they need to draw them and just know the answer that way. And this brings me to the last set of clips I wanted to share with you. I'm back one week later Bo one week in one day. And one of the first things I noticed is how differently Mrs. Peach gets the students into groups.

Mrs. Peach: 17:42

So let's go ahead and let's get where we're going. Red, Mrs. Beach blue at Miss M. green. Yes. Oh, yellow, we're here. (fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 17:55

Before we listen to the group instruction, I do want to make note of the difference in how the students got into their groups. This time. Mr. Speech barely gave instruction at all, a reference to the board and they were on their way. Now if I was a newer teacher, or even a teacher just popping in for a quick observation, I would have missed the necessary and intentional progression here. The students didn't learn station protocol overnight. Mrs. Peach built these protocols by giving explicit instructions on day one and slowly lessening them every day as she helped the students to learn to rely on the visual on the board. The students physically practice moving to the stations, and they practice relying on those visual cues instead of having misspeak explain them. This is just one clue that the class I was stepping into had grown in the eighth day since I'd visited. Mrs. Peach has the same objective properties of multiplication. And the students have whiteboards and markers again, she starts by asking them what to do when they don't immediately know the answer to a multiplication problem. The students have a lot of ideas this time.

Mrs. Peach: 18:56

It's 54, nice job. So we have the nice trick. So we have an array we have a number line. Can you remember the one that Mrs. Peach taught you guys at our table? We were making what -we did but what do we call those? (students say groups of)-so now tell Mrs. Page what is multiplication? Group the groups of numbers right? Wait, yeah. Nice.

Ashley O'Neil: 19:29

Here comes a moment that seems like a bit of a rabbit hole. One of the students wants to show Mrs. Peach how these numbers look in an array. Hisgoal is to show the difference between an array and a 10 frame. Now ten frames remember are those two by five or five by two grids that help students sort quantities into groups of 10. Mrs. Peach takes this deviation and reinforces some of the ideas that she's been working And with that we set him up like ideas about visualizing numbers. And she uses his enthusiasm to remind them how to structure their boards and some key strategies that they've learned.

Mrs. Peach: 20:10

a 10 frame yes, that

Ashley O'Neil: 20:13

she brings them back to the problem she wants them to work on.

Student: 20:18

Alright, so you guys just told Mrs. Peach that multiplication was groups of numbers. So let's look at this equation. What does that say? 6 groups of 3.

Unknown: 20:32

It does! Riker, what were you gonna say? Honey, it didn't sound like you're gonna say the same thing. (students says 6 times 3). That does say six times three. But what it actually means is what? Six? Six groups of three? Can you guys show me six groups of three.

Ashley O'Neil: 20:51

At this point, heads are down. Markers are moving and every student is drawing six boxes on their board. Now it's worth noting that the students are drawing their boxes quicker and more evenly than they were on day one. It's also worth noting that each student is drawing their groups of three as you'd see on a pair of dice. Three dots in a diagonal line. Thank you. Jackson had a question.

Unknown: 21:17

Jackson I have a question for you honey. Did you call all of these dots by themselves?

Ashley O'Neil: 21:21

One of the students flips his board and shows Mrs. Peach that he's done. He calls out the answer. And Mrs. Peach doesn't even comment on the final number. Whether or not six times three is 18. She instead asks about his process.

Mrs. Peach: 21:34

Show Mrs. Peach, how you started.

Ashley O'Neil: 21:35

He counted each step.

Mrs. Peach: 21:38

Why did you do that?

Student: 21:40

He's easier for me than counting by threes.

Mrs. Peach: 21:43

It is? Can we try to count by 3s?

Ashley O'Neil: 21:46

She asks him to count by threes and see how it goes. He does three 6, 12 and then pauses, readjusts, 9, 12 to nine.

Mrs. Peach: 21:58

Okay, let's rethink. So where are you confident? Whatdo you Where are you confident in?

Student: 22:04

I'm confide nt in knowing 3 + 3 is six.

Mrs. Peach: 22:08

Okay,so can I start with six? Can you start with six in your head? Let me hear you. 6, 12. Wait, please for a second. If you know that this box plus this box equals six. Can you go from six? And then count by Ones? Can you go once now? What six? What are you gonna do?

Student: 22:28

6, 7, 8, 9 (fades)

Ashley O'Neil: 22:31

she's encouraged him to try a new strategy. Here's the evidence of student growth and the movement of Mrs. Peaches expectation. Last week students drew their groups and counted however they felt comfortable. This time Mrs. Peach helps them use what they know- three and three, a six -to be more efficient and build their skills. She found the number of groups that he was comfortable adding mentally and then helped him combined his current strategy counting by ones with this new stress.

Mrs. Peach: 22:56

Okay, you went three to six. So did you know that these two boxes equal six? Right? So could I put six in my head and done 6,7,8,9,10,11,12, 13?

Ashley O'Neil: 23:11

She goes around to each student and does something similar?

Mrs. Peach: 23:14

Could I have done that? So look at you saved two boxes, you could have said okay, I know these two boxes are 6,7,8,9, 10,11

Ashley O'Neil: 23:22

While she's working with students individually at the rest are either finishing up their problem, or they're listening and watching the conversations as they unfold. So by the time Mrs. Peach gets to the last student, he has learned from the listening and observations that he's made.

Mrs. Peach: 23:36

And when you did your answer, or when you found your answer Ryker, did you count by threes, buddy? Or would you do I Student shares how he added 3 and 3 to 6 and then counted on by ones. So it's easy for your brain, you could easily transition from 6789 10 I think yeah, that was easy for you.

Ashley O'Neil: 23:55

This small group moment connected with me. When I was teaching even in small groups, I always struggled to to keep the rest of the group fully engaged. When I did some one on one work like this. It was really interesting to see that Mrs. Peach had built an environment that fostered curiosity. She didn't scramble to give the other something to do once they were done in waiting. The students were used to this learning pace and they were curious about their peers thinking so they just naturally observed. Here's a moment when Mrs. Peach shows that building that learning environment is intentional.

Mrs. Peach: 24:27

Okay, so I see some repeated addition going on here. Do you Jackson? Yeah. You see said she has six plus six plus six. Because I know my friend Riker said earlier that multiplication is repeated addition. Did she just show us that? So what did you do with a six? This is

Ashley O'Neil: 24:42

Mrs. Peach drew the students who are sitting next to her into the conversation with this student, not because they weren't listening, but because this was an example of a strategy that no one at the table had tried. Now she could have related this back to herself or the objectives and reviewed the strategies that she had taught them and draw it back. Actually objectives in a nice and tidy manner. But in this small move, Mrs. Peach put value on learning from your classmates.

Mrs. Peach: 25:08

Nice job. So you you find it easier? Or do you know in your head that six plus six is 12? You will know that it is they stopped so could you have just done this one to solve it and yeah, were you just showing this this feature work?

Student: 25:25

Yeah. And she just wanted to check it to make sure she got the right answer and like it my friend.

Mrs. Peach: 25:29

Alright guys, great job today. So what is multiplication? Okay.

Student: 25:37

Groups of

Mrs. Peach: 25:38

multiplication is groups. Okay. Everybody understand that? I'm gonna ask you that tomorrow.

Ashley O'Neil: 25:47

All right. Now at this point in the lesson, Mrs. Peach has listened to each student explain how they got their answer. They review the objectives that they talked about at the beginning of this small group and the station switch. Now back in November, we met with a group of teachers, we referenced them in season one, episode 10, our CTP or Core Teaching Practice teachers. If you haven't checked out the episode, I highly recommend that you do so especially if you're interested in Core Teaching Practices. And in meeting with those teachers, Mrs. Peach shared some insight into how she builds small groups that her teaching partner. This conversation was several weeks before I even visited this teaching Duo's classroom. But I'm sharing it now after we've listened to their lesson for a few reasons. If you remember, at the beginning of this episode, I talked about wanting to observe my colleagues about wanting to learn from watching them teach instead of just talking with them about teaching. And as this episode was coming together, I realized we could do something a little bit different, that would give you a different experience than just a straight observation. If you remember, at the beginning of this episode, I talked about wanting to learn from observing my colleagues teach, I realized as this episode was coming together, that we could provide an experience that was different from observations made during Teacher Training, and different from what you'd be able to do, even if you could observe in your own building as a practicing teacher. When you're a pre service teacher, you do a cold observation, you walk in knowing little about the environment you're in, you observe and you leave, you see a window of time with little to no context, or the opposite occurs, and you observe a teacher you had growing up, you come into their classroom and this new role future colleague, but you have a history with them that goes as far back as maybe preschool, you have memories of them that are shaped by your experience as a student. And as a practicing teacher. Any observations you'd get to do are likely have colleagues you know, well. So when you go into their classroom, you have an idea in your head about the teacher, you're going to observe based on your experiences with them. I thought it would be interesting to find a middle ground between this cold observation and a familiar one to listen first the teaching and then hear from the teacher. You'll hear from Mrs. Peach and her teaching partner, Mr. G. And the person asking questions is a middle and high school science teacher

Mr. G: 28:07

We have them in like a rotation then to set kids are doing the same thing. So I know like younger kids, we get that rotational movement within the small groups. So they have a task.

Mrs. Peach: 28:27

And I know we have a like we set a timer, like on our clock, so they can are up on our big board. Like they can see the time that they've gotten. So like if they're, like totally dreading what they're doing. And you know, there's that clock there that showing them like you've got 13 minutes at this station. And I know for me, like my, my goal is right there, the minute they come over, it's like Alright, here's what we're learning today. And here's why we're learning it. Now our goal is by the end of this 13 minutes, you know, you're going to be able to say I can do this or whatever.

Mrs. S: 28:57

So your group work in an elementary settings is going to look a lot then mine in a high school science class. Totally different. Yeah. But really the things, the instructional components are there. It's just I'm not going to have a rotation probably Yeah, unless I have something specific in a lab that we have to take turns using. But you know, it's usually for a group project, where we're at the end of a unit or project and need to produce something.

Ashley O'Neil: 29:26

First, I have to say that this conversation is one of my favorites from our CTP teacher meeting. How often do teachers say phrases like working in small groups? What my brother likes to call teacher speak and presume some sort of shared understanding about that concept. But this high school teacher is able to ask questions and hear details about small group work and what it looks like in elementary and share what her own experiences are. And while tenants and goals are the same, the approach and the setup is really different. Let's go back to Mrs. Peach though. Did you hear her statement here?

Mrs. Peach: 30:00

And I know we have a like we set a timer, like on our clock so they can are up on our big board like they can see the time that they've got. So like if they're like totally dreading what they're doing, you know, there's that clock there that's showing

Ashley O'Neil: 30:12

the timer serves a few purposes, it ensures that she reserves time to meet with each student. It gives students a guideposts and it helps her keep her goals clear, honest reflection here. If I had only ever experienced Mrs. Peters teaching through this comment, I would have assumed her small group teaching to be heavily teacher led and student follow that they went through the steps to get to her goal and that she was the leader. My own bias about being driven by objectives would become my context. But Mrs. Peters objectives and action looked very different in person. While listening to the small groups, each one felt personalized and was heavily responsive to student understanding. But the threat of learning was really clear, Mrs. Peaches goal to state the objectives at the beginning and have students share them at the end helps her hold the tension where students are and where she wants them to be. But that tension didn't look like her rushing them through to an end goal. It looked like her being extraordinarily responsive to students, asking them thoughtful questions, and being mindful of their time and purpose together. During their conversation, the teachers also talk about how small groups and assessment work.

Mrs. S: 31:21

But just listening to the kids speak to one another sometimes can give you an idea.

Mrs. Peach: 31:27

I'm taking a class right now in this class I just did. It's interesting that we're doing this because I just made this little flowchart for talking about small groups and math. In particular, in my slide I put teaching is informed by an initial Comprehensive Assessment and ongoing assessment through teaching the ladder refers to the teachers informed understanding of children's current knowledge of problem solving strategies, and continual revision of this understanding. So basically, for me, I made like the flowchart and it has like I administer a pretest. And then based on the knowledge of that is how I formed my groups. And then from my groups, in the small groups, there's continual ongoing assessments within those small groups. And then you can re regroup, re revise and re alter your groups based on what's happening in that moment. And those small assessments you're seeing, some kids may be ready to move on to, you know, like the next skill, some need to have a slower pace. And so there's that constant revamp, revamping and reassessing that you're doing all the time in these groups.

Ashley O'Neil: 32:29

On paper, assessing during every small group sound formal and like a time sink. In conversation, these teachers talk about assessing by listening to student conversations and revamping instruction to meet their needs. And in practice, we heard Mrs. Peach elicit student thinking through questioning and by having students draw their ideas, Mrs. Peach adjusted her instruction in real time. I think about stairs when I think about teaching, and I think you can probably blame phrases like building blocks, and next steps and learning for all that imagery. But I think sometimes in books and from outsider perspectives, those building blocks sound like we're working with Legos tidy and consistent. And in reality, we're working on remodels and additions to houses that are already built. They have foundations that may have settled floorboards that may have worked and a history that makes each one of them a little bit unique. And as a teacher, we're trying to build stairs within that existing frame. You know, your stairs need to go from one floor to the next. And you need an awareness of the distance between the floors. So you have clear measurements to work from. But like I said, houses aren't perfectly consistent. Things aren't always level and strict measurements are great gameplan, but they'll only get you so far. So you have to consider each stair and be responsive to the history that shaped the reality in front of you trim a bit off of this stair to keep it level and flush against the wall. Being responsive to the space in front of you is just as important as having measurements on paper. focusing too much on one or the other doesn't work well. So we heard a lot of dynamic assessment from Mrs. Peach, those micro adjustments and responsive practices during her lesson. And we heard Mrs. Peach speak clearly about having those paper measurements objectives and goals on paper. I want to leave you with a portion of conversation that happened between Mrs. Peach and her teaching partner. This was after our core teaching practices conversation, but before they started teaching these small group lessons. In preparation, they administered the pretest for this math unit. Each teacher separately graded their students using a traditional scoring system. But then they took a whole planning session to discuss what couldn't be gleaned by looking at a percentage in a grade book.

Mr. G: 34:47

Here I did the same thing she did five times five is 25 and I gave her five there but she's isn't

Unknown: 34:53

Isn't it interesting to second kid know how many kids did that there? You're not I mean, you're getting the five objects but where are they? Reading the five groups from

Mr. G: 35:01

and I saw that a lot. That's why it's so interesting then, which I understand a lot of them are doing five divided by five, it's one. So they're not understanding that fact rightly,

Mrs. Peach: 35:10

which that division side of it would be the most difficult. Right?

Mr. G: 35:14

And you can see here I mean, she showed her work there to understand it. Yeah. So yeah, so point there. So six plus one is seven. And then if we give her half a point for both of these, cuz she didn't answer, but you can see her work.

Mrs. Peach: 35:28

I think again, I think she's still I think she still gets it. Like this is a quick a quick, like, yeah, talking point. Is that something that she really needs?

Mr. G: 35:37

Two points there, though.

Ashley O'Neil: 35:40

Here's an example of what that blend looks like the hard data of a formal pre assessment, and the softening that comes from teacher observation and analysis. They're finding patterns and student conceptions, differentiating between a quick err and the need for more instruction, getting underneath the answer that a student wrote to make sense of her work and understand what steps she took to get there. And there are recordings you hear of Mrs. Peaches teaching, the idea of groups have came up a lot. And here's the reasoning behind that focus. The students in the groups they observed had gotten a smattering of different grades and their pre assessment all within a range, but definitely not identical. But they did share was the need to practice what multiplication actually is. And they needed a better understanding of how numbers get grouped together. From pre assessment to conversation, small group building to planning, active teaching and responding to students as you execute your plans. I hope this episode gave you a taste of that process, and allowed you to consider and reflect on something new. This season, we're trying to look more closely at teaching practices to consider how teaching is both teachable and too complex to wrap up neatly at the end of an episode. So keep listening this season as we attempt to consider practices from different perspectives through stories and conversations. Thank you to Mrs. Peach and Mr. G and all of the CTP teachers for giving their time and work for us to use in this episode. And our next episode of season two, you'll hear what's going on on the other side of the classroom wall will listen in to Mr. G's math groups with reflections coming from Julia this time. If you've liked what you heard today, please feel free to share this episode with a colleague or friend. You can learn more about our center by visiting our website, Google STEM education and cmich. Thanks for listening