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middle school teachers

mommymegan831mommymegan831 member
in Working Moms
how do your students sit?  rows or groups?  I'm in an urban district with constant state monitoring.  For some reason the state thinks we need to be doing a lot of cooperative learning, but when they come in the kids are always in rows.  I have my students in pairs for the 1st period of the block, and the 2nd they move into groups, but of course when people come around it's always 1st period.  They want to see differeniated learning somedays, station teaching somedays, and centers on others.  Is any other middle school teacher using centers?  To ensure the state sees that we use groups, we're moving to groups all the time, even when they're listening to me teach, taking note, writing, or other silent, independent activities.  It's been done before and it's a total disaster.  I'm just curious how much other schools push cooperative learning.
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Re: middle school teachers

  • JoJo716JoJo716 member
    I used to teach middle school and I always struggled with this. Our state was also big on cooperative learning; however, sitting in groups all of the time was disastrous. One time, I put letters on the wall for stations. I assigned the kids a letter and that was their "group" for a while. Once they got accustomed, I could have them in groups really fast because they knew exactly where to go and who was in their group. Another teacher friend who taught math would have them sit in staggered partners. We got deductions on our evals if our students were not working cooperatively for a good of amount of time each lesson.
     

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  • MamaAllisonMamaAllison member
    I hate not having control over these sorts of things. My first school we HAD to have the children in groups at all times, it was difficult. At my current school I have the desks in rows, but that is more a function of space! Good luck !
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  • LovinHowImLivingLovinHowImLiving member
    I teach 6th grade in Arkansas, and they are implementing a new teacher eval system (along with Common Core, PARCC, and a new RTI system) The new eval system really looks at group work and student led teaching.  Therefore, my students are in groups.  In fact, my principal is replacing desks with tables.  I have 6 tables in my classroom.  We have also done 1 on 1 with netbooks, so Each student has their own netbook and charger.  This makes the classroom incredibly crowded, and in my opinion dangerous with all the cords laying around.  I use a lot of power teaching techniques to help manage my classroom management.  I have a lot of luck with this.  

    I have heard a lot of complaints about the group work issues.  Mainly, most classrooms were not built big enough for this.  I would suggest looking into the power teaching  techniques to help. You can find a lot on YouTube and Pinterest.
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