General Introduction

This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.

I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.

For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.

For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.

This blog falls into the category of things the teacher can do.

Planning Groups for Group Work

When using group work, plan who will be in each group in advance of the lesson.

It need not take long, but it is an incredibly simple, and yet highly effective, tool to support your differentiation.

Sit down and think about your learners.

Consider their strengths and weaknesses, the prior knowledge you have concerning their behaviour and relationships with one another, and what you want them to get out of the work you are going to ask them to do.

Due to the large number of factors influencing how groups work together, it is not always easy to land on winning combinations from the off.

You might need to engage in a bit of trial and error.

Particularly at the start of the year, when you are still getting to know your class.

(And don’t underestimate the vagaries of social interaction. A group that looks well-balanced on paper may turn out to be anything but once the group work activity begins.)

The benefits of persevering are great, however.

A group of learners working well together will often produce work in advance of what the average independent performance of the group members would be.

What is more, those learners who are less-able or less skilled in the topic of study can learn a great deal from the more-able peers with whom they work.

A final advantage to note is that pairing learners who are enthusiastic with those who are less so can be an effective way of engaging the latter.

Here are some points to think about when planning groups:

• What sort of combinations are you looking for and why?
• Who would benefit from working together – and how would they benefit?
• What is the purpose of the task and how will putting certain learners in the same group help to achieve this?
• What will you do if the groups do not prove successful (or as successful as you hoped)?
• How will you assess the success of the groups?

Another point to consider is group size.

There is a psychological phenomenon called social loafing.

This is where one member of a group will sit back and let their peers do the work for them.

The learner has observed the group dynamic, assessed the fact that they can rely on their peers to engage with the task, and then decides, whether consciously or not, that this frees them up to loaf.

That is, to do nothing!

The bigger the group, the easier social loafing is.

Sticking to smaller groups sizes, three to five, say, significantly diminishes the potential for social loafing.

(Although you’ll still need to watch out for it, even in groups of four and five.)

The exception is when you have a highly structured group work task like Envoys or Jigsawing.

In these task types, the level of structure means everyone has a specific role they must fulfil, which completely changes the social loafing calculation.

How does planning groups help you to differentiate?

Group work differentiates by providing learners with opportunities to learn together, to learn from one another, and to use one another for support and help.

Planning groups in advance means the teacher can put learners together who they think will bring out the best in each other.

The teacher can also construct groups with specific aims in mind, related to the learning.

For example: trying to engage disaffected learners, offering support to those who are less able, or giving leadership responsibility to specific learners.

Seating Plans – Another Source of Group Dynamics

Here are the three most common room layouts for seating plans, each of which has advantages and disadvantages in terms of creating, facilitating and, possibly, supressing group dynamics.

Rows

Advantages: Affords the teacher a high level of control; paired work is easy; those sat on the edge are easily accessible; all learners are facing forwards.

Disadvantages: Group work requires rearrangement of desks, chairs or learners; hierarchical (although some may see this as an advantage).

Horseshoe

Advantages: Discussion is easily facilitated in pairs, groups or as a whole class; teacher can easily access all learners; most, possibly all, learners are facing forwards; non-hierarchical (although some may view this as a disadvantage); learners have multiple peers in their line of sight (an advantage if you can use this to create positive discussion opportunities).

Disadvantages: The teacher cedes some of their control; some learners may not be facing the front; learners have multiple peers in their line of sight (a disadvantage if it encourages social chat).

Groups

Advantages: Discussion and group work is easily facilitated; learners have multiple peers who they can call on for help; teacher can talk to groups as a whole or access individual learners with ease.

Disadvantages: Not all learners will necessarily face the front; teacher cedes control as attention is split between them and the group.

For me, the key questions are the degree of control you wish to maintain, and what are the underlying group dynamics in your class.

If you have a class who are difficult to teach and require a high level of structure, go for rows.

If the class are easy to teach, with a positive group dynamic, you might look to groups as a way of maximising the benefits of learners working together.

I include this here, in this blog post, simply because it is worth thinking about your seating plan in terms of group dynamics.

These can work in favour of your goals as a teacher, or against.

While there’s lots we can do to mould and sculpt the dynamics in a class, having a clear rationale underpinning your seating plan means you are giving yourself the strongest starting point.

I can think of classes I taught where altering the seating plan, after 15-20 minutes of analysis, led to remarkable transformations in how easy they were to teach and, by extension, how easy it was to differentiate.

I’ve also observed many teachers where my advice to alter the seating plan, including from rows to groups, groups to rows, rows to a horseshoe etc, has had similar results.

This is to emphasise to you the fundamental role of group dynamics in any classroom.

And the control you can exert on them through your seating plan.

After all, the classroom is a social space.

In terms of where learners sit, here are some further points to consider that can support your in-lesson differentiation:

• Do you have learners who you know will need more support? If so, you may want to position them in places that are accessible, or even right at the front, close to you.
• Are there certain combinations of learners you want to avoid? My rule is: if they have a negative effect on each other’s learning, then keep them apart.
• Can certain learners support one another? This might be in terms of explaining the work, setting a good example, keeping one another on track, working well together or motivating one another.
• Will learners remain where they are sat, at all times? This will help you to think about what might happen if you ask learners to move, to form groups or if you set a task that involves moving around the room.
• What prior knowledge do you have? This may come through data that is given to you or through your previous experience of the class or the individual learners. Think about how you might use it to help your learners.

How can you use you seating plan to help you differentiate?

In terms of the layout of the classroom, certain approaches might better suit certain learners.

Thinking carefully about how accessible learners are, given your chosen set-up, means you are thinking about how easy it is for you to support them while you are teaching.

In terms of the seating plan, you can position learners so they can help others or so that they can be helped by others.

You can think about how your seating plan will give certain learners, or all of them, the best chance of engaging positively with the learning.

This might mean keeping learners away from peers who they do not work well with, sitting them near to you so that you can support them through the lesson, or simply letting them sit near the board if they struggle to read what is displayed on there.

Finally, by retaining flexibility around your seating plan and classroom layout, you can make changes over time, in response to the information you elicit about how learners are engaging with the learning, and how they are working with one another.