https://www.maneuveringthemiddle.com/grouping-students-in-math/ Student-Centered Math Lessons Fri, 18 Mar 2022 16:55:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.maneuveringthemiddle.com/grouping-students-in-math/#comment-148637 Fri, 18 Mar 2022 16:55:32 +0000 https://www.maneuveringthemiddle.com/?p=46479#comment-148637 I teach Mechatronics Engineering, and like Math subjects, I’m always putting students into groups. I like small groups for discussions and short research/reflection activities… One trick I use is I have a box with some little tokens inside. I have tokens of 8 different shapes (circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, rectangle, octagon, star) I have also a mix of 8 different colors, and I also have a number on them from 1- 8… Then I can have students pick randomly from the box… but at the last minute I can say “all the shapes pair up” or “all the same number” or “pair by color”. I typically don’t overthink it, but sometimes I can notice that a student I would like paired with another has the same color or shape, or number, and I can on the fly pick how I want them paired, but from the student perspective, it still feels random. Also, it keeps everyone on their toes and they can figure out how I’m going to group them.

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