Grouping Students

There are many ways to group students for instruction. Here are some suggestions for how to group students in ways that will minimize distractions and create a positive learning environment.

  • Do not put students together who bicker or fight. They will distract each other and the other students from the work and create an overall tense learning environment.
  • Do not put best friends together. They will probably talk about everything but the work to be done. They are also more likely to exclude others in the group.
  • Include students of different ability levels in a group. This will allow the higher achieving students to assist the lower achieving students, and will motivate the lower achieving students to improve.
  • Place a distractible student in a group with highly focused students. The focused students will provide a model for the distracted students. Further, the focused students are not likely to respond to the distracting behaviors of the distractible student.
  • Seat groups that contain students with behavior problems as closes as possible to you. This will allow you to prevent problems before they begin since proximity is an effective way of controlling unacceptable behaviors.