Small Group Planning- Part 4

4/18/2019

Problem 4: I am struggling to assess in small groups!

This is my last and final post in the Small Group series! We have come to assessing, probably one of the more confusing and frustrating aspects of small group planning! I will admit here and now that I still have not mastered this aspect of small groups, although I felt I did a slightly better job with it in math than I did for reading. Assessing reading in small groups can be daunting, as there are so many skills under the umbrella of reading, a teacher can have a hard time knowing where to start.

p.s. If you want the "stuff" it's at the end of the post 😉

When should I assess?
Think back to the very first post in the series, and notice that it started with an assessment component as well. Imagine you have worked with your kids in small groups on the skills you assessed, and four to six weeks have passed and you feel that A) It's time to move on or B) You think a majority of the students in their groups are grasping this skill, but you need to make sure.

That is exactly what you will assess again. This is the part that can seem confusing, because Small Group is a response intervention. It can be connected to what students are learning whole group, but more often than not we are filling gaps in small group, so it seems disconnected and piece-meal, and therefore it seems wrong somehow to assess something so wildly different from what the entire class is working on.

Who should be assessed?
Ideally you should assess all groups on the main skill they have been working on so you can close the circle on this skill and start on another skill. You will also have to opportunity to shuffle your groups around for this new skill. Any student who hasn't mastered what you've been teaching needs to stay in the group (or be reordered into a different group with other students who also didn't master it) and new groups need to be formed for students who did master their skills and are ready for something new.

This would be considered your summative assessment, and it would be wise to hang on to this data in order to inform any meetings you have about students and their progress. You will now be able to clearly state that you worked with these students three times a week on R.L.2.1 using who, what, when, where, why, and how questions, and after four weeks little Bono was able to read a passage and create five out of five questions and answer them correctly. Very powerful data to have!

How should I assess?
The scenario I described is excellent when gathering data for many students at once. This is summative data that sums up what each group knows after the intervention.

However, many times in small group students will be reading or doing math and you realize that all five student just made the same math error or got stuck on the same word. You mark it down on your small group notes. You have taken a formative assessment, or an assessment in the moment. This is an added wrinkle to the whole assessment game, because you may be able to correct that right there in the moment and all your students understand and will improve from there. No other assessments needed.

Or, they may give you a deer in the headlights look and then you realize you stumbled upon a gap that all the students share. You can either decide to roll it into what they've been learning, or decide to finish the skill for this session and start on this gap on the next session.

What should I use to assess?
This depends on what you used to initially screen your students and if you have any ideas for what to work on next. If you were working on multiplication tables or phonics and you used a CORE screener for the phonics and a simple times table for the math, it's a safe bet you can re-use this screener as a post-assessment to see how they improved.

If you are doing something a little more in depth, say one step word problems with addition and no regrouping, I don't see anything wrong with using the same screener, but maybe this time you may want to add on another step in the word problem (still using addition and no regrouping) and see how they do. Maybe for the reading if you were working on R.L.2.1, give them a second passage that is a little more rigorous and see what happens. This will help you assess how deep their knowledge went, and if they can make other connections to something similar. You can also combine a post-assess with a pre-assess to inform instruction for the next session.

In general, try to use the same assessment that you used when you first screened them so you can have a true measure of how they progressed, or use something very similar. This will help put less work on you as well, because now you can just keep a stack of fresh assessments ready to go.

I assessed and now I have a group with one student, and a big group with eight, help!
This is normal and happens a lot! You may need to assess the big group again with something a little more in depth to see what differences between the groups you can find. Ideally you want each group to be like one student, no one should be higher or lower on the scale, but we all know that in the real world things don't always work out that way.

As to the group with one, I suggest leaving it that way. You will be amazed at how much you can get done with just one student, and how quickly, and before it's time to assess again they may be ready to move to another group!

My formative group notes are all over the place, this system isn't working!
I absolutely hear you, and this was my personal roadblock for a long time.

First I kept a binder of each group with little post its. I used it for two weeks and then stopped. Then I tried just using a plain Google Doc for each group, but it got messy really quickly. I tried many systems, and paper or digital I didn't seem to matter, making notes was impossible! How was I supposed to keep notes on every student everyday that I worked with them? I just didn't have enough minutes in between each group to stop and take the kind of notes I wanted.

However, I'm not everyone. Many of my colleagues keep successful notes in binders, many made Google Doc work. So, I'll tell you what I do, and then I'll describe what some of my colleagues do and let you try some out! It's all about finding a system that works FOR YOU!

Digital:

Alison, from Learning at the Primary Pond, did an in-depth post about the GRO Small Group App. I have not personally tried it because my districts iPad wouldn't let me download it (😭) but I really want to try it! Be sure to check out her post here and the app website here. I believe you can use for reading or math, but I am not sure.

GRO Small Group App

Then there's my way, I shared a picture of this in Part 2 I believe. Now, this is not my original idea and I've scoured the internet trying to find the original post I came across five years ago, but of course I can't. Just know the idea isn't mine!

Anywho! The idea is to create a Google Doc with a table of all your kids. Then create a separate document for each student with a table in the document for the date and notes. Take the link from each student's own Google Doc and hyperlink it to their name on the original table of all the students. That way you can have the original Doc up, click on the name to open their page, and take your notes. This is what I currently do now, and I update it once a week, usually on Fridays. That way I have a record of every skill every student has ever worked on and their progress for the whole year.

You can also see that I link other things for their lessons, standards, skills etc. This is easily adapted for reading or math! This is my Holy Grail right now! If you want a tutorial on how to set this up you can comment below or on my IG for this post!

©The Teaching Lifestyle

Paper:

If you're a paper and pencil kinda person, then I have two methods for you to try. The first is from one of my all-time favorite teacher bloggers, Michael from The Thinker Builder. I have used many of his resources, and they have never let me down! This post on tracking readers could easily be adapted for math as well. He has many versions of this resource he created, for tracking individual students, and tracking groups. Be sure to check out his post here.

©The Thinker Builder, Michael Friermood.

The last resource I have is a freebie from Jennifer Findley, and is probably one of the simplest methods I have seen. If you're not sure where to start, you have nothing to lose starting here because she is giving this resource away, and it is an amazingly simple system! This worked for me for a long time before I decided to jump to digital, and I still use her simple layout of Date and Notes. Be sure to check out her post here, and grab your freebie!

The last resource I have is an idea I got from LaTawnya of SmartieStyle. I remember awhile back she posted on her Instagram that she was getting a special planner from Erin Condren just for small group planning and anecdotal notes. I mean, who wouldn't love a gorgeous planner just for small group? You can find the different planners here.

©Erin Condren

Thanks for all your support for my Small Group Series and I hope you found it helpful! 😁

xoxo-Mae

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