I recently observed a 4th and 5th grade combination class, at a school near my university. I went with one of my classmates, and while she observed 5th grade, I observed 4th grade. Then we switched for a bit, but I primarily watched 4th grade. I was in awe of the control the teacher had over the classroom, and how organized and well thought through all the activities were. It was very different than any classroom I've been in before, so I wanted to jot down some thoughts to refer to later, and perhaps implement in my own classroom.
When we arrived, the teacher started out by telling us that her classroom had won some sort of a teacher lottery, so it had been completely redone at no cost to her. The classroom was extremely well laid out. It had desks that moved around on wheels, and that fit into each other, regardless of how many were in a table group. Each student had a laptop with his or her name on it, and a box of materials so that they could easily move from desk to desk. The children each got to pick which kind of chair they wanted to use when they first came in -- there were 3 different options.
When the students arrived, they knew immediately what to do, even though they had just gotten back from a week long break. They entered, marked themselves present, and promptly got to work. After the Pledge of Allegiance, it was time to move their desks. An additional math teacher had been brought in to work with the 5th graders, while the primary teacher worked with the 4th graders. As they moved to their positions, the teacher put on a cute “traveling song” and they moved about, putting their desks in the pre-marked spots. There were 3 4th grade math groups, each of which were named after a different shark. Each group had the same lesson -- their teacher had made a video of herself teaching the lesson, and each child watched it on his or her individual computer. There were a few technical difficulties, but the system seemed to work quite well.
The students all watched the video lesson, and then they used their little white boards to complete math tasks, as they were asked on the screen. Here was where things differed between the groups. The concept was the same for each station, but the kind of problems were not. I couldn’t tell which group was slowest or fastest at math at first, I could only tell that they were different. I was pleased to see that it wasn’t the kind of situation where one group might be made to feel stupid in any way. The way the math concepts were being taught were just different, depending on the group’s level of understanding.
The teacher went to each group individually, and talked about ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands columns. She taught it slightly differently in each group, and gave problems of varying levels of difficulty. This also gave her the opportunity to work with children on more of a one-on-one basis. She could see who was struggling, and was able to offer them individual attention, since she wasn’t just standing in front of 20+ kids, teaching. By the time each child was finished, they had a clear understanding of the math concept.
It was also perfectly okay that the children worked at different paces. When they were finished, they were allowed to play a math game with another student who was also finished. Since everyone started their videos at slightly different times, and each group was visited by the teacher at a different time, it didn’t feel like those who finished later were too slow. Each child completed practice problems after the teacher spoke to them, and one group had more difficult problems, but again, it didn’t feel separate at all. One boy in the most advanced group finished and excitedly gestured to a boy in the struggling group to play a math game with him. They were both finished with their problems, so it did not matter if one of them had more or less to do.
Overall, I loved observing in this classroom. I had never seen math taught this way, and thought it worked wonderfully. I had also never seen a classroom that utilized technology so well, or that ran so smoothly. I was very impressed by how the independent the children were in their work, and how 4th and 5th graders were both able to learn separate lessons at the same time, without distracting each other, thanks to a movable dividing wall, headphones for the online lesson, and an additional math teacher, who allowed the primary teacher to focus on one grade at a time.
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