Is it me or the group?

As the students progress in groups I have come to notice that some groups progress through the lessons quicker than others. A teacher must continuously reflect and ask themselves the question when a group is not progressing quickly enough- Is it me or the group?

Below are some suggestions for either answer:

Group
-Not listening/Playing around/etc.
Try to ask yourself if you have set up routines and procedures for the classroom.  Entering the classroom, collecting supplies, exiting the classroom. Saying them at the beginning of the school year does not count, they need to be reminded. Have you taught them explicitly again and again. Ideally mastery at 80%.
-Have you gone over the STAR rules with your students. Are they visible and reviewed every day?
-Tardiness
is there a procedure in place to help address this issue(passes, buddy system, etc)

Me
-Do you have set procedures in place? (see group list)
-What factors are making you slow down/interruptions?( phone calls, distractors, etc)
-What can I do to control these distractors?


Regardless of the answer remember that we have a short amount of time to service these students and every minute counts in helping to close that gap. It is important to be reflective and try to determine any factors that may slow the group down so that they can be addressed and resolved.

Pacing or Racing- SRA Lesson Progression

As I reflect on the rest of this year I think about my life, my family and of course like any other teacher my career and students. I reflect on the SRA program and the struggle between lesson mastery and lesson progression. I know my kids are low, and may struggle with  completing the lessons in a timely manner, but I have to remember to keep moving them along in a "perky pace" so that I can eventually move them along to the next skill. The mathematician in me had to come up with a formula to determine how many lessons I should accomplish in a quarter. I created a bulletin board for all my groups. This was a great visual for myself and my students to help us determine if we were on the right pace. We even created a circle map(Thinking Maps school) to help us brainstorm how we could meet our goal.

It was all going well except for my most difficult struggling group. They were always behind and back two to three lessons compared to the other groups. I needed to progress them but not speed through the lessons. I really had to analyze the groups and determined that the reason for the slowing of the group was due to a few students. I decided to move through the lessons but pull those two students twice a week during recess and "firm up" their lacking skills within the lessons.

When working with students in the SRA program we have to remember that in order to catch them up we have to progress through the lessons at an adequate pace. It does feel like we are racing through the lessons but remember it is 90% review. Ultimately the true race that we  have is trying to have these students acquire the necessary skills to be successful in the mainstream classroom.

To Click or not to Click?....That is the question!

With all SRA materials they are a lot of signals that the teacher must remember to help facilitate the flow of the lesson. Some of them include the hand drop, pointing, and an auditory signal such as a clicker. I was hesitant at first about the clicker. I felt as though I was training a puppy instead of my students. I felt that having a dog clicker would be humiliating to the students and that they would hate me for it! I did not want to use the clicker, but again I had to remember that it was not about me, but about the kids and what they needed. 

So I went to PetSmart and bought a cute clicker for $4.99. The first day I used it the students were so excited and even wanted to click it.  I explained to them that the clicker was used to help them quickly realize when I needed a response from them. I told them that sometimes I would need them to be so focused on the facts/problems that their eyes would need to be focused on that rather than on me. So their if their eyes were busy then their ears would have to listen for the "click " to respond. They accepted the rationale and had no problem with it. I must admit I had more of an adjustment period than the students. 

The students enjoyed it and when we went over facts they would even want to take turns and try to click at a certain pace. They would even remind me (more like correct me) about when I was or was not using it. It was actually pretty funny. I would ask the students why they had not responded and they would say "You forgot to click". My students needed that structure and that auditory signal to chorally respond and at the same time give all of the students enough think time to answer correctly. So to answer the question of to click or not to click the answer is simple, whatever tool you use as a signal it has to be auditory and consistent in your campus so that the students familiarize themselves with it.