Author Wiley Blevins is renowned for changing the way educators think about teaching children to read, helping thousands of teachers implement effective phonics instruction. Now, Blevins gets us to think in powerful new ways about differentiating whole-class phonics lessons, so students at every skill level can engage. With Blevins' trademark…

Even when using mixed-ability grouping--grouping students so that students with a range of mathematical thinking work together--there is potential to position some students as more capable than others. In this article, the authors describe two approaches to mixed-ability grouping, providing examples of how teachers using those approaches describe…

In distance education courses with a large number of students and groups, the organization and facilitation of collaborative writing tasks are challenging. Teachers need support for planning, specification, execution, monitoring, and evaluation of collaborative writing tasks in their course. This requires a collaborative learning platform for…

Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) that builds on and sustains students' cultural and linguistic practices is important for students' academic achievement and identities. While CSP is applicable to any content area, a critical time to incorporate it is during differentiated reading groups--small-group contexts that provide explicit code-based…

In "Teachers as Decision Makers: Responsive Guided Reading Instruction," Robin Griffith draws on years of research and countless interactions with students and teachers to present a framework of instructional decision making centered on the readers we work with, the books we share with them, and the instructional objectives we guide them…

Australian primary school teachers have reported that they use games frequently in teaching mathematics. In this paper, the authors discuss the game mechanics of five types of whole-class games that can be particularly powerful for supporting mathematical thinking and student engagement in mathematics.

The need for focused small group math instruction has never been greater. Today's education landscape continues to be fraught with learning divides, and unlike its reading counterpart, small group instruction in elementary classrooms has often been reduced to learning centers and rotation stations, without enough emphasis on differentiated,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on education systems worldwide, leading to significant learning loss, exacerbating existing educational inequalities and disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students. Governments around the world have begun to invest in large-scale tutoring initiatives as a key component of their…

Maximize the quality and quantity of peer interactions and transform your classroom into a dynamic, collaborative space for student learning. The second edition of Cooperative Learning and Teaching further explores the principles and techniques of cooperative learning and teaching, beginning with the question: Why use group activities? This…

Learner-Centered Teaching (LCT), as opposed to teacher-centered practices, actively engages students in the learning process. In this paper, we discuss the importance of adopting LCT strategies in family science courses to improve student learning outcomes. Family science is particularly apt for LCT because of the interpersonal focus of the…

In a small-group communication course, students participate in a semester-long project to observe an organization while applying many group communication principles, including conflict resolution, group dynamics, teambuilding, leadership, and diversity. In groups of five, the students select any organization, agency, or department on campus or in…

This established text and teacher resource is now in a revised and updated third edition, with a broader focus on whole-class instruction as well as small-group and individualized intervention. The evidence-based Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA) provides a clear framework for supporting literacy development in grades K-3, particularly for…

Course: Small Group Communication. Objectives: Students will identify their personality traits; synthesize the relationship between personality, small-group interdependence, and grouphate; and apply collaborative skills and knowledge of individual personality differences in building small-group success.

Discover the value of small-group reading instruction that accommodates students' individual literacy needs. Author Julie A. Taylor provides lesson plan templates to incorporate small groups into any learning structure. Teachers will design laser-targeted skills and strategy lessons to create more productive, positive, and equitable classrooms by…

With over 70% of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students in the United States scoring below proficiency levels in writing (NCES, 2009), teachers must provide early and effective writing intervention to accelerate students' writing skills to meet grade-level standards. In this paper, we provide teachers with a theoretical framework to…