Looping is an instructional design whereby students progress to the next grade level with the same teacher(s) for two or more years. This book was designed to help teachers and administrators explore, implement, and evaluate looping programs. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, "Exploring Looping Configurations," identifies the primary…

Looping is the practice in which a teacher instructs the same group of students for at least two school years, following them from one grade level to the next. Once a "loop" of two or more years is completed, the teacher may start a new loop teaching a new group of students. This evaluation study of the practice of looping in a large…

At Santa Maria Middle School in southwest Phoenix, Arizona, teachers have decided to maintain their relationships with their students by looping through sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Here, they describe the results of the first three years of the program, discussing the development of their team's priorities and the strategies they embraced…