Pairing your students to start the year

I have been thinking a lot about my class of foundation children over the holidays, and some decisions that have challenged me the most are:

How do I set up clear and understandable expectations, norms, and routines; and

How do I decide who students should sit next to ??

Below, I hope you find some insights for pairing your students effectively in the classroom. Even if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere—and hence halfway through the year—it’s always a good idea to review the pairings you have and optimise them further. You can base such refinements on academic, social, and behavioural considerations, for example:

Who needs a partner to challenge them this term?

Who needs a bit more support from a partner ?

Who wouldn’t get distracted sitting next to ____?

Pairing students well is crucial

Use academic, social, and behavioural considerations when making your groupings.

Why does pairing matter?

Having effective pairings will be crucial for many of my planned lesson routines this year. Since I am setting up a classroom based upon the Science of Learning, I will be using pair shares every three minutes or so (see EDI and TLAC). So, having students paired up wisely could increase the value of these routines exponentially over time. Here are some key benefits of intentionally pairing students for regular discussion and collaboration:

checking for understanding

In my classroom, a.k.a the Cognitorium, I plan to use pair shares constantly. Every three minutes or so, I will ask students to pair share to:

  • answer a question

  • solve a problem

  • explain their answers to each other after a mini-whiteboard task or writing task …

    … before reporting back to the whole class using cold call, or picking a “lucky stick”.

I’ve found that if students don’t have an assigned pair, there are always a few stragglers unsure of whom to go with. If there’s even 30 seconds of delay, that could be as much as 11 minutes wasted in a morning literacy block. 11 MINUTES A DAY. That’s more than 9 hours each term on literacy alone. We need to work the clock, and having an assigned partner can reduce those lag times.

increasing student-teacher talk ratio

In addition to pacing, Teach Like a Champion’s Doug Lemov is a big fan of optimising ratio, and in his latest edition of TLAC these techniques feature strongly. Turn and talk (technique #43 in the 3rd edition) is an instant way to increase participation, as every student gets a chance to respond, hear a possible response, and rehearse their answer before talking to the the whole class. In EDI, pair shares are counted as wait time, and an opportunity for students having difficulty to hear a possible response from a peer. That makes it all the more important to get the partners working well, so these frequent discussions are effective for both students.

running the room

Lastly, I’m sure you have seen when a student pairing can go horribly wrong, and suddenly two students either:

  • set each other off

  • experience “crickets” in every discussion

  • clash so severely that your reminders to stay on task become constant.

In Running the Room, Tom Bennett implores us as teachers to make it easy for students to behave, and hard for them to get it wrong. Pairing students effectively can smooth out the rough edges of your lessons, and make your instruction more impactful.

Who goes best with whom?

When you don’t know the class well this can be very difficult, and it will ultimately be trial and error until you have more to go on. But if you have some screening or assessment data like we do at my school, this can be good for creating your first set of trial pairs.

Last year we managed to complete screening assessments on all but a few of the new foundation students, and I’ve used this data and my observations and information for our orientation sessions to sort my students into categories.

The assessments we have used are:

We have also completed some informal number and numeral formation assessments, which have also been factored into our planning for the first few weeks of the term. I will write more about our assessments at Brandon Park Primary in the coming weeks.

How to paiR?

One way you could try…

See here a way of pairing and grouping students based on four (approximate) categories of performance / engagement.

Here are some steps I’ve followed to create students pairings:

1. Make four categories (H, MH, ML, L)

Use your data to sort students into a high, low, medium-high, or medium-low category, based on how well they have performed on any previous assessments, or your knowledge about each student.

2. Assign each student to one of the categories using the best available data or information

Luckily for me this year (pending any new student arrivals), I have 20 in the Cognitorium. This is a great number for grouping students, so I will have five groups of four (two pairs in each group). I will need to put five students into each category in this step. Make the pairings work as best you can if you don’t have as neat a number in your class.

3. Create pairings (H with ML) & (L with MH)

Now, using my (only partial at this stage) knowledge of the students socially and behaviourally, I will partner each H student with a ML partner, and each L with a MH partner. The reason you should pair in this way is that you don’t want big gaps in the partnership—say one of your highest students with one of your lowest. Students won’t get the mutual benefit when paired like that, as the authors of EDI remind us. Also, try to avoid medium-high with medium-low if you can, as they won’t get that peer-to-peer learning benefit!

4. Play the wedding table game and matCh up pairs into larger groups

In each group, I will place a H/ML pair and a L/MH pair, so that each group has one student from each category (table arrangements will be discussed next week!). It does become like a wedding table game at this point as you have to think about what combinations of people will work well together, and in which part of the room they should reside (how close to the board, or the door or window). This was a bit fiddly when I did it with my class, so all in all this will be a compromise.

trial and Error

I plan to use these pairings when students are at their desks, as well as on the mat, so there will be plenty of opportunities to see if these partners work well—and if any unintentional clashes have been created. It is important not to assume you can get the pairing and seating arrangements right first time. It should be an evolving process to see what best suits your students. I will report back next time as to how this has all played out in the first week of school.

Words of warning follow.

This is not a set and forget process, nor are the categories fixed or very meaningful once you’ve completed the pairing / grouping.

Caveat! It’s dynamic, not fixed

One word of caution is not to think of the H/MH/ML/L categories as fixed. I have seen how quickly students’ abilities can change, so it would be lowering your expectations to think of your students as a Low or Medium-Low or even a High student. Once the pairings are done, respond to the learners that are in front of you and only when you need to tweak your pairs, should you think about revisiting those categories.

mix it up over time

It’s important to give students variety for social reasons, but also academically. You don’t want your students in the middle of the cohort always placed with someone performing lower, or higher. In addition, some students may have certain strengths and difficulties, making it more or less enjoyable to be working with them every day. Mixing this up allows students to get a healthy dose of variety.

Use your most up-to-date knowledge of your students and their learning when tweaking, and monitor the effects any changes make. If you lose your groove, you will want to know how to get it back!

Thanks for visiting, and see you next week!

ABOUT me

Dr Nathaniel Swain

I am a Teacher, Instructional Coach, Researcher and Writer. I am passionate about language, literacy and learning, and effective and engaging teaching for all students.

I teach a class of first year foundation students, in a space affectionately known as Dr Swain’s Cognitorium. I also work as Science of Learning Specialist in my school.

How ToDr Nathaniel Swainrunning the room, classroom, pair share, engagementComment