Reducing rotations: Part 1
The provocation —
What if you could achieve the same (if not better) outcomes for your students without the logistical complexity of small group rotations?
Many educators wrestle with the question of differentiation: How do we ensure all students succeed and are supported? How do we teach to varying abilities without using up valuable teaching time?
While small group instruction has long been a favoured approach, I want to challenge this: Could whole class teaching, when optimised, offer the same, if not better, results?
One of the most common questions I answer is how do we best differentiate? I always tackle it with the following provisos in mind…
Remember that additional support an extension can be provided in the moment and in multiple end points of each lesson.
Remember that tier 2 and tier 3 intervention is designed to provide additional input to the general tier 1 instruction for those who need it.
So then my questions back to the questioner usually are:
Do the small group rotations offer something else that working with a partner in the context of whole class teaching cannot do?
Do you need it? After all, the use of small group instruction can halve (if not quarter) the time you can spend teaching and guiding students directly, right?
As people begin to implement practices drawing upon explicit instruction and aligned with the science of learning, it's important to look at all aspects of our practice and how we structure our day to ensure that we get the most out of every instructional minute.
In a series of blog posts that will follow this week, I will look to explore ways that educators can maximise the instructional time and reduce practices that tend to eat it up.
Reducing rotations could be a massive time saver.
reflection questions
I have a series of questions for you as you begin to wind down for the holidays:
What would happen if you reduced your reliance on groups, rotations, or workshop approaches for reading, writing and mathematics?
If you are using rotations, what are the benefits you are currently seeing?
Could you be getting the same outcome(s) through a whole class delivery model? Is there a strong reason to continue teaching heavily via groups?
Have you considered using paired fluency reading as an alternative to rotations to create time for you to facilitate small group work?
Can you do targeted small group work with students who need it, when the rest of the class moves to independent reading, writing or mathematics practice?
Have you seen any benefits to using responsive and adaptive teaching practices at the whole class level?
parting thoughts
A huge caveat of course is that we need more empirical research in this area.
I’d like to see how groups of classrooms fare when one teaches with rotations to allow for small group instruction, and one where such small group work is limited to during paired reading fluency, accountable independent reading, or independent practice for writing and mathematics in the last 15-20 minutes of a lesson.
Until then, I’d advise taking note of what is working in your classroom and your school, and continually ask yourself, could I teach this a better way?
bonus content
After seeing Prof Dylan Wiliam post an example of an AI generated podcast from one of his co-authored books, I thought I would share a sample from Google’s experimental NotebookLM which does just that to any source you provide it.
I gave this model:
my ideas for the above post,
a link to a reddit post about rotations and the science of reading,
a facebook comment from a colleague who shared her experience about reducing rotations
Notwithstanding some audio pitch glitches, I am amazed at how decent this content is and I hope you enjoy it! WARNING: This audio is AI generated and may include a few inaccuracies that at the moment are hard for me to remove!
Nathaniel Swain, PhD is a teacher, instructional coach, and teacher educator. He is a Senior Lecturer in Learning Sciences at La Trobe University School of Education, Australia, and founder of Think Forward Educators.
The Book
Pre-order is open for Harnessing the science of learning. This book is a new volume I have had the pleasure of writing, with help from some amazing contributors: Pamela Snow, Tanya Serry, Zach Groshell, Reid Smith, Toni Hatten-Roberts, Simon Breakspear, Katie Roberts-Hull, David Morkunas, Steven Capp, Shane Pearson, and Eamon Charles.
You can secure your pre-order copy (or maybe one of your colleague or leaders on the fence) from any great bookstore.