Standard 1: Joint Productive Activity

Students in my classroom are seated at hexagon shaped tables to facilitate communication and group work. Students have different seating assignments for different instructional activities. Because I co-teach with a colleague at my grade level, there are times we get both our homerooms together and times we mix up students between us. A great deal of thought is put into how students move from whole-group to small group activities and how much time is spent transitioning not just between activities, but between rooms as well. My colleague and I have set up our rooms in the same way (both furniture and materials) to facilitate smooth transitions. We often have the students work in pairs or groups to complete tasks especially in science and math. Students are also encouraged to act as peer editors during writing and also to partner read and/or participate in book clubs. The groupings change often. During reading, the students are usually grouped by ability for instruction and by interest for book clubs. In math, student groupings are very heterogenous during initial instruction, but once a skill has been taught and reviewed, some students are given an opportunity to do an enrichment activity while others may be grouped to go over the concept again. During writing I usually teach a minilesson to the whole class, then students either write independently or at times may choose to write with friends. The students may ask a friend to peer edit their work.

As I reflect on my teaching, I believe I am effectively implementing this standard in my classroom. Upon initial reflection, I did not think I was requiring joint products but generating solutions to problems, analyzing science experiment results, and reading together are all products of learning.