Using Guided Math Workshop to Master the Standards: Whole Group Instruction

It's true that Guided Math Workshop is all about how you plan and manage your small group instruction. So why is Whole Group Instruction one of the 5 Keys?

When you make the switch to Guided Math Workshop, you'll need to devote most of the time in your math block (whether it's 45 minutes, an hour, or an hour and a half) to small groups. Therefore, you have to make a big impact in a short time with whole group instruction.

It can be scary to think about trying to teach a skill to a large group of students in 10 or 15 minutes. Here's the thing to remember: they don't have to know it backwards and forwards by the end of that time. That's what small group instruction is for.

Ultimately, the goal of Whole Group Instruction is to introduce the skill. We want students to know it well enough to try it out on their own a little bit. In a well-planned and well-executed Guided Math Workshop, students will have a lot of opportunities to correct misconceptions, reinforce the skill, apply it, and extend it (if they are ready).

Part 1: Warmup

If you can spare maybe 5 minutes at the start of your math block, it will pay off big time. A warm up is a way to get students' brains in math mode. It can look lots of different ways, depending on the grade level you teach and the unit you're studying. Here are a few examples:

Poll

Ask your students a question at the beginning of the math block. You can post a multiple choice question and have students mark their choice with sticky notes on a chart, SMART Board graphics, magnets on a whiteboard or cookie sheet, clothespins on a ribbon, etc. 

• Grades K-2: When I taught first grade, we used this Warmup while teaching the Measurement and Data standards. It tied in easily with bar graphs and pictographs.
• Grades K-2: Even when you aren't teaching Measurement and Data standards, you can preview or spiral review them using this method.
• Grades K-2: Using real data sets up natural questions about how much more, how much less, and how much in all. This gives students a crucial visual for understanding which of these questions lead us to add and which lead us to subtract.
• Grades 3-6: In upper grades, this can be an entry point for cross-curricular connections. Use a continuum bar and generate agree/disagree data on a social issue or topic you might cover later in more depth.
• Grades 3-6: Students at this level are ready to start using data in more sophisticated ways. Can you create a poll or series of polls that leads to a spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel? If you are blessed with Chromebooks or Google Suite, this could lead to publishing the data on Google Sites.

Problem-Solving

We'll discuss problem-solving strategies in greater depth in that post and in the small group instruction post. However, you can start off your math block with a problem. There are two main ways to do this. You can use problem-solving to spiral review or to preview the lesson. 

To spiral review means to revisit previously taught content throughout the year. Maybe you taught decimal addition in November. You don't want to wait until standardized testing time to cram in a review of that and everything else you taught over the course of the year. Spiral review keeps students' skills sharp and helps learning last. If you have a curriculum, flip back to an old unit and grab a problem for review.

When you preview the lesson, you are using some type of open-ended problem that allows students to reason about how they might try to solve it using what they already know. This has a lot of benefits. First, students go into the lesson with increased self-efficacy because they have already had some success with this type of problem. Second, it activates prior knowledge and helps them connect their new learning with what they know. If you teach fifth grade, you might be interested in my Operations and Algebraic Thinking Assessments, which include a Daily Warmup that previews the lesson for that day.

One of my favorite ways to use problem solving as a warm up is with the My Favorite No strategy.

Other options

• Number Talks: Check out this book and these Number Talks for primary grades from The Brown Bag Teacher. 

• Technology: We often use Reflex Math as a warm up. This is a product that your admin must buy, but free trials are available. Other options include Prodigy, Manga High, Multiplication.com, Freckle, ST Math, etc.

• Number of the Day: Ask your students to work with the same number in different ways. Free recording sheets for various levels are available at Curriculum Corner.

Part 2: The Minilesson

Yes, mini. Keep it short, short, short. What you're doing is going to vary by curriculum and grade level, of course. Start by setting up expectations for your students just as you do with every other part of your day. My expectations are that books are open (I project a digital copy), you write what I write, and we answer questions chorally. During the lesson, I move quickly, and I try to include time for at least one Timed-Pair-Share. We work together on some problems and try the strategy in a supportive environment.

Part 3: Formative Assessment

As I get ready to wrap up, I have them try one on their own. Later, they will have time to work with partners, but at this time I want to formatively assess what they know in the moment. While they work I circulate and try to notice who is struggling and in what way. Often, you'll see several students making the same type of mistake. Then, you have a chance to correct this misconception before you send them off on their own. If you see one or two who are just lost, you need to make a decision in that moment to have them join your most supportive group during small group instruction (if they are not already in it).

You can use a problem in your curriculum for this, or grab task cards (I love To the Square Inch for upper grades and https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Lucky-Little-Learners for primary), or exit tickets (also available in my Assessments product).

At this point, what comes next varies, but generally it's time to move into Small Group Instruction, which is next in the series! Stay tuned.

By the way, are you following me on Instagram? I'm @riverbendteacher and I would love to connect with you there and learn more about what's up in your classroom! 

Using Guided Math Workshop to Master the Standards: Assessment

Master the 5 Keys and you can run a Guided Math Workshop that engages your students and provides each of them a path to mastering the standards.

You can learn about the 5 Keys in any order, but I suggest starting with assessment. When we talk about assessment with Guided Math, we are largely talking about preassessment.

Why assess before teaching?

Preassessment is the key to setting up groups for your guided math workshop. The idea here is to give your students whatever support or challenge they need, so first you need to assess what they know about the unit you plan to teach.

There are lots of ways to do this:

Benchmark assessments

If your school uses a test like the MAP test or a district common assessment to benchmark for math. you might be able to use data from the test. Right now, I teach fifth grade using a curriculum that has one unit for geometry, one for measurement and data, and one for operations and algebraic thinking. The MAP data was really useful for planning groups for those units because it separates student scores by domain.

Data from the Class Report

Pros:

• It's an assessment your students are already taking, so no class time lost.
• You can get really granular data on each student if you need it.
• It can give you an idea of what to teach students who are behind or are ready to exceed standards using the student profile report.

Cons:

• The data might be outdated. Maybe the assessment was done in the first weeks of school and you're planning a unit in November. Students have undoubtedly learned some of what you plan to teach since then.
• The data might be too specific (having to read one by one through student profiles).
• The data might be too general (results by domain rather than skill or standard). Our MAP results were less useful in the Number and Operations domain because so many fifth grade standards (and therefore, so many math skills) are in that domain.

Curriculum-based Assessments

If you have a math curriculum, it probably already has assessments. Where I teach, I'm blessed to have leveled, mirrored assessments in my curriculum. That means that I have three levels of challenge, and I can assess the exact same skills in the exact same way on the preassessment and the postassessment. Other curricula may or may not have this.

Pros:

• Depending on how you use your curriculum, the assessment should be pretty closely tied to what you plan to teach.
• You already own it (if you have a curriculum).

Cons:

• Every curriculum is different. Some come with awesome assessments, others come with terrible ones.
• If the assessments are not leveled or mirrored, you have to do extra work to create leveled and mirrored pre and postassessments. 
• The data might be too general (results by domain rather than skill or standard). Our MAP results were less useful in the Number and Operations domain because so many fifth grade standards (and therefore, so many math skills) are in that domain.

Digital assessments

You could use a tool like Kahoot or Quizizz to assess your students. Another teachers may have already created and shared quizzes based on the standards you plan to teach, or even based on the tests in your curriculum. Otherwise you can easily make them yourself.

Pros:

• Students much prefer this to paper-pencil assessment.
• Everything is scored for you.
• Saves time.
• Students who may not know a skill but are able to pick it up quickly can show that on these assessments. Kahoot shows the correct answer after everyone has locked in their answer, and a few kids usually figure out the skill just from that! These same students may have scored lower on a paper-pencil assessment.

Cons:

• Timing the questions creates pressure and panic in some students. 
• Students focus too much on the competition and rush or try to solve everything mentally. 
• Students with reading difficulties are at a disadvantage (especially with Kahoot, where the whole class works on the same question simultaneously). If some of your students need the questions read aloud, running a Kahoot as your assessment can create logistical issues.
• There's no easy way to level the assessments.
• You probably won't be using these tools to give the postassessment, so mirroring is a challenge.
• If you're using a quiz created by another teacher, you will need to ensure that the quiz assesses the skills and standards that you plan to teach. You'll also have to make sure it's not a hot mess -- some of them are and there is NO quality control.

Standards-based Assessments

These are assessments that are not tied to any one curriculum, but to the standards for that grade level. I love standards-based assessments because at the end of the day, that's what we as teachers are responsible for: teaching the standards. You and I and the teacher two states over might all be using a different curriculum. But if we are all teaching the same grade, we should all be teaching the same standards because that's what all our students are expected to know and be able to do.

Pros:

• Allows you to pinpoint which standards are weak in certain students, groups of students, or your class/classes as a whole.
• Highlights which standards students have already mastered.
• Sets up a blueprint for teaching the standards that enables you to plan enrichment or support for your students when and where they need it.

Cons:

• Probably not included in your curriculum.

Which should you use?

I've used all of these assessments at some point to plan my Guided Math Workshop. Ultimately, they all have their pros and cons, but the one I most wanted and had least access to, was a straightforward standards-based assessment. I wanted something that assessed just the standards for that unit, that was mirrored, and was just the right length to give me good data without exhausting my students. When I couldn't find one, I made one!

I included mirrored pre and postassessments for all the Operations and Algebraic Thinking Standards for fifth grade, plus a template to help you start grouping your students.

If you're ready to start Guided Math Workshop in your classroom, having a great preassessment is a strong start. It's also crucial to find ways to assess your students during the unit. For that I included warm ups and exit tickets tied to each skill on the assessment. If students struggle on a warm up, that's a good indicator that they will need extra support to master that day's lesson. The exit ticket can help you see if they mastered it after that day's instruction.

Click here to get started assessing and planning for your Guided Math Workshop!