Topic: Dynamic Grouping

This guide offers a step-by-step collaborative planning process designed to promote deeper and more personalized learning. Explore how Westwood High School educators implement differentiated roles, team-based support and flexible schedules to bring their vision of seminar learning to life.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

Explore how 100 ninth grade students are supported by a core educator team that includes a Spanish teacher, biology teacher and a dual-certified English and world history teacher.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

How Paulo Freire’s team of educators grouped and regrouped 68 middle school students over the course of a day.

At Kyrene de las Manitas, teams of educators incorporate dynamic student groupings into a shared roster of students.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

Explore how educator teams use cloud-based spreadsheets to fluidly and transparently group students by interest and skill.

Interest-based student groupings are groupings driven by student voice and choice. This planning protocol is an opportunity for team members to explore ways to leverage your team of educators to provide student voice and choice within a lesson or across a unit. In it, you’ll identify a lesson or unit appropriate for interest-based student groupings, draft student choices and work together to plan team deployment.

Skills-based student groupings are groupings based on formative student learning data. This planning protocol is an opportunity for team members to explore how you might leverage your team of educators to differentiate instruction for learners. In it, you’ll identify the objective(s) of your choice, draft a check for understanding and work together to plan team deployment for skills-based student groupings.

Mountain View School kindergarten lead teacher Danielle Ashenbrener describes how a team-based approach has helped her to get to know her students better and to target student learning to meet individual students’ needs.

The educator team at Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy co-plans project-based units that support deeper learning. The 10 tips appearing in this document are drawn from their approach to planning. To get started, consider how your team might implement these tips.

Elementary instructional blueprints suggest ways teams of educators with distributed expertise might deploy themselves to better deepen and personalize student learning.