Take a Deep Breath, and Release Your Students to...Struggle

Take a Deep Breath, and Release Your Students to...Struggle
Have you ever been in the middle of a lesson and felt like you’ve been talking too much?  You think, “I need to let them try it on their own,” but you know they’re not quite ready.  Do you release your students and let them struggle and possibly fail, or do you keep talking and review some more examples?
By now you might be thinking, “Why would I release my students only to let them fail?”  Well, failure or productive struggle can lead to progress and perseverance!  It also doesn’t mean that you’ve completely let go of all control as their teacher.  It simply means that it’s time to take a step back and watch what your students can do.  It also means that you’re still the facilitator and available to pose questions when you see your students making mistakes. Sometimes you may even have to stop your kids and bring them back together for a helpful hint or to correct a misconception you see occurring.  This is perfectly okay!
	I admit it; I often have a hard time letting my students explore their own learning.  I worry about the additional time it will take to allow my students to work in groups and learn to get along.  I get stressed over the fact that I don’t want to fall further and further behind with the pacing guide.  My anxiety kicks in when I see my small groups still struggling with the same problem, when I expected them to be on the next problem according to the time on my agenda (am I the only one who has all these amazing plans on my agenda and only get about halfway there?).  Like I’ve said--I’ve been there, and it’s not easy to release your students, but I also know it’s necessary and part of the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP’s).  My students need to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them (along with seven other SMP’s).  If I’m the one doing all the talking, do I really know what my students know?
I know how difficult it is to turn over the power, but you’ve got it in you to achieve awesome things and to take risks!  Together, we can use different cooperative learning structures to ease our way into group and partner work.  Here are some ideas on how I started this process with my 6th graders:
	Once I set my mind to allow more time for group and partner work, I decided to make a list of as many different engagement strategies as I could.  You can find that list here: Strategy List.  As I studied my Eureka lesson, I chose a structure or two from my list that I believed would fit in well with the setup or content of that lesson.  Once I used a particular strategy, I highlighted it on my list and added the number of times it’s been used.     For example, when my kids were first introduced to ratio tables, I knew this would be something new but also something some could figure out without much prior knowledge.  I decided to use the Kagan structure “Circle the Sage”.  Circle the Sage is great because it gives those students who love to share the opportunity to become the teacher of a small group.  Now you have a handful of “teachers” spread out around your room teaching small groups of students.  Your students are now learning from others and answering the Eureka question at the same time.  Kind of a win-win, don’t you think? Here’s exactly what I did, step by step Circle the Sage Directions. Lately, I’ve been creating small groups ahead of time.  I make sure that each group is of mixed ability and purposefully assign someone to each group who is well-versed in the content, but I don’t make this known to students.  From here, I give groups the choice of either using RoundRobin or Talking Chips to work through some of the problems.  I will be honest--it was a bit rough at first.  Students were taking too long to get started and were even butting heads.  However, now that we’ve been trying this for a few weeks, they’re getting better and better at working in groups and assisting each other.  We still have a long way to go, but it goes to show that it’s possible!  Moreover, the kids enjoy becoming more independent, and you don’t have to come home so exhausted!  Join me next month when I talk about math rotations and daily morning warm-up themes! Educating together, Kim Smith