Roots Executive Director Provides Overview of Different Groupings at Roots
Roots ED and Founder, Jonathan Hanover, discusses how the team uses homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping structures to support student learning.
Transcript: Jon Hanover: Throughout the day, we kind of strike a balance by having different parts of our instructional day be homogeneous or heterogeneous, and also think about what kind of heterogeneity makes sense for those parts of the day. So, our small groups, for instance, are completely homogeneous. It’s these seven kids need to work on exactly this skill to get to the next level. These seven kids are going to be pulled for longer, and working on that skill. Self-directed work time is completely heterogeneous by design so that you have your kind of low readers sitting next to a high reader, and can kind of get exposed to what that looks like and what that feels like, or someone who’s low in science and someone who’s high in science working together on a project in the maker’s space, right? And then, our – for our kind of whole group instruction within each content, that’s where we do what we call bounded heterogeneity where each group is – the groups are leveled where one group is higher than another, which is higher than another – on average. But, we build in heterogeneity within those groups, so they’re kind of overlapping. Because that’s where we do – you know, group problem solving in math, or Socratic seminars in reading where you want to have a diversity of perspective and preparation, but not random heterogeneity where you have kids really far in kind of differing universes for that content.
