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CHAPTER 2

CONNECT EVERYONE FOR SUCCESS

In this second of three powerful chapters on the relational mindset, we’ll strengthen our skills in connecting everyone. Before we get started, use the survey in figure 2.1 to think about the connections you foster in your life and work and what they mean to you.

Figure 2.1: Assess the connections in your life and teaching.

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Every connection you have in your life influences you in some way, so it’s important to bring awareness of that into your classroom where you have a connection that affects every single one of your students, whether you are aware of its effects or not. To help foster these connections into something that builds up your students from poverty, this chapter establishes the fifty-fifty rule for in-class interaction and supports that with five collaborative strategies that are sure to make your classroom a richer learning environment.

The Fifty-Fifty Rule

During a typical school week, how much time do you have students devote to individual studies (including lecture time), and how much do you devote to collaborative learning between students?

Two key social elements have a strong effect on academic success: (1) belonging and (2) cooperative learning (Adelabu, 2007). In fact, a strong feeling of acceptance in class and school helps protect minority students from damaging, environmental, and social threats (Cook, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, & Cohen, 2012). The effect size of cooperative versus individual learning is 0.59 (Hattie, 2009). This gain is solid; over a year’s worth of difference.

To effectively impact academic achievement, teachers should split class time equally between social time and individual time—that’s the fifty-fifty rule. Most high-performing teachers use one or more of the strategies in table 2.1 to create social time for students and balance it with individual learning time.

Table 2.1: The Fifty-Fifty Rule

Social Time	Individual Time
Cooperative groups and teams	Solo time for journaling and mind mapping
Study buddies or partners to quiz each other	Students practice self-testing
Temporary partners for summarizing time	Goal setting and self-assessment
Learning stations for social data gathering	Reading, reflection, and writing
Group projects for brainstorming and discussion	Seatwork for problem solving

To help you implement this, use the lesson-planning worksheet in figure 2.2 to choose a daily lesson and some activities you plan to use with it. Note whether this activity constitutes individual or collaborative time, and then gauge how much classroom time you need to provide students to complete the activity.

Figure 2.2: Track time between individual and collaborative activities.

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Note that on any given day, you might split social and individual time seventy–thirty or even ten–ninety. The goal is to plan out your instructional activities so that, over a week, it all evens out. In the next section, we’ll take a look at the collaborative activities that enhance social time to connect for success.

Collaborative Strategies

Much of what makes social activity work (to the degree it does) is our own biology. We are not just driven to be social; we are genetically primed for it. Because of this, students’ emotional side gets a big boost when you add interdependency to lessons, which makes for more robust effect sizes. Interdependency means that student success depends on another student’s success, which raises everyone’s effort level. Four students in a cooperative group or team has a 0.69 effect size on student achievement (Hattie, 2009).

In the next section, I begin with strategies for building effective cooperative groups and teams that foster interdependency. In the sections that follow, we’ll look at some other ways to build interdependency in the form of study buddies, mentors, and temporary partners. As you implement these in your classroom, remember it takes time to build and maintain relationships. Be patient, and your students will benefit from the good that comes from them.

Cooperative Groups and Teams

Ultimately, teams are just structures, and by themselves, they will accomplish nothing. Your students need social cues, prompts, and systems to establish and guide productive group behaviors. Let’s break down how teams can work. In my middle school classes, teams of five seemed to work best. For elementary school, temporary cooperative groups of four or established teams of four work well. I have drawn the following ideas from many sources (for example, see Kagan, Kagan, & Kagan, 1997).

• Allow teams to be unique: Let each pick its own unique name, slogan, cheer, celebration, and logo. This builds social status and camaraderie. Give students time for each of these when building teams.

• Give everyone a unique and valued role: Roles engage more of the class and build positive interdependence (examples include summarizer, leader, personal trainer, stretch leader, energizer, joke teller, and courier).

• Set class norms for all group behaviors: This reduces students acting out and builds individual accountability. For example, share three things you expect every team to do, such as (1) contribute to the class, (2) be on time, and (3) support each other.

• Give the group occasional downtime: This allows for random acts of relationship building and fun. (Limit downtime to two to four minutes.)

• Ensure the team works together daily: Use procedures and rituals that involve everyone, every day. (You can learn more about designing effective rituals and find a worksheet to create some in chapter 18, page 191.) Foster equal participation using turn-taking that leadership and group norms regulate.

• Encourage friendly competition: This builds teamwork and effort and fosters identity. Consider the following ways to use friendly competition.

• Student groups or teams can compete against each other when the topic is less academic and more behavioral. For example, what group is the fastest to get cleaned up at the end of class, who has the most team spirit, who will be the first to learn everyone’s name in class, who has the best team cheer, or who has the coolest name?

• Students can compete against either the teacher or an outside force (another school, class, or virtual team)—an “us against the world” mentality.

• Student teams can compete against themselves. They record and display their prior scores or marks, and each week they try to best their last score.

For cooperative groups and teams to be most effective, coach the team leader, and ask him or her to coach and teach the team how to improve. Make it clear to the groups that this is the leader’s role. Reciprocal teaching (students teaching peers) has a strong effect size of 0.74 (Hattie, 2009). To help you form cooperative teams among your students, use the planning sheet in figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3: Sheet for forming cooperative teams.

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Study Buddies

At the beginning of the year or semester, many teachers set students up with a semipermanent study buddy who takes responsibility for the success of his or her partner in that class. The students share phone numbers and email addresses so they can call, text, and email. When done well, study buddies tend to form a sibling-like relationship. As a teacher, create stakes in the relationship. Say, “If you want an A or B, you must help your partner get an A or B.” If one passes a test and the other does not, it’s a shared failure. A teacher who uses this strategy finds it helps students at the secondary level build relationships and learn to help one another.

Study buddies should sit next to each other in class and share key content as well as be a cheerleader for the other. They will each know the other’s progress and be mindful of changes in progress. Both can sign off on this process with their parents and the teacher. Give students time to make plans for what to do next after getting feedback on a quiz or any other formative assessment.

One way to assign study buddies is to have students write out a passion related to the subject area on an index card. That year or semester, students will work with another kindred soul who shares the same passion for change or a specific topic (Henderson, 2012). Using language arts as an example, you could have students complete the statement, “What I think needs changing in this world …” Figure 2.4 provides a template for a student contact card.

You can have students fill out cards like figure 2.4, collect them, and use them to sort students into similar interests and passions. You can pass out each student’s card to his or her partner and have them spend a few minutes getting to know each other, so that every buddy already knows the best way to contact each other.

Figure 2.4: Study buddy contact card.

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If students don’t want to work with the partner you assigned, give them some more time to work through the issue at hand using some collaboration-building tools like the one in figure 2.5 (page 24). Allocate relational time in your class to help students get to know their partner. Use simple one- to two-minute activities, and rotate them. For example, you could provide students with figure 2.5 and have them work together to answer just one question about each other’s academic strengths, areas where they need help, or something that was important to them while growing up. Then provide them with it again the next day or week and have them tackle the next question.

These question activities help students build trust with others and give them a moment to exchange likes and dislikes. Additionally, pairing this activity helps with communication and conflict-resolution skills. Changing partners won’t solve the problem if a student doesn’t have the social skills to work with a partner. I provide further conflict-resolution strategies in Poor Students, Rich Teaching, Revised Edition (Jensen, 2019).

Student Mentors

Student mentors are also powerful. Every student can benefit from receiving guidance, encouragement, and leadership from someone who has more experience. Fourth graders can mentor second graders, eighth graders can mentor sixth graders, and eleventh graders can mentor ninth or tenth graders. Have students use the worksheet in figure 2.6 (page 24) to have them reflect on how a mentor guided, encouraged, and helped them.

For secondary students, set up a partnership with local colleges or universities for undergraduates to mentor (or tutor) juniors and seniors. For example, undergraduates can tutor students for forty-five minutes after school. High-poverty schools in Los Angeles used collegiate mentors for fourth and fifth graders with solid success (Coller & Kuo, 2014), noting that mentoring programs appear to be useful in promoting social relationships (with parents, mentors, or peers) and reducing conflict. Other mentoring programs have shown significant positive changes in youths’ relationships with parents and teachers and were significantly associated with better youth outcomes, including self-esteem, academic attitudes, prosocial behaviors, and less misconduct (Chan et al., 2013).

Directions: Fill out each other’s name over a column, and then take turns having your partner tell you his or her answer to each question. Write down your partner’s answer in the column under his or her name.

Figure 2.5: Relationship-building tool.

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Figure 2.6: Mentoring reflection sheet.

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Temporary Partners

Even well-managed teams and partners can get stale, so to freshen up the learning and social experience, teachers can use temporary partners. One way to effect this is to engage elementary or secondary students in a simple walk-and-talk activity.

Oh! I’ve got a great idea that should only take a minute. Please stand up. Great! Now, when the music begins, and I say, “Go,” please touch three walls and four chairs that are not your own. Once you get to the spot, wait for further directions. Ready, set, go!

Now that you’re in a new spot, look around, point to the person nearest you, and say, “You’re it!” If you still need a partner, raise your hand. That new person will be your temporary neighbor for the next sixty seconds. Now that you have a partner, here’s your challenge. Earlier we were discussing __________, and it’s time to finish that.

You can then introduce the activity, such as students acting out a pro-and-con role, summarizing key points of the lesson, creating deeper and more interesting questions, or sharing what they know and need to learn. Once students finish the activity, they raise their hands. When all students have finished, ask them to thank their partners, using their first names, and head back to their seats. To further engage students, you can use music as a cue to end the activity and move forward. Use figure 2.7 to brainstorm and plan your temporary-partnership activities.

Figure 2.7: Activity planning for temporary partners.

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Quick Consolidation: Connect Everyone for Success

As we’ve seen, many forms of interdependency can work to allow students to connect everyone for success. I have found interdependency to be one of the best tools for classroom success. Whatever strategies you adopt, no one method is perfect, because ultimately, students will crave a bit of novelty when they get tired of a social structure. The idea is to develop multiple sources that allow students to work with others in which the stakes are high for the common goals. Answer the following reflection questions as you consider your next steps on the journey to making learning more collaborative in your classroom.

1. What did you learn about the importance of collaborative-learning activities that you didn’t know when you started this chapter? How is your outlook on group work changing?

2. Given the importance of splitting classroom time (over the course of a week) between individual and collaborative study time, what changes do you need to make to get closer to an even split between the two?

3. How will you approach using collaborative time with your class that ensures it creates effective (and not wasted) time?

4. If conflict arises between group members, study buddies, or temporary partners, what strategies will you use to achieve a productive outcome that allows the group or partnership to function better in the future?

5. What is your plan for observing the benefits of student collaboration? What will you look for to know these collaborative activities are benefitting students?

The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching © 2019 Solution Tree Press • SolutionTree.com

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