This week, we are talking about High-Leverage Practice# 17: Using flexible grouping. And Chris, my goodness, I know your background, and you have helped some staff make sense of some very complex student groups, program clusters, and changes as the school year is going on and different students are coming and going. Gosh, you've really navigated a lot of those social dynamics. So, for you and your practice, what does flexible grouping look like?

I say it a lot. You have to be flexible, but you have to be intentional, right? And sometimes people think that those are in opposition. But the reality of it is, when you're looking at it, you're seeking to meet learning goals one way or the other. You're seeking to meet a goal, and you have to be flexible in how you're doing it. When we're looking at it from, you know, a programmatic side, we're going to be looking at data, right? We're going to be looking at the things we want to achieve and accomplish the objectives. What's the mission? What's the vision? What do we want our students to walk away with? What are some of those student needs?

It is not set up by convenience. And I see that happening a lot. But there is intentionality. And from the student side, if you're a teacher and you're looking at that grouping from the student inside of your classroom, I'm going to tell you, rinse and repeat. It's going to be based on data. You have to look at objectives; you're going to have to look at those student needs. It might be convenient to put certain students together, but that might not be your most effective way to go about it.

So, flexible grouping, it has to be flexible. You have to be willing to shift around and try different things, but you also have to have that level of intentionality and do it in a way that is really driven by data and need. Because when you do that, it'll allow you to differentiate, change your intensity levels, establish social skills, establishing all of these amazing things that you might not otherwise come to. And even if you look at social skills as one where someone's like, ‘well, he said social skills.’ The reality of it is you're looking at those concepts. I might have pairs set up by students where they might be mixed skills.

One student is clearly stronger in one thing than another and serves as a great peer model. I know that the student is going to have a better experience with a peer model than they will with me as an adult, as a model. And especially if I do not interact a lot with that student, or I don't have a lot of commonalities. Maybe they're a different gender. Maybe their interests are different than my interests. Well, guess what? I might have that level of intentionality of having mixed groups, or I might look at similar skills. Similar groups. I might look at pairs. It's all about being flexible and being intentional. What am I looking to accomplish, and in what way can I pivot what I have to get to that for our students? And it's the same thing with programs.

So I know when you've done program development, you have just baked this in to how you're even setting up a schedule for the day, how you're setting up your environment. So you've got different rotations happening at different times, and which groups are getting told where, when, with whom, and for what. Like, how do you make those decisions? Because I've watched you do that just flawlessly, and you see it, and it's just like right there. But help whoever's listening actually get into that mind with you so that they can start seeing their program, their students, in the way that you do.

So your groupings- I'll use self-contained programming. Let's say I'm working with a self-contained classroom that has students who maybe have some communicative deficits, maybe they're significantly below what their grade or chronological age would suggest, and they have some challenges there that we need to establish some skills. So we might look at how we are going to set up the classroom to have the groupings we need?

We know when we walk in that room, I would hope at least, when we walk in that room, that we're going to see right off the get-go some visual stimuli that tell me, okay, I have space for a whole group, and I've got some small group areas. I might have independent work systems and independent work areas where people can work individually. I'm going to have one-on-one instruction, and I want to make sure, play/leisure, data collection, I can keep going on and so forth on the different ones. But the reality of it is, you want to make sure you set up your groups in such a way that not only does everybody contact each of those environments at least once in your classroom, but you want to set up your groups so that there will be some loading for skills that we want to establish.

So, for example, I know that if (I'll use play and leisure, because I used it as an example before,) this routing with a visual schedule or a schedule system they have, I'm going to have students in a variety of areas at one time. The only place I'm not going to have them scattered is when I have them all at whole group instruction. But everything else, small group, I have to think about who's running that, what teacher, what para, what volunteer, what parent, who's in there, (that's if they're doing something even for a holiday activity,) how am I going to set those groupings up to establish that skill set in that time to be as effective and efficient as possible?

Even something simple like independent work systems. I know that if I have somebody who has a sensitivity to auditory stimuli and I have another student who scripts very loudly, I might not have them at the individual work systems at the same time. I might have one student at play and leisure with other students engaging in those socially mediated behaviors that we want to establish in social skills.

We might have another student take on a seat in their independent work system at that time. We might also bring those students back around together for small group because we want to make sure that we're exposing all of our students to all the skills, all the areas, but being flexible with our groupings. And as we establish right in the beginning, you might not have those two paired up in the independent work systems. But we also know that what we want to accomplish is that our students are finding their way into the general education classroom.

I know that in a general education classroom, you're going to have students who are talking, you're going to have students who are engaging in those behaviors. So in the beginning, while I'm establishing that tolerance skill with that student, I might never have those two in the beginning of the year at the same independent workstations working on their independent work systems independently.  At the same time, I might work towards that because that is a strategy to getting that student one step closer to that inclusion, that opportunity that they are entitled to. So you have to be strategic. There's never a never and always. Because at the end of the day, it really matters. It matters that we are being intentional. We're grouping with intent. Whether it's the intent to increase those skill sets in that time, because these students work the best together, but we also have to bring that tolerance coin along. It's the only way we're going to get our students to succeed in our classroom and outside as well. We look at those groupings as one of the many tools that you can use to get to that destination.

You just listed off so many different criteria of how you could select them, locations that you could put them in, and what they might be doing while they're there. I mean, how the heck do you manage all of that? There are so many different needs and activities and locations and expectations and then different staff supporting different things, that to some is incredibly overwhelming, as that classroom leader, to, you know, the organized chaos feel.

So, how have you coached and walked alongside those classroom leadersto be able to effectively have so many different groups that are meeting so many different needs simultaneously? And that is the beautiful thing about running education like this. But also not feel like they're losing their ever-loving mind because everything is going on everywhere. Like, how do you find that sweet spot with your people?

You've got to teach two skills. I found that in education, particularly with special education, the people who are in that field are what I would consider an all-in. They are all-in, all the time, every single time. And that is an amazing skill to have. But there are two skills I look to establish. Number one, I have to give you the grace and the ability to pull back from some of that. Because in a classroom where you have all those spaces, you have all those working things, you cannot be everyone's everything all the time.

So I have to give you the permission sometimes. They feel like they need the permission to step back and say, ‘oh, I don't have to be hovering over, you know, Chris and Heather when they're working at the independent work stations that I've established using the systems that were set up specifically for them.’ You have to have that ability to take a step back. And oftentimes, I feel like special educators, they sometimes need to hear that permission. It's okay to do that.

So number one, I'm going to teach you how to step back. I want you to take a step back and recognize that at any given moment, there are going to be a variety of things that are happening in your classroom. But we establish our systems, and we schedule. That's the second thing. So you step back, and then you have to schedule. Just as much as your students have a schedule, your staff in your classroom should have a schedule as well. When I walk into a classroom, I always look at the environment. I'm looking for two big things right up front. Number one, do you have all the areas that you actually need? Do you have an area in your classroom in case there's a crisis? Do you have a data collection area? Do you have the physical entity spaces that you need to give the variety of instruction for effective grouping? Number one.

Number two, what do your schedules look like? What do your student schedules look like? Like, what does your class schedule look like? How are they the same? How are they different? And what are your staff and student schedules differing? So your staff, just like a student, should have a schedule of where they're going to be at any given time. And so it's more of a managerial role for the teacher than it is for them, solving and putting out every single fire.

And so I would constantly find where there would be a teacher and a para. A teacher, two paras. In a small classroom, you'd have special education students there, and they would have all the physical things laid out that they need. The spaces are there, the problem happens over here, the teacher gets up from instruction, walks over there, para is over there, or even a volunteer is over there, or a contractor is over there, somebody is there, they walk over, they solve the problem, they walk back. Well, guess what? Now you've got two groups that have missed out. You missed out on a teachable moment for that person, a person to generate their skills, who was there, the staff, and then the students that we've left and walked away from.

So it sounds like a ton of spaces, it sounds like chaos, but I promise you, it's controlled chaos. And it starts with giving yourself permission to step back, recognize everyone has a job, everybody has a role. We communicate those roles, we practice those roles, we team the roles, and we role-play the roles. I have to rely on those around me because I can't do it all, just like they can't do it all. And then, in addition to that, we want to make sure that our schedules align. If I have students go into small groups, I already know at the beginning of the day who's going to be there in the afternoon in that part of the day. And so those are the two quintessential things. With those systems that seem like chaos, you want to make sure you have in place, and you walk your systems, you role-play those out, you build that level of familiarity with it.

And it's like anything else. The things we do often, we tend to do well. In the beginning, it's hard. Setting up student groups is hard. Setting up groups in the classroom is hard. Setting up our spaces and how we're going to navigate them, and then plugging in staff is hard. But I promise you this, it will feel at the beginning of your first year like chaos, like it's not working, like there are so many pieces and you're already drawn in so many places. But if you utilize those systems, if you look at your grouping and you're selective with how you're doing it with your staff, with your students, just like, you know, some students work better with some staff than others on some skills.

If we're strategic there and we schedule it out, it allows us to plan for success in that other environment. But by the end of the year, you'll be a lot further along than you are, and you'll be more efficacious. Because everybody who feels empowered and wants to be there for something can take ownership of what they're there for in that moment. That para that's doing one-on-one instruction in that moment will own that one-on-one instruction. And when that para rotates to a small group in the next scheduled transition that we have in the class, and the teacher's now, that one-on-one, guess what, that teacher gets to own that. But then the para also gets to own that. And it's this compounding variable, these layers of being effective. And not everybody's going to be great at all those things at once.

But we can use our grouping to help train our staff too. I might have three students who work very well together, and I'm teaching how to teach small group to this pair as an extension. So I might purposely pair them for the beginning. So as I develop the skills and they get their comfort level, their familiarity with that process, and then I might be able to incorporate and change those skills. And that's a level of grouping that people always think of. Well, you're always going to talk about the student. If you have a system with those moving parts, you have to rely on the people around you, just like the students have to rely on the paras and the teachers, the volunteers, and all those who come into that classroom, even the service providers.

So before we sign off this week, I want to give you a few minutes here to just speak to the person who's trying to build it, because to hear you paint the picture of what this could be and how this operates, and just all the moving pieces, and that it's okay. It might feel like chaos, but it's actually working. And like, you can walk yourself through seeing what's working, what's not working, and making those adjustments and just continuing to do that program development.

But it doesn't pop up overnight. Like, you cannot just walk in one day and have everything you are talking about up and running. So I want to give you a few minutes here before we sign off to really speak to those people. They're like, yeah, this sounds great, but holy wow, where do I start?

So one of the things that I advocate for to help me as a person stay on track, I use checklists. I go into a grocery store. I'm keeping to the list, right? My wife has taught me that. The reality of it is that these checklists can help guide us heavily. And there are some really good checklists out there that can help keep you on task. But the reality of it is, if you try to do everything as you said, you're going to burn out. Where do you start? Well, I can tell you this. It is much easier to change the environment than the organism. I know that. I know that to be true. Where do we start? We start with our environment. We start with our systems that we have in that environment. We know that we're going to need grouping. We're going to have different, various instructional areas and groups. But I'm going to start with that.

And I might be running my railroad how I'm running my railroad, and I might say systematically. We are going to look at small groups now, and I might be working with my paras to teach them how to get comfortable, to model, to show, how they are going to get comfortable. You have the skills, the capacity to do it. You're there for a reason, right? But I start with the environment, and I take those baby steps.

You want to make sure you have the spaces carved out in your environment. They're laid out. You want to walk those spaces, sit in those spaces. People don't realize sometimes it's important when you're sitting in an independent work system, and you're oriented towards a window, but you didn't realize that the heater right next to you makes a ton of noise. It's very loud. Well, that might not be the best place for that space. You have the space. Now let's alter and move the space.

Start with your spaces, then go to your schedules. Because if I can get staff following the schedule, I can get students using their schedule as a functional tool that guides their day. That's less on me being an air traffic controller. I'm not getting up. And the paras aren't leading all of these students to where they need to go. I've introduced a tool with consistency and allowed them to utilize that tool.

I always start with the environment because it's quicker to change. Sometimes I can roll it all out at once, sometimes I can be selective. But be honest with yourself. Start with your environment, then go to your schedules. Once you have your schedules in your environment, from there, now you've got the bowl, you've got the vanilla ice cream. Now you're putting the sprinkles. Now you're going to be putting all the other things in place. It's what you do with those environments in those spaces that matter. But you have to have the kids there, and you have to have people there. So where do you start? That's where you start. You walk those spaces, you go through it. You work as a team. Start with your environment, start with your schedules.

Thank you so much. Because these are, you know, the pictures that you are painting with your words, are those like ideal classrooms, instructional moments, the reasons that people love what they do. But it is so much work to really get it built and systemized and running in ways that are not just straight chaos. So thank you for not just painting that picture of where it could be and how this could work, but also for encouraging one step at a time. Like, you can work in that direction, and it will work. But, you know, slow and strategic, you'll get there. Thank you for that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for spending your time with me this week and talking about this High-Leverage Practice. I really appreciate your just your depth of knowledge and just your compassionate approach to how you're like, hey, no, like it's possible you can actually make this happen. So thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.