TEACHING MULTI-GRADE CLASSES

Module 6 Management Strategies for Multi-grade Classrooms

I. What is this lesson about?

In this module, you will be tasked to design classroom management plans to be used in
multi-grade contexts for both teacher and students that support multi-grade contexts. You will
also discuss some management strategies for multi-grade classrooms specifically in
designing sample floor plans and seating plans for their classroom and justify these plans to
support learning in a multi-grade classroom.

II. What will you learn?

At the end of this module, you should be able to demonstrate knowledge and
understanding of a design in a classroom management plans to be used in multi-grade
contexts. Specifically, you are expected to be able to do the following management strategies
for multi-grade classrooms after completing this module:

1. Establishing and using Teacher Routines;

2.Establishing and using Student Routines;

3. Designing sample floor plans and seating plans for their classroom; 4.

Justifying these plans to support learning in a multi-grade classroom; and

5.Drafting rules for students in a multi-grade classroom.

III. What are the activities /tasks you will engage in? (Flow of Instructions)

A. Answering “Let’s Try it” (Pre-assessment).

B. Designing classroom management plans to be used in multi-grade teacher and
students’ routines; and
C. Designing sample floor plans and seating plans for their classroom; and
 D. Justifying these plans to support learning in a multi-grade classroom.

IV. What do you already know? (Pre-requisite concepts)

Let’ s Try

I.Choose the correct answer.

1. How can the multi-grade system be set in place in order to respond to the needs of
remote elementary schools where enrolment is low?

A. Upgrade students to higher levels

B. Mainstream special students with regular students

C. Combine 2-3 grade levels

D. Assign teachers to specific levels

2. On the aspects of personal classroom management, which factor greatly affects the
rate of learning or the speed of absorption of knowledge among students?

A. Use of visual aids

B. Manner of presentation of information

C. Voice delivery and clarity of the teacher

D. Difficulty in lesson content

II. Fill the blank with the correct answer. Multi-grade teacher plays a central role in managing
the classroom in the following ways:

1. Planning the use of the classroom “space”, especially

____________ seating arrangements for both you and your students;

2. Planning and carrying out _______________ lessons at the same time;

3. Designing activities for students to keep them ________________;

4. Creating, arranging, and using teaching and learning ________________;

5. Establishing _____________ of behavior expected of students to keep them learning.

V. Let’s Read

Understanding the Current Context and Creating a Future Vision

In order to realize these functions effectively, you need to focus on many levels of classroom
management. This starts with an assessment of what your classroom looks like now and your vision
of how you want it to look in the future. When you first get assigned to a school which has – or should
have multigrade teaching, it is essential to take time to gain a clear understanding of the context of
your multigrade classroom. You can start by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Where is your school located? How far do your students travel to get to school?

2.What grades are you teaching? What age and ability range are in your classroom? How might you
best work with and take advantage of a wide range of ages and abilities?

3.What kinds of family background do your students come from?

4.What is their economic status?

5.What language do your students speak at home?

6. How well do they understand and speak the national language?

7. What might you do to ensure they learn what they need to learn in the language you use in the

classroom?

8.How many have had some kind of pre-school experience?

9. What can you do to help those who have not had this experience?

10. Do any of your students have special education needs in regard to physical or cognitive disabilities?

What can you do to respond to these needs?

11. What resources do you have to make the classroom and school work better?

12. According to the national (and perhaps local) curriculum, what should be taught to each grade and

how well have your students learned the curriculum so far?

13.To what extent do your head teacher/principal and the other teachers in your school understand and

practice multigrade teaching? If their understanding is limited, what can you do to increase support for your

work?

14. Do the parents of your children understand and support multigrade teaching? Again, if not, what can

you do to help them understand the need for such teaching?

Once you have a good understanding of the students in your class, take time to create a vision in
your mind about what you want your multigrade classroom to look like.

A welcoming, inclusive, healthy, protective, and child-friendly environment which helps your
students – most of whom have probably not had any pre-school experience – feel comfortable in the
school and ensures that they do not drop out before completion of the primary school cycle.

A rich mixture of grade-appropriate and mixed-grade teaching, peer learning through group work and
pair work, personalized teaching, independent learning through tutoring, and teacher and student
interactions to make sure that all children learn and that no child is excluded from learning because of
gender, language, poverty, disability, or any other reason.

A disciplined classroom with a harmonious learning environment which mixes structured learning
(e.g., for teaching science, arithmetic, reading, writing) and unstructured learning (storytelling,
singing, plays, games, etc.)

Preparing the Classroom

Once you have created your vision, you can start translating it into practice by planning what you
want to do in clear and simple terms. A crucial part of planning an effective multigrade classroom is
organizing its space so that it allows free movement and can be used for different activities by
individual students, individual grades, small groups, and the whole group. The traditional seating
arrangement with a teacher facing all students in rows with a chalkboard on the wall does not work in
a multigrade classroom where several activities are happening at the same time. Therefore, you will
need to think about how your classroom can be divided into different areas. The key word in this
process is “flexibility”

– the ability to move students and desks around inside the classroom to create the kind of learning
spaces you desire.

This requires some preparation before you start teaching, such as:

1) Understanding the space in the classroom and the resources available for conducting classes
2) Deciding on the types of teaching methods and student activities possible in the space available
given the number of students and grades in your classroom; e.g. if a lot of group work is
planned, you may want to create several areas for group discussion/ activity and leave less
space for one-on-one teaching and independent learning;
3) Drawing a floor plan of the classroom with a seating plan that promotes your desired learning
activities and shows the placement of furniture, books, materials, etc. (see Figure 1 & 2); think
about how you can create spaces for individual and group learning in such a way that students
experience barrier-free access to the most used areas within the classroom as well as to
classroom resources and materials.

Figure 1 Example Floor Plan for a Multigrade Classroom

Source: Adapted from a figure published by the Northwest Regional Educational

Laboratory (1999), The Multigrade Classroom: A Resource Handbook for Small,
Rural Schools. Portland, USA, available from http://educationnorthwest.org/
webfm_send/1151 (Accessed 17 December 2012.

Figure 2
 It shows one way you could arrange your classroom for effective multigrade teaching. You can adapt this floor plan to
suit your classroom set-up and resources.

VI. Let’s Study

Classroom routines

Classroom routines are those rules and procedures, set up by the teacher and understood by the
students, which set the pattern for every day behavior and actions. Having clear rules and everyone
knowing what they should be doing is essential in a Multigrade classroom. Because students are
required to do different things at different times, and take responsibility for their learning, routines that
are understood by the students in the classroom are vital. Time at the beginning of the year getting
the rules right and routines firmly established will be time very well spent.

Teacher’s routines

As well as the students having routines, the teacher should also have some routines which should be
followed daily.

1) Planning – Apart from being planned well ahead, adequate preparation time should be allowed
either before the students come to school in the morning, or after school.
2) Preparation – Blackboards should be prepared with the tasks and various groups listed and all
teaching and learning resources should be organized for the day.
3) Effective routines allow the students to start work quickly and purposefully in the morning.
They know if the teacher is properly organized.
4) Try to plan your day’s work so you have some time for individual help (marking, discussing,
reading, etc) to a variety of students in the different groups within the day.

The students’ routines

Students need to know how the classroom operates and what they are responsible for doing.
Clear routines assist students in developing responsibility for their learning.
1) Students should know what work they should be doing at any one time. The teacher needs
to establish the ways in which work will be set. It may be for the whole class, for a group or for
an individual. Blackboards, verbal and / or written instructions, worksheets, etc can be used.

2) Students should know how books and other learning materials are distributed, collected
and stored. The individual or group should be responsible for returning teaching and learning
materials to their correct place.

3) Students should know what to do when they need help but the teacher is unavailable. If a
student is having difficulties with the instructions or the task, they should know who they can ask
for help, e.g. the group leader, their partner, etc, before they approach the teacher.

4) Students should know how to have work marked or checked. Teachers should avoid long
queues at their desk of students waiting to have their work marked. They quickly get bored and
restless. It is good to have other activities they can carry on with on their own. Many teachers
find it better to actually leave their desk and move around the room to the students. They can sit
beside the student to help them and to check their work. Other ideas include letting students
mark their own work, or make self-check work cards with answer keys. Older students can check
the work of
younger students. Of course, the teacher will need to closely monitor this, and students will need
to be taught how to mark work. This leaves the teacher free to collect the books less frequently,
perhaps checking at the end of each day. Not all teaching will be suitable to be marked in this
way.

5) Students should know what to do when they are finished. When students are working in
small groups or individually, they must know what to do when they are finished so they will not
cause disruption to the teacher and the class. The students who finish early should know what
they can carry on with without the teacher’s help. They should know where to go, what to do and
why they are doing it. A list of activities could be put on the board, they might go to the learning
center, finish
incomplete work, play some games prepared by the teacher for such times, read etc. If the
students are clear on what to do they will not bother you and the other students.

6) Students should be given responsibility. Multigrade teachers can help themselves and at the
same time help their students by giving them real responsibility in the classroom. They should
tell them which tasks and duties are the responsibility of the students. The use of monitors, or
helpers for particular jobs is most useful. These students should be rotated so that different
students have an opportunity to develop responsibility. V. How much have you learned?

Feedback

Make a chart of the teachers ‘routines and students’ routines. On the third column, cite some
management strategies related to the classroom routines.
Teachers’ Routines Students’ routines Management Strategies
VI. How is your learning relevant or useful to you as a pre-service teacher?

Let’s Reflect

In the new normal curriculum, do you think you can innovate some management strategies in
teaching multi-grade students? Explain how will you manage the class.

____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

3. Assessment Task (Creative Group Outputs)

Directions.

1. Design a sample floor plan and seating plan for a multi-grade classroom.
2. Justify why these plans supports learning in a multi-grade classroom.
3. Draft some rules to be posted in the classroom to reflect your management strategies.

4. 5-Minute Reflective Writing

Fill out this blank in 5 minutes. From the module 6 on the Management Strategies for
Multi-grade Classrooms, I realized that

__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Key to Let’s Try

I.Choose the correct answer.

1. How can the multi-grade system be set in place in order to respond to the
needs of remote elementary schools where enrolment is low?

A. Upgrade students to higher levels

B. Mainstream special students with regular students

C. Combine 2-3 grade levels

D. Assign teachers to specific levels

2. On the aspects of personal classroom management, which factor greatly

affects the rate of learning or the speed of absorption of knowledge among
students?

A. Use of visual aids

B. Manner of presentation of information

C. Voice delivery and clarity of the teacher

 D. Difficulty in lesson content

II. Fill the blank with the correct answer. Multi-grade teacher play a central role
in managing the classroom in the following ways:

1. Planning the use of the classroom “space”, especially flexible seating

arrangements for both you and your students;

2. Planning and carrying out multiple lessons at the same time;

3. Designing activities for students to keep them involved;

4. Creating, arranging, and using teaching and learning materials;

5. Establishing norms of behavior expected of students to keep them learning.

Scoring rubrics for designing a sample floor plans and seating plans for a multi-grade
classroom:

Above Below
Extraordinary Average Poor
average average
5 3 1
4 2
(N/A) (N/A) (N/A)
(N/A) (N/A)

Understandin Extraordinary Above Average Below Poor

g average average
The artwork is The art work The artwork
20 %
planned The artwork is planned The artwork shows no
carefully; is planned adequately; shows little understandin
Demonstrartion understanding of carefully; understandin evidence of g of the
that instructions all concepts and understandin g of some understandin concepts and
and concepts are instructions is g of most concepts and g the instructions.
understood. clearly shown. concepts and instructions concepts and
instructions shown. instructions.
is shown.
Craftsmanship/ Extraordinary Above Average Below Poor
Skill average average
20% The artwork The artwork The artwork
shows The artwork shows The artwork shows poor
Neatness,
outstanding shows good average shows below craftmanship
precision, care.
craftsmanship,wit craftmanship craftmanship average and no
h clear attention , with some and attention craftmanship attention to
to detail, attention to to detail. and little detail.
detail. attention to
detail.

Creativity/ Extraordinary Above Average Below Poor

Originality average average
The artwork The artwork The artwork
20 % demonstrates demonstrate lacks
The artwork The artwork
original personal demonstrate s an average demonstrate evidence of
expession and s some amount of s little personal
Inventiveness,
outstanding personal personal personal expression.
expression of
problem solving expression expression. expression
ideas and
skills. and logical and problem
imagination.
problem solving skills.
solving skills.

Effort Extraordinary Above Average Below Poor

20 % average average
The student put The student The student
forth The student put forth the The student put forth no
What it takes to extraordinary put forth the effort put forth the effort or the
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Suggested the projectand
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Module Strand
MG.2 Unit: project
ne
the Multigrade
Teaching was
as well as complete the required to finish the required to not
possible, time project well as complete the project; used finish the completed;
dedicated to the possible; used project well; class time project; class time
project inside class time used class adequately. usedclass was not used
and/or out of extremely well. time well. time well.
class. adequately.

Cooperation Extraordinary Above Average Below Poor

20 % average average
The student is The student The student
always willing to The student is sometimes The student does not
Attitude during complete is usually willing to is rarely show
class time; assigned tasks willing to complete willing to willingness to
willingness to and help set up complete assigned complete complete

complete set up, and clean up assigned tasks and assigned assigned
art practice and projects; works tasks and help set up tasks and tasks and
clean up tasks. very well with help set up and clean up help set up help set up
others and and clean up projects; and clean up and clean up
makes the most projects; works projects; projects;
use of studio works well somewhat sometimes does not
time. with others well with works well work well
and utilizes others and with others, with others.
the studio uses late to class Late to class
time. minimum or leaves or leaves
amount of early early
studio time. (without (without
proper time proper time
alloted to alloted to
project). project).