Here is a great teacher sponge activity that works basically the same way as twenty questions, yet the teacher limits the number of guesses students can make depending on how difficult the concept is to guess.

When teachers limit the number of guesses, the students are more likely to strategize in how they ask their questions.

For example, a teacher might say, “I’m thinking of a planet. Four guesses.” Or, “I’m thinking of a state. Seven guesses.”

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by Adam Waxler

Being a teacher who has moved from New York to Florida I am often asked to compare the two…actually I find myself comparing the New York school system to the Florida school system even if I’m not asked

The truth is though, the two systems are so different it is difficult to draw any concrete conclusions…as my dad would say, “It’s like comparing apples and oranges”.

However, this past week I did get a taste of what I really miss about teaching in New York…small class sizes.

Due to a school trip over 40 of my students were absent from school last Thursday. Normally on days like this I just show a movie and write it up to a lost day of teaching…however, this year I decided to teach the lesson as planned and had the absent students simply make up the missing assignments. This made for some very small classes on Thursday and made teaching an absolute delight. In fact, the students themselves were saying the same thing. I couldn’t help but think back to my days teaching in New York.

I guess I should not make generalizations…there may be many New York schools that have large classes, I just happened to be lucky enough to teach at a school with small classes. Just to give you an example, my last year teaching in New York I had 80 students spread out over 5 classes for an average of 16 students per class. This year, teaching in Florida, I have 132 students spread out over 6 classes for an average of 22 students per class.

Now, of course, 22 students is not really something to complain about, but remember, they are spread out over SIX classes.

When my current school district decided to have all their middle school teachers teach six classes instead of the five we taught the previous year the middle schools in the county were able to reduce their class sizes…which is good. However, my overall number of students actually increased from 112 the previous year to 132 this school year…not good.

What I think so many people don’t understand about the importance of class size is that it is not just the individual class numbers that are important, but it also the overall numbers that are important. An increase in the overall number of students forces the teacher to spend more time on grading essays, tests, homework etc. therefore making less time for the teacher to spend on creating and developing effective lessons.

However, whether we are talking about a teacher’s overall number of students or individual class size numbers, the fact of the matter is, large numbers are bad for both the student and the teacher.

You see, one of the most important factors governing student learning is the student-teacher relationship. Not only is the student-teacher relationship one of the most important factors, but it is also one of the most overlooked factors.

No one should underestimate the impact that the student-teacher relationship has on student learning.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the biggest problem with having large classes is not the added amount of grading and administrative tasks, it is not the added classroom management problems….the biggest problem with large classes is simply that it deteriorates the student-teacher relationship.

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Here’s a sponge activity that teachers can use that encourages students to look for relationships between concepts AND has students speak in complete sentences.

It’s called…”mixmaster”.

The teacher simply selects two words and calls out “mixmaster”. Students must then use those two words in a sentence.

For example, a teacher might say, “Liter/quart - mixmaster” and then one student may respond with, “The liter and quart are both units of measurement.” Another student may have a completely different reposnse, but in both cases the students answered complete sentences and formed relationships between two concepts.

There are several ways teachers can go about setting up this sponge activity…teachers can have voltuneers respond to the mixmaster words, it can be played in a round-robin style, students can call-out the name of the next person to answer, or the teacher can simply have all students write down an answer and then pair & share their responses.

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My teaching style lends itself to many group activites. Sometimes students are in groups of 2…sometimes 3…sometimes 4 etc.

So, is there a right and wrong way to do divide students into groups?

No, not really. However, there are ways to create groups that will also allow students to learn and/or review content as they find their new group.

That’s right, teachers can use the method by which they divide their students into groups as an opportunity for some quick content review.

How?

Well, here’s what I did just this past week in my 8th grade social studies classes…

We have been learning about how the United States acquired various territories to complete its’ Manifest Destiny . In one particular lesson I needed the students to be broken into 8 different groups. I arranged the desks in 8 groups of 4 and labeled each group as a different U.S. Territory. Then, when it was time to divide students I simply handed each student an index card with a state name written on each. Students then had to use their notes, the textbook, or wall maps to determine which states came out of which territiores. The students then were to go sit in their appropriate “territory”.

This may sound like it would take a long time, but it really does not…I set the timer (like I always do)…and all of my classes finished in less than 3 minutes.

Personally, I think it is worth the time…not only were students quickly mixed into new groups, but it gave them an opportunity to review the content we had been learning that week.

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