“Always behave like a duck-keep calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like the devil underneath.” -Lord Barbizon

“Help! My class is so much BIGGER this year…
…what do I do?”

“I just found out that I have 28-30 students. How do I use math stations now?”

“Which is better—a larger group with an even number or a small group with an odd number?”

“Is it better to have more math stations since I have more students?”

These are some of the questions teachers submitted after conference sessions on Tabor Rotation. Teachers typically come to the Tabor Rotation sessions because they have been told to use small groups, they’ve been told to differentiate instruction at a sophisticated level, they’ve been told to respond and use intervention strategies, they’ve been told to qualitatively meet the needs of all their learners, but no one has given them a plan for how to do it all in the amount of time they’ve been given. The Tabor Rotation Framework is simply a plan to do all of the above.

Many teachers have emailed with great concern after receiving their class lists for the new school year. You may not have power over the number of students in your classes, but you do have control over how you best meet all of their needs.

The Tabor Rotation Framework came about, like any other invention, through necessity. The first Tabor Rotation classrooms had almost 40 students in a class, most of the class below grade level, and only 60 minutes to teach math. Someone had to think outside the box and start to instruct math in a way that would make the most of their minutes with students. It also needed to provide a plan to optimize varied modalities in order to develop & deepen conceptual understandings in mathematics. The Tabor Rotation Framework is what came about…it’s the answer for any size class, but was initially created for a BIG one. So, bring on the budget cuts, bring on the larger class sizes, you’ve got a way to make the most of any challenge!

The Tabor Rotation Framework is research-based, teacher-tested, and student-approved! And, implementing the 14 Essential Elements in a Week of Tabor Rotation brings about INCREDIBLE results. Check out the NEWS page of www.glennatabor.com. Because the framework has been implemented and tested for almost two decades, teachers have been able to report what has worked best for them.

The most success has been found when teachers create groups with even numbers so that everyone has a partner (6, 8, 10). At one point, each of my teams had 10 students in it, but it was easy to manage 4 math teams & 4 stations in the rotation process. It also ensured that the integrity of Readiness Groups on Days 4 & 5 of a week of Tabor Rotation was always maintained. Most classes are divided into smaller cooperative teams and work with partners during the Whole-Group Mini-Lesson and while learning in other subjects.

What about the number of stations? When teachers have more students they tend to create more & more stations. One teacher tried 12 stations so that she would have only 2-3 students per station. This became very, very challenging to manage and to create 12 new activities each week that meaningful engage every learner and every level, for every concept being taught.
Tabor teachers usually leave the number of stations the same & more sets of the same activities at the station. The team comes back together at the end of the rotation time and discusses the Exit Questions with their partner and other members of their team.

Creating for more than 4 stations will require the teacher to rethink the organization of Readiness Groups which are an Essential Element of Tabor Rotation. Heterogeneous groups go to the stations, but homogeneous or readiness groups are key to meeting the needs of all students during a week of instruction.

The Tabor Team Roles remain the same since the group remains working together in the same area of the room. When the team has more 4 members, the team roles are: Leader, Co-Leader, Materials Manager, & Timekeeper. With 6 members, you add an additional Materials Manager & a Reporter. With 8 members, a team may add a Whisper Monitor to maintain the sound level of the team or a Team Builder who encourages the team and builds up the team spirit.

This blog is meant to give ideas to those who are seeking them. Hopefully, something written in today’s blog provided you with an “aha” moment. One of the most important things to remember about grouping is the need to “shake up” or vary the way students experience a concept. Students should have the opportunity to learn in a whole-group setting, working with a partner, in a small group with varied levels of understanding, and in a group with students who are at the same level for the specific concepts being studied.

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.  It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”     -Margaret Thatcher

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”     -H. Jackson Brown

More on Readiness Groups in the next blog post…