Welcome fellow Recovering Traditionalists!!

Is Your Math Group Work REALLY Collaboration?

You’ve probably seen it. Students are paired up to work on a math task, each with their own copy. Heads go down, everyone works alone, and then they look up to compare answers. Or one student takes over while the other watches.

In their book MicroRoutines, Amy Lucenta and Grace Kelemanik describe that first scenario as “parallel problem-solving rather than authentic collaboration.” They also offer a fix that’s simple enough to start tomorrow.

What Is a Microroutine?

The authors define a microroutine as “a concise, well-defined sequence of interactions among students and with content.” Each one is short “less than 10 min, some taking only a minute or two” and has just four or five steps, so students pick them up fast.

My favorite part is that they don’t ask you to throw out your curriculum. In the authors’ words,

“These routines are not add-ons to existing curriculum programs; instead, they are a way to facilitate materials and increase student engagement.”

They fit into moments that happen in every math class: when students first start a task, when most of the class is stuck, when you want to go deeper on a big idea, or when students reflect on what they learned.

Why Kids Need Structure to Collaborate

We ask students to work together for good reasons. Lucenta and Kelemanik point to research showing that collaboration has a positive impact on learning, that diverse voices bring diverse perspectives, and that collaborating well is a top workforce skill. But putting kids next to each other doesn’t make them collaborate. As the authors put it, “students need structures in place to support their collaboration, make it productive and effective for all, and ensure equitable participation.”

Getting on the Same Page

This microroutine’s name is literal. Instead of each student working on their own copy, partners share ONE workspace. They have to agree on what goes on that page, which means they have to talk about the math.

On page 32 they lay out the steps for the microroutine Getting on the Same Page:

The authors explain why the shared page matters: “Sharing a workspace increases collaboration and makes participation more equal, and as a result students’ collective thinking is stronger than their individual thinking.”