Hi- we are going to start this year doing a departmentalized program in our 4th grade. If you do this in your school, can you share how it is done?
So far......
We have 6 teachers who will be participating. We are thinking of doing teams of 3 (switch for SS, SCI, MATH). Each teacher will teach Reading and writing to their homeroom. Of course, reading will really be taught in all classes, but homeroom teacher will focus on skill and test prep.
Our biggest concern is how do you group the students?
Thanks for any advice...amy
There were four fourth grade teachers, and we departmentalized in groups of two. Since the computer randomly grouped students, we left it at that and didn't try to regroup kids. I taught Language Arts to both classes and Writing to my homeroom class. We also didn't switch classes until 10:00 and 10:10. We staggered it so we wouldn't have four classes in a narrow hallway all at once.
I would consider carefully 8, 9, and 10 year olds having three teachers. While they of course love the concept (reminds them of middle school), it is too much for them. Even when they get use to having required materials for each teacher, they will get flustered at having left something in the other class. Since there are six of you, maybe have three groups of two teachers.
Myself and my teammate worked wonderfully together. The other team worked well together also, but instead of the kids switching classes, the teachers switched.
Also, think of your schedules. It's much easier to deal with lunches, recess, and resources (or specials), when there are just of the two of you. It's a lot easier to tweak a schedule between two teachers when the need arises.
We also liked the fact that the students didn't switch until later in the morning(cut down on less movement) and students weren't as rambunctious.
I've done it in 4th, 5th, and with a 4/5 - with 2, 3, and 5 teachers - for several years and it has worked well. It does take some coordinating, but once set up everyone was pleased with the results.
-We assess the students in the first few days, and used standardized scores. In math and reading we cluster group, based on needs of students. This makes differentiating the curriculum easier when you have all the students in the class at aprox. the same place, and able to work at about the same pace.
-In math and reading - depending on number of teachers - we had low, lo/med, med, med/high, high groups. If you are doing 3 teachers - low, med, high; and 2 teachers low to low/med; and med/high to high.
-For Sci. , SS, and Written Language the students rotated with their homeroom class. Each teacher took a subject area and taught it 3 times (with 3 teachers). With 2 - we rotated for Sci. and SS and kept our own homeroom for written lang. and reading. With 2 we have also rotated for Sci. / SS; and Written lang. / reading - in other words teacher A taught Sci. and Reading, teacher B taught SS and Written Lang. We have always differentiated for math.
-In reality, no student had more than 3 teachers.
Advantages:
-You are only planning for 3 subject areas rather than 5 and can put more into those 3.
-You are teaching a subject that you are excited and passionate about - and the kids get that benefit. (EX: I'm not strong in Sci. but one of my colleagues is, in fact the Sci. mentor for the district... all the students had her for Sci.)
-If you have a student that drives you nuts ... you don't have him/her for 6 hours.
-If there is a student with an issue, all his/her teachers conference with the parents - they get the message from more than 1 person, then it is not just you saying it. We all do the progress conferences together on high maintenance students - usually we pick 6-8 in the entire grade level that need that and schedule all on 1 day so we can all be there. Has impact!
-It breaks up the students' day with little transitions between subjects and that "brain shift" helps keep them focused.
-Students have to get organized - not a bad thing
Disadvantages:
-Scheduling the pull-outs and specialists was a bit of a pain at first, but after everyone got used to it, it worked.
-Parents get a little confused in the beginning, but the kids love it and that helps.
Advice:
-The teaching team needs to be together on things like discipline, consequences, expectations ...
-When it comes to progress reports, do them together, and trust your colleagues judgements. Sometimes it is hard to let that go ... When we conferenced - with the exception of a few mentioned earlier - it was just our homeroom kids, but we knew the other teachers' assessment of the student.
I know this is long ... hope I covered enough that you get the idea.
Last year we had 5 teachers and this is how it worked.
Our administration decided that we would each teach reading/language arts and assigned us a homogeneous group.
Then, we had 2 "blocks". The kids went to either math/ss/ or Sci during Block 1. Then we switched and they went to math or ss or sci during block 2. Every child had math every day. Half of the students had ss for the first 2 quarters and the other half had sci. The students switched subjects halfway through the year.
With 5 teachers, 3 taught math, 1 taught social studies, 1 taught science. This meant that math classes were smaller which was good b/c it's a tested subject. The math classes were homogeneous and the ss/sci classes were heterogenous.
The teachers liked it b/c it meant less planning and the ability to see different kids (could get rid of kids that you didn't like after an hour or after half a year). The ss/sci teachers got to know EVERY kid during the year, which was also nice, but again, you couldn't "escape" those hard to handle kids.
I'm not sure how it would work with 6 teachers, so good luck.
Departmentalization? Are decisions to departmentalize made because it's best for the students or just because it's less prep for the teachers and a chance to have a hour or two free from a challenging student? Just wondering.
Last year our team departmentalized with 6 teachers and it worked out great, with the only issue was making sure we kept in touch and communicated with all the teachers so noone felt out of the loop. We were able to plan together once a week so everyone was on the same page.
6 teachers with 7 periods of instruction per day (not counting lunch, planning and recess)
9:00-9:45 Homeroom: all teachers had their homeroom class and during this time kids went to chorus, some band met, kids make up tests, unpack, checkin, etc
9:45-10:30: Specials
10:30-12:00: 3 teachers taught Reading and Writing while the other 3 taught math. The 3 teaching math taught their homerooms and the other 3 took their homerooms and ability grouped them into 3 groups so that kids were on a scale of 1, 2, 3, or 4 with 1's being below level and 4's being above. Then kids were groups by their numbers so one teacher would have the 2's and 3's, one had the 2's and 4's and the other had the 1's and 3's.
12-12:45 Lunch and recess (by homerooms)
12:45-1:30 same as above for language arts because kids have 3- 45 minute blocks for Language arts. Then the 3 teachers that were teaching math did Science or Social Studies to their same homerooms(1 teacher did science and math all year, another did social studies and math all year, and the 3rd teacher did math, science and social studies all year)
1:30-3:45: the kids that had language arts in the morning went back together as a homeroom to have their math and either science and social studies til the end of the day. Language arts teachers took the other group of kids, grouped them and split them up as described above.
**for the first 41/2 weeks of the quarter kids got either science or social studies then switched and went to the other teacher for the second half of the quarter for the other content area. That third teacher did the same thing but since she taught both science and social studies she had only her homeroom and one other teachers homeroom only, whereas the other 2 teachers who did content eventually saw all the other 4 classes for content except for the 2 that that 3rd teacher was responsible for.
I know it may sound a little confusing but if you can filter through is it was we had a great year because teachers taught 2 subjects only except for one teacher had 3.
Departmentalization? Are decisions to departmentalize made because it's best for the students or just because it's less prep for the teachers and a chance to have a hour or two free from a challenging student?
Personally, I think if you are cluster grouping the students you have a better & more frequent ability to differentiate the instruction and work with the students from exactly where they are, meeting their needs on a more consistant basis rather than spreading yourself out over a group of needs in a much wider range - ie: a regular ed, self contained class.
The proof, I guess, can be seen in the test scores. Over a 5 year period my grade levels' scores consistantly increased each year - and there were a few years when the entire grade level group started 5th very low, with their test scores scraping the bottom from previous years.
I watched departmentalization in 5th for 3 years as an "outsider". My team, at 4th, was not interested in even trying it. When I got the opportunity I transfered to 5th because I saw it working, and knew it was good for kids. Since then the 4th grade team is departmentalizing too. It has become the norm, and the administrator's expectation for the upper grades (4 and 5).
We have also gotten feedback from the middle school, and praise from parents, that our students are much better prepared when the students got there too.
It is not really less prep ... I find myself even more absorbed in the subject areas I am covering and going into much more depth than when I was trying to prep for 5 areas, plus PE, art, music .... we have no specialists that come in to teach those - we do it all. Nor do we have a "prep time" during the school day, as some do.
As far as getting rid of a challenging kid - that is just an extra
My first year of teaching was departmentalized 4th grade. We did something similar to what you're talking about - I taught reading to my homeroom, and I taught science to all the 4th grade classes.
The school grouped them by ability. They didn't tell the kids that, of course, but they probably figured it out. The great thing about doing it that way is that I could gear my science lessons for that particular group. I still met the same benchmarks, but sometimes it took longer, I had to reword things, work more on vocabulary, give more challenging work, etc... depending upon the group.
The hardest part of being departmentalized was the amount of time spent in transition. If another teacher didn't change right when she was supposed to, we lost even more time. The kids also lost items in the hallway because there were no lockers, so they drug their bookbags everywhere. If you can keep the books in the classroom, that would be a huge help.
Your question sounded a bit negative toward the teaching profession. In fourth we departmentalized in pairs. It allows us to focus on fewer subjects and with the state testing, we have to be at the top of our game or the school is targeted. As far as the challenging student, I haven't had a year without many challenging students in any of the groups. Less prep?? More like deeper prep in fewer areas. Just thought you might like to know.
I have to agree with DBE. We are deparmentalized in 4/5 in my school. Each teacher either has a fourth or fifth homeroom, but we each teach one subject to all 4/5 grades. This year I will have 4 fifth grade classes and 3 fourth grade classes. I have found it to be extremely beneficial for the students. One of the reasons my school went to this format, was because we wanted teachers to be teaching in their specific area of certification and expertise. The truth is, when you are teaching one subject, you can really teach that subject very well, and if it is an area of passion, the students get excited along with you. You are able to meet the needs of all your students by teaching to a lot of different learning styles. I find myself being more creative when I teach. It also brings a continuity between the fourth and fifth grade curriculum. It has also allowed us to add an organization and study skills class to help students be more effective learners. I feel that most students can handle this kind of change. We had a few that had a hard time adjusting at first, but they got the swing of things, and I believe benefited from having different teachers, whose personalities and teaching styles differed. We met as a team (7 teachers and 4 assistants) twice each week. One to talk about logistics, and the other was to discuss students who were struggling. When a student was struggling, the administration, homeroom teacher and parent had 7 teachers giving input, help and strategies. We were all on the same page! This is especially helpful if a parent thinks that the problem is just that one teacher and not an issue with the student in general. We also built in a lot of homeroom time, so students could still experience bonding with one teacher. I felt like I knew my homeroom students extremely well. During homeroom we would do a lot of team building activities and at recess, I would make sure to play with them to build that bond. There are pros and cons to departmentalizing, but in our school we have found it to be very successful.
I'm sorry if some of you think my comment/question sounded negative toward education. I am not negative toward education at all. I love teaching and admire educators for their dedication more than I can say. No one knows how hard we work if they've not been in our shoes.
I'm sorry I posted that reply in that way. I guess I reacted in a negative way because people in my school keep talking about departmentalizing and I dread it. I know it's probably coming, so I shouldn't fight against it. I know, with all the content we are supposed to cover, experts in each content area make sense instead of everyone spreading themselves so thin trying to be an expert in every area. So, having said that, why then do I dread its coming? Here's why. I loop with my students absolutely love having two years with my wonderful students. Only 4 teachers out of 20 in our building loop, and I think departmentalization would mean the end to looping. So I guess I'm reacting to the fear of not getting to loop with my students more so than than to departmentalization.
Again, I apologize for my response. I think I knew when I clicked on "post" that I should have kept my opinion to myself. I can tell that all of you are totally dedicated to creating the best of all worlds for you students. If you were not, you probably wouldn't be here on ProTeacher!!!!!!!
I commented in post #6 about how we departmentalized, but we also loop as well from 4th -5th then back to 4th. Our entire school loops, so just because your deparmentalizing doesnt necessarily mean you cant loop unless others are unwilling to loop or participate in the departmentalizing. Our prinicpal expects 4th and 5th grades to do this, as a result 90% of our kids scored in the advanced and proficient categories in math and reading on our state tests. Only about 10 kids out of 120 (5 classrooms) were in the "basic" category in the entire 4th and 5th grades. I would think a bif contributing factor is the looping and being able to focus on a few subjects.
In our school, only 4 of us loop. I don't know why looping would fall by the wayside if we departmentalized, I just feel that would be what would happen since 16 of our teachers don't loop. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe departmentalization won't necessarily be the end of looping. I really don't know.
One thing I do know, though, is that I like to teach my own students. I've worked very hard (and am sitll working hard) to integrate reader's and writier's workshop across the curriculum, and I think that kind of integration would become very difficult if I only have my students for one or two subjects. Some of the teachers in our school switch for science and social studies, and that works very well for them. I just personally feel like keeping and teaching my own students. It works best for me. However, having said all that, I'll finish by saying this. If I find we have to departmentalize, I will work just as hard to make that program work as I do now to integrate.
I have been doing departmentalizing for the past 12 years and hope I don't have to go back to self-contained. I love it. In our school 3rd,4th, and 5th grade is departmentalized. I teach Math and love concentrating on the one subject. If we have 3 teachers in the grade then we rotate and each class is 1 and 1/2 hours long. This year in 4th grade we will have 4 teachers so we are going to do 1 and 15 minutes class rotation. Our classes have been made by ability grouping mostly. But we end up switching some students just due to behavior problems or personality conflicts. Everyone on the team has to be on time, if one person is late even 1 minute it throws the schedule off. I love it though and don't want to go back the other way. Hope this helps.
I just did not have enough time. I prefer to have my kids all day and then I can integrate to get it all done.
We did a three way switch last year at the beg. of the year -- that was the absolute worst. We all taught reading and writing and I also taught math. Well I needed an hour for guided reading, half hour for shared reading, an hour for writing, and an hour for math. I didn't have time to do all that in the morning. Then I had two different math classes in the afternoon. Both of those classes were less than an hour. We stopped in October.
I became self contained and the other two teachers teamed. They both told me that they thought their afternoon classes suffered.
Plus, it was just a lot of wasted time changing classes. I don't have enough time in my day as it is.
Departmentalized does nothing for my students. I feel sad for them. They are always a mess, confused, unorganized, less confidant. They scramble. And, they "wait" to get to my class to ask to go to nurse when they're sick 'cause all othe re teachers don't have time to send them. Also, they are always WORKING through lunch to finish work they didn't get done in class (not in my class, I totally respect lunch time).
07-23-2006, 07:43 AM
Maybe departmentalization won't necessarily be the end of looping. I really don't know. 
very difficult if I only have my students for one or two subjects. Some of the teachers in our school switch for science and social studies, and that works very well for them. I just personally feel like keeping and teaching my own students. It works best for me. However, having said all that, I'll finish by saying this. If I find we have to departmentalize, I will work just as hard to make that program work as I do now to integrate.
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