MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

Course Title Teaching Multi-Age/Multi – grade Classes

Sem/AY 2nd Semester, AY 2022 – 2023
Topic Unit II – TEACHING IN THE MULTIGRADE CLASSROOM
Lesson I– Planning and Programming in the Multi-Grade Classroom

CENTRAL ACTIVITIES (Formative Assessment)

Learning Input

Multigrade teaching is all about classroom organization, student management, and,

ultimately, the successful transmission of grade specific curricula. It is your responsibility as a
multigrade teacher to plan and organize your classroom to get the best results from the space
and resources available to you. Management of a multigrade classroom revolves around three
dimensions as depicted in Figure 1.

Source: Adapted from a figure published by the Ministry of Basic Education and Culture
(1996), Teacher Basic Competencies Manual. Windhoek, Republic of Namibia.
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

As a multigrade teacher, you are the key to planning, designing, and managing a
range of both grade-appropriate and mixed-grade activities for children to keep them
engaged in learning. Your efficiency and effectiveness rest on creating a classroom conducive
to learning by developing exciting and stimulating activities ranging from group work to
independent study.
Ways of playing a central role in managing a multigrade classroom:
 planning the use of the classroom “space”, especially flexible seating arrangements
for both you and your students
 planning and carrying out multiple lessons at the same time
 designing activities for students to keep them involved
 creating, arranging, and using teaching and learning materials
 establishing norms of behavior expected of students to keep them learning

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:
 Where is your school located? How far do your students travel to get to school?
 What grades are you teaching? What age and ability range is in your classroom? How
might you best work with and take advantage of a wide range of ages and abilities?
 What kinds of family background do your students come from? What is their economic
status?
 What language do your students speak at home? How well do they understand and
speak the national language? What might you do to ensure they learn what they need
to learn in the language you use in the classroom?
 How many have had some kind of pre-school experience? What can you do to help
those who have not had this experience?
 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?
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UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 What resources do you have to make the classroom and school work better?
 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?
 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?
 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.)
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

Preparing the Classroom

 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:
 Understanding the space in the classroom and the resources available for conducting
classes
 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
Example: 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
 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.

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
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

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.)

Organizing Groups and Activities

In the multigrade classroom, several simultaneous activities go on at the same time.
 You therefore need to arrange the classroom for activities that engage students with
minimum disturbance and with adequate direction and supervision.
 Your task becomes especially crucial in forming various kinds of groups; this largely
depends on the nature and purpose of the subject taken up for study at a particular
time.
 Some subjects may require mixed-ability groups while others benefit from whole-class
groups; some may require peer tutoring while others require independent
assignments and self-directed learning with systematic support from you and peer
tutors.
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

The process of forming groups mainly follows two approaches: grouping students
purposively by age, grade, or ability and grouping students of different backgrounds.
 The first groups are often formed on a semi-permanent basis over weeks of instruction
and are usually designed to cover a specific part of the curriculum in depth and across
grade levels
Example: the detailed study of local farming techniques and products
 The second groups are more spontaneous and usually created for specific tasks over
a shorter time period
Example: writing a short story on something that happened in the local village

Other methods of organizing groups can be explored and adapted to fit your students’
age and maturity levels. To make this more feasible, you can create activities which do not
require your direct supervision but rather are based on mixed-ability and same-ability groups,
peer tutoring, and a wide variety and range of individual work assignments such as solving
arithmetic sums or practicing hand writing.

Being Efficient and Flexible in the Use of Time

It is important to make the best use of time available when involving students in
different activities.
 The choice and organization of activities are essential conditions for good multigrade
classroom management.
 You should also have a clear idea about how to divide your students by both grade
and age levels, and what types of activities are best for different groups. This will help
you plan activities which suit multigrade situations.

For examples:
 Grades 1 and 2 may need more teacher support in addition to aids such as posters,
charts and art work appropriate to their age; this is especially true for children who
have not had any preschool experience. They also need to gain a firm foundation in
early literacy and numeracy, and students who have difficulty in these skills need extra
help.
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 Grades 3 and 4 may need more peer tutoring along with instructional guides and
dictionaries to help them through their more complicated curriculum and ensure they
continue their mastery of basic skills.
 Grade 5 and 6 require considerable teacher support and monitored independent
study in addition to problem-solving exercises. This is especially true if there is an
examination at the end of primary school that determines whether they successfully
complete that level and/or can enter secondary school.

It is often useful to delegate some classroom responsibilities to students as class

leaders, peer tutors, and helpers for your activities. These assignments can be changed
regularly so that all students have some role to play depending on their particular abilities
and skills. A job chart listing assignment with the name of the responsible student can be
useful in this process. The selected students need to be oriented and guided on how to lead
groups and help their classmates, ensure all group members participate in the assigned
activity, discourage bullying, and help maintain harmonious relationships among students.
These arrangements aim to enable the members of each group to learn together and share
the results of their work with you, other groups, and other grades.

Since there are many tasks to be performed during the course of a school day, time
flexibility must be a norm for a multigrade classroom. But remember that as the context
changes, your strategies for utilizing time to teach a particular concept or theme may also
need to change.

Using Positive Discipline

 Putting students of more than one grade together in one classroom that already has
limited space can sometimes create problems.
 The teacher must plan your classroom activities keeping in mind the need to prevent
too much disruption.
 Establishing norms of student behavior in the beginning can go a long way towards
solving this problem.

To create an environment of positive discipline in the classroom, and to make sure the
teacher never use any kind of physical, corporal punishment, he can:
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 Use the first week of school to familiarize your students with their new (or improved)
multigrade environment - assign responsibilities for tasks to be carried out, show them
the different spaces for each activity, involve them in arranging the classroom and
keeping things organized, and have them practice moving the classroom furniture and
resources (and themselves!) around the room as needed for the different parts of the
school day.
 Ask your students to discuss in groups the rules they follow at home and at school,
have the groups report back to the whole class what rules they have in common, and
then write some of these up on the board. Students then vote for their top six rules,
and you can use these as the basis of your class’s code of conduct.
 Decide on consequences for students who follow or do not follow instructions. Special
praise for students showing desired social skills and good behavior and other kinds of
positive feedback work well to produce positive energy among students. You should
be observant and supportive when any child shows inappropriate behavior and also
help students understand that such behavior is not tolerated and that there are
certain rules governing discipline that need always to be followed.
 Help children working in smaller groups to understand what behavior you expect
during group activities – taking turns, encouraging all group members to contribute,
etc.
 Specify the rules to be followed for each space - for example, if you have created a
reading corner, explain to your students that they must be quiet and not talk when
they are in that space.
 Demonstrate a code of conduct to students not only through direct instruction but
also by modelling good behavior yourself.

Factors Affecting Children’s Learning

 Not all students are the same and like all teachers you must be aware of and respond
to their differences. Many factors make every child unique and different both in how
they best learn and what they can learn.
 Students in multigrade schools generally live in rural, remote, and sparsely populated
areas. Their families may be very poor, and they may be living in home conditions not
conducive to study. They may also speak a language at home different from that in
the school, and some may have special education needs related to stunting due to
malnutrition, impaired vision and hearing, and other physical or cognitive disabilities.
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 In addition, in some settings girls may be more disadvantaged than boys in terms of
work in the home and parental expectations, while in other settings boys are less likely
to attend school.

The educational background of parents also enhances or decreases the interest of

their children in learning at school. Studies have shown that parents’ education, and mothers’
education in particular, makes a difference in the enrolment, retention, and learning
achievement of a child. It is therefore important for you as a multigrade teacher to
understand the family and individual backgrounds of each of your students and manage the
resulting differences in their interest and ability to learn.

Figure 3 demonstrates the factors affecting the motivation and ability of a child to learn.

Preferred
Learning Style

Learning Gender (Male

Environment or Female

Innate
Parents'
Potential and Why every Education
Capacities
child learns
differently?

Health and
Langauge
Nutrition
Ability
Status

Family's Special
Economic Education
Status Needs
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

The teacher can respond to the different backgrounds and abilities of individual students in
several ways:
 ensure that your classroom is genuinely inclusive by welcoming all children regardless
of their gender, socio-economic status, ability, and language/ethnicity
 personalize the content you deliver and the methods you use to the individual
backgrounds and needs of each of your students and be especially sensitive to early
signs of disinterest or faltering
 help new students, especially those who have not been to a pre-school, to overcome
the fear, anxiety, and nervousness that they often have when they enter school
 make an effort to get to know your students so that you understand their living
conditions, family backgrounds, and the expectations they hold for the school.
Reinforce this in conversations with their families and visits to their homes; such
information can help you find the best possible ways to manage your classroom and
shape an environment that facilitates learning for all – your principal aim as a
multigrade teacher
 promote classroom interactions across ages, grades, and ability levels – and between
boys and girls – in order to stimulate cognitive development, improve language skills,
and enhance vocabulary

Planning and programming in the Multigrade classroom

Many teachers are worried and confused when asked to teach a multigrade class. They are
not sure how to plan for two, three or more classes at once and so they try to create separate
programs for each of the grades. Trying to do this is extremely difficult to plan and manage.
It would be impossible to cover all the work for each grade level in a number of separate
programs.

The multigrade teacher needs a strategy to help with planning so that ·

 One program is created for the class, with different objectives and outcomes for
different groups in the class ·
 Objectives which need to be covered in the syllabus documents are included, and
common elements in the grade programs are identified
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

The Learning Continuum

For many years, curriculum in schools has been prescriptive, inflexible and expected
all students to learn at the same rate. Teachers taught the grade curriculum to everyone,
aiming their lessons at the average student, and sometimes considering the others who were
either bored, or struggling to cope with the work presented. There was a certain amount of
content to be covered, and every student would be required to complete it, whether it was
suitable for their needs or not.

Learning is a developmental process and not all students will be

operating at the same level. As teachers it is important to recognize this.
As multigrade teachers, it is essential that we recognize this.

In the multigrade class, and indeed in any classroom, you may find students operating
at any one of these levels. In your multigrade classroom of Grade 3 /4/ 5, you will have
students working at all these levels and maybe more. There will be Grade 3 students who may
be meeting Grade 4 objectives, Grade 5 students who are working on Grade 3 objectives. The
learning should be geared to the needs of the student, not necessarily according to the grade
level to which that student belongs.

We don’t need a separate curriculum for each grade in the multigrade

classroom, but a continuum or progression of challenges in our teaching
which will meet the needs of students in our class.

Programming: The Reform Curriculum

 There is no one syllabus program for teaching multigrade. A program needs to be
developed using the new syllabus documents for Lower and Upper Primary. The new
curriculum gives the teacher much greater flexibility in providing for the needs of
students in their class. The objectives and suggested content areas are given, but it is
up to the teacher to plan and organise the learning experiences best suited to the
students in the class.
 The new syllabus is particularly well suited to the multigrade situation. Some teachers
are frightened by the idea of planning for a number of grades, but once a process of
programming is understood by the teacher, it allows the teacher to use the same
process for any combination of grades they may be asked to teach.
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 As part of your Professional Development studies so far, you have learnt about
programming using themes as a basis for your teaching. From there, you have
developed units of work, weekly and daily plans.
 With a multigrade class, the process is the same. For each unit of work or weekly plan,
the whole class will work on the same topic or theme. However, the activities
completed by each student will depend on what you want them to learn, based on the
syllabus documents you are using and the students’ level of development. There are
methods and strategies that teachers can use to assist with their planning for a
multigrade class.

Timetabling in the Multigrade classroom

Block timetables work best in multigrade classrooms. This allows the teacher time to
integrate aspects of the curriculum. Learning is developed in context, rather than broken up
into discrete small sections of content.
The multigrade block timetable operates much the same as it would in a traditional
class. Subjects or thematic time is planned for the whole class, however within that time,
groups will be completing different activities.
The time allocations for Lower Primary and Upper Primary subjects are listed below:
 MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
College of Teacher Education

 In the multigrade classroom working with a number of grades and in block thematic teaching
situations, you have to be a little flexible in your time allowance. Some grade levels require
more time per subject than others, but if you average the time, and take into account the
subject’s integration with others, you will find that you are adequately covering the
recommended times for each subject

Some factors to consider when developing your multigrade timetable

 Program language and maths activities in the morning where possible, when the
students are fresh and their concentration is better.
 Your timetable should be planned to make sure that you, the teacher, are able to
give the maximum amount of attention to the different groups in your classroom
and that you are able to teach all the necessary subjects.
 Some subjects may be taught to the whole class, others may be taught in groups and
your timetable should take account of this.
 Your timetable should be displayed clearly and be familiar to the students.
 Make sure you balance your teaching time equally, so sufficient attention is given to
all students.
 Consider the maturity and attention span of the pupils. Young students need to
change their activities frequently, so their lessons must be shorter. They need more
physical activity too, both inside and outside the classroom.