Imagine a teacher reading a story or providing a short mini-lesson with students gathered on the carpet. The teacher needs students to move into different sizes of discussion groups with clear purposes quickly so that the students can stay focused on the lessons topic. If students have to stop thinking about the story to listen to directions on forming groups then the story is lost in working memory. So, teachers explicitly teach movement organization routines and establish partnerships for at least four different types of discussions that occur during lessons. In this way, the students can move effortlessly into different discussion groups. Note that teachers must include a rule for what happens when a student’s partner is absent (e.g. if your partner is absent then come to the board for reassignment to a new group).
In the following video, Mary explicitly teaches how to move into different discussion groups. Many thanks to the Reads Lab and the MORE curriculum for our collaboration.