Strategy of the Week

STRATEGY-

Clock Buddies

This strategy is more of a grouping strategy to ensure that your students get lots of interaction with lots of different students in the class. We all know that students tend to group with the same partner during pair-share or pair-work time. When they interact with the same student all the time, their input opportunities are limited.

When we vary the partners that our students have, we vary their exposure to different backgrounds and points of view as well. Using the “clock buddies” strategy helps to mix up the partners that each student gets.

Here’s how it works:

1.     At the beginning of the day (or the week), give each student a “clock buddies” worksheet.

2.     Have the students mix and mingle to make “appointments” with one another. They can make appointments by writing a different classmate’s name on each of their clock slots. The student whose name they wrote at 9 am (for example) should have their name in the same time slot.

3.     When you need to pair students up, you can ask them to look at their clock worksheets and meet up with their “3 o’clock buddy” (for example). 

Click the picture below to download the Clock Buddies Appointment Sheet (free!)