Working in groups and interacting with others

At the beginning of the year, Morgan had constant difficulty interacting in small group situations. As a consequence, Josh rethought his grouping arrangements.

Groups

Self-selected groups were not an option, as Morgan was left by himself and then had to be slotted into a group. Random group selection was a raffle, as Morgan would more often than not end up in a group with no friends. To counter this, Josh randomly ‘manipulated’ groups to ensure that Morgan was in a group that had at least one of his ‘trusted peers.’

Children in Morgan’s group frequently complained as he wouldn’t participate in group work and often physically withdrew from the assigned group.

To increase the potential for successful group work, group members had assigned roles and explicit teaching of co-operative group skills was taught.

Seating arrangements

Providing preferential seating was a major contributing factor that enabled Morgan to feel comfortable within the classroom and allowed greater potential for concentration and application to tasks.

He was anxious and distracted when seated by females or males that he generally wouldn’t associate with outside the classroom. For those reasons, Morgan was strategically seated at the end of a row and surrounded on both sides by preferred peers. If this was not possible, Morgan was seated beside at least one of his preferred peers and beside another boy. This had a positive result as Morgan became more comfortable talking with other students in and out of the classroom and it led to an increase in the number of students in his preferred peer group.

Morgan required reading glasses but often forgot to wear them or bring them to school. This was addressed by seating him in close proximity to the whiteboard when possible. 

Josh also adopted a routine of rotating the seating arrangements on a fortnightly basis, to ensure that if Morgan wasn’t sitting close to the board then he was at the least:

• sitting close by the teacher so that instructions could be repeated, progress could be easily monitored and assistance given as needed
• sitting with preferred peers on either side

These strategies contributed to a greater tolerance by Morgan to changes in routines. Regular changes minimised his uncertainty and fear of change.