Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of students that need your help in your classroom on a daily basis?
At the beginning of this year, I found myself feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the vastly different levels and needs of my students.
The past few years of this pandemic has not only taken a toll on student learning, but I also think it has taken a toll on the independence level of young students.
I found myself feeling like I needed to magically clone myself so I could assist more than half my class 1 on 1.
So…
I looked around the room and realized I had about 7 very capable students that loved helping and would not mind being mentors to some of the students who needed a little extra support.
Having a student expert system is a great way to make sure that all your “in need” students are getting help in a timely manner.
An expert stystem will also help save you some valuable instructional time and keep you from feeling completely overwhelmed by the many different needs in your classroom.
There is also great value for the student experts that comes from explaining their learning to others.
Do you want to get started with student helpers in your classroom?
I found my only problem with having student experts (over many years) was volume control and occassionally a friend being off task, but it was usually the volume.
I decided to make “helping” and “getting help” like a secret mission. I call my helpers “SECRET AGENT EXPERTS” …Isn’t that fun?
The great thing about having a “Student Expert System” is that you can organize it in a variety of ways. You can make it a super easy system OR you can add a little extra!
2) You can print and laminate 5-10 expert badges and choose certain students to be experts during different instructional times. With this system, you can make sure more students get an opportunity to help out during various times throughout the day.
3) You can print and laminate a few badges and only pass the badges out when you need an expert student to assist another specific student in need of help. You can also provide materials to those students for partner work during center times.
Want to make your expert system extremely engaging while encouraging volume control?!
I created a fun resource that includes “Secret Agent Expert” tags for student helpers and “Meeting with a Secret Agent” tags for students that are in need of help. I found both sets of badges to be equally important when I am working with my intervention groups.
NOW I am able to look up from small group and see exactly what my students are doing when they are moving about the classroom. I also feel that adding “Meeting with a Secret Agent” badges helps make the students that are in need of help feel included in this fun classroom management system.
To make being a “secret agent expert” more exciting for my students, I included a secret agent application, writing pages, and classified/top secret envelope printables.
CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR SECRET AGENT EXPERT CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT RESOURCE!
4 Responses
Thank you ! This looks great – I’d like to try it in my 1 st grade classroom 😊
Thank you so much! So glad you love this idea! You will have to let me know how your students do with it!
I have the same issue with my class this year. Too many students need assistance and I cannot make it around to help everyone. This is a fun and engaging way to have students help each other. I can’t wait to use this with my class!
Yes! Me too! I was getting so overwhelmed, but having students help has been so amazing. I hope this helps your class too!