The Day I Was A Good Teacher Effectively Using Formative Assessments

I would absolutely love to highlight the homo(yet also hetero)geneous grouping strategy I utilized last week. Allow me to explain. I ordered students based off of their last assessment grades. Lowest to highest. Lowest grades were in the front row, lucky them! High scorers were in the back row. They independently worked on a 2 question, yet really challenging, formative assessment. After 7 minutes of silent practice, I allowed them to work with their partners. Their partner was of a very similar ability level, yet students were really able to help each other out. This is where it gets good! The class was split into 3 chunks of 3-4 rows of partnerships. SO, when partners could no longer help each other, they turned down their row and so on and the people in the back were the experts. DO YOU GET THE MAGIC?? I circulated and watched students teach students.