Randomizing groups

Other people have already talked about this, but there are good benefits to visible random grouping.  I am going to credit it to Peter Liljedahl as that's where I first heard of the term.  Visible random grouping was one of the three pillars that Peter described as supporting environments for problem solving.

But I'm not really here to chat about the research, feel free to check out this powerpoint where Peter goes over some of his arguments if you're interested.

I'm just here to share one way of randomizing!

Here are the goods:
Grade 9 - 1D
Grade 11 - 3U

The process is fairly simple:
1) cut out the different rectangles
2) Greet them at the door, give them a card each (this randomizes them)
3) have them discuss and encourage them to put up their work and ideas on the whiteboards (blackboards are fine,.. or anything they can write on)

Then from this point forward you can do whatever you'd like.  But I plan on doing:
4) Once they're at their groups, split them up again according to A, B, C, D, and get them to talk about the different ways of approaching their number.
5) Get them to return to their groups and chat about what they've just talked about, as well as similarities and differences between what they did.
6) Get them to come up with different representations of their number.  (emphasizing different things in the different courses.  e.g. the concept of equivalence, patterns...etc)

I will probably do 4, 5, 6 in different order over different days.  I've laminated each of those "cards" so I can reuse them during the same week.