Grade 8 Math Classroom

The topic I was dealing in this grade 8 classroom was on ratio, proportion and percentages. After completing this portion with them I decided to assess them on this topic through bulletin board which I got to know from TTF. The total number of students in this classroom was 15 and I divided them into groups of 3. As I was doing this kind of an assessment through bulletin board for the first time there was lot of chaos in my classroom. Most of them were ESL students and they were unhappy with the whole idea of bulletin board. Probably they were scared of losing their points in their report card because they were expected to give detailed content as per my instruction. So they decided to join the group where students had good communication and writing skills. As a result there was one group which had only two students and they were Koreans. Their ideas were fantastic but not attractive like others. My criterion for the topic was the board should contain a topic, detailed content in attractive and fancy manner with border and neatness. They all did a fantastic job finally, by the end of the class I realised what went wrong as some of the students were fooling around by just sitting in the group and not contributing to the group. I told them later that they will loose points for not participating with the group which I should have done in the beginning. Next time when I do this kind of work I will make them into smaller groups where each student will have to participate and contribute their understanding of the topic. After the lesson I realised that I should have prepared better by showing them some sample posters in projectors which would have given them an idea of how a good work will look like. Next time I will plan my work in a better way to make my lesson more successful.