Saturday, January 24, 2015
Cooperative Learning
For my two teachers, they are on the opposite ends when it comes to group work. In my advanced algebra classes with my other CT, we do not do any group work at all. Most everything in that class students do individually. Then, with my other CT, we usually do group work everyday. I think the group work is the most effective when we are using a discovery activity in class. Sometimes we try to have the students try to answer each others homework questions. When they do that they usually don't do it or just copy off of each other. In the class, the students sit in groups of 4. Usually, the group work will be as a table, or with your table partner. Usually, the purpose of the activity is a discovery activity where the students have to do a task to find what they are learning for that day. We usually sometimes assign them roles. For example, we were having the students build triangles and "impossible" triangles with Anglegs. We had them work in pairs and we assigned one person as the builder and one as the writer, then they changed roles. This kind of makes it so that one person isn't going to do all the work while the other sits there and does nothing. We really don't have any type of accountability for the students. The only sort of accountability we have is just asking them what they found when we bring it back as a group. With our groups, the main role of the teacher is to keep the students on task while they are doing the task. I think without this supervision and push to complete the task, the studetns would never complete it on their own.
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That is nice that you have two different teaching styles that you see everyday. You are able to decide what you would like to do in your own classroom some day. Using the discovery method with partners and groups I feel is much more effective than trying to have students try to discover on their own.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that your more advanced class does less group work. Why do you think that is? How did your students react to the Anglegs? I know we had a lot of success with them at Southwest and was wondering if it wasn't just an anomaly.
ReplyDeleteGroup work is very interesting, and I am still trying to figure out what is the best way to incorporate it into the classroom. From my own experience, I have sometimes doubted whether I really knew a concept if I worked on developing it with a partner and never truly knew if I had learned it until I had to reproduce results on my own. I have also had experiences like in 408 where i found group work to be almost necessary for understanding. I wonder if group work lends itself more to certain topics or types of activities such as discovery activities like you mentioned, or if it just needs to be restructured to work in any environment. I think it's neat that you get to see two classrooms with very different approaches to group work/learning so that you can directly compare them. If you find that one approach works better in a specific situation, you should let me know!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the students work well on the group work but not on the homework. Our advanced algebra students tend to either work well on both, or don't work well on group work but plow through the homework quickly together (comparing answers and discussing the process).
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome you get to see those two different types of instruction everyday. I agree that I like group work better. I think it gives me more time to walk around and not just stand at the front and talk the whole time. I think that group work can be really hard though if not everyone is being held accountable though, otherwise only some students will be working and the lesson won't have the impact it should. Have you ever talked to ct who doesn't use group work and asked why that is? It might be an interesting conversation!
ReplyDeleteA lot of us teachers like group work, especially when doing a discovery task, but my question for you is, How do you get every one to cooperate? I did a group activity in my class and I had many students rebel against working in groups- and would flat out ignore each other. When I would hold their hand through group work many of them told me that it was stupid and that they hated group work. I tried explaining to them that working as a team was a life skill, but it didn't take. Is there a way that you have found, to get those who rebel into it? Or do you think that has to do more with the content of the task?
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