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I think I now understand why the first words out of my seven year old after school yesterday were "Mom, I don't want to be in any group in my class."
She is a second grader in a class with a range of skills from preK to 3rd grade. She has the 3rd grade skill.
It got worse last night when my fifth grader commented about wonderful it was that she wasn't in a group.
Where exactly was the fifth grade level math in the video?
As I understand it, teachers in the 4-5 school here are now required to teach children in groups. It's against the rule to seat the children in rows.
13 comments:
Bright kids in particular hate group learning because they end up dragging everyone else along.
I don't think most kids would mind it here and there, but to use it daily must be torturous.
SusanS
If done well, all students will learn more in groups (even the bright ones). I recommend reading E. Cohen's book (1994) called "Designing Groupwork" to think more about this. There's no reason group work shouldn't be an amazing and enriching experience for all of the kids involved.
"Designing Groupwork" ...
"Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom"
"If done well, all students will learn more in groups (even the bright ones)."
More of what?
More than what?
More than a homogeneous classroom directly taught by a teacher who knows the material? I don't believe it one bit. Group work can be enriching, but not on a daily basis, and group work cannot make up for full inclusion.
From a book review:
"Detracking students is a moral imperative for many, but there are few guides for the development of democratic learning communities."
This is the equality of low expectations.
If done well, all students will learn more in groups (even the bright ones).
Even if I accepted this statement as true, the crux of the matter is that it is rarely done well. Why adopt a standard of instruction that can only be successful when done by the best teachers? Most children don't get the best teacher - they get an adequate teacher. Instruction needs to be designed so that even the average teacher can be successful.
You know, for all the emotional and social growth that supposedly took place, at the end of the day, only Anthony Michael Hall (the smart one) worked on the &%#* essay.
I hated group learning.
If one of the key classroom techniques is to pass off part of the teacher's job to the students (by having the kids get in small groups for peer teaching), then shouldn't the kids get a corresponding cut of the teacher's pay?
Reminds me of that investment commercial where a guy is listening to his doctor describe over the phone how to perform some surgery. After patiently listening, the guy looks at the knife in his hand and simply says to his doctor, "Shouldn't you be doing this?"
I bet the same thing is going through students' minds: "Shouldn't the teacher be teaching me?"
There must be something about this week and groups. I was at an all day meeting today. We broke for lunch...most of us agreed to go to the same place for lunch...as we arranged ourselves into various cars, one person said, "The problem with groups is that you have to go at the pace of the slowest person." At least in the real world (outside school) that fact is recognized as a detriment.
Jane
P.S. When teachers have suggested that my children act as leaders/role model/teachers of the the other children, I have been tempted, but have never dared to ask how much they were to paid for this service.
I've always thought of the classroom with a good teacher at the front as a group. What's so special about breaking up a big group into many smaller ones?
I've always thought of the classroom with a good teacher at the front as a group. What's so special about breaking up a big group into many smaller ones?
In the first case, the teacher is the content expert and leader. In the second case, content is put in the hands of the students. Not always a good thing to do.
Well, MTheads, it’s obvious you don’t understand the potential of the grouped, or differentiated, classroom.
In the differentiated classroom - grouping for success in a system of ever-widening ability disparities - all students get a fighting chance at mediocrity. The students are more engaged because while the teacher is working with another group they can interact directly with the material at their (teacher perceived) level, discover knowledge for themselves, and certainly won’t be texting or gossiping until they see the teacher coming their way. Teachers who aren’t too overwhelmed and dispirited by the need to group students in A, B, C, D, E, F, and sometimes G levels within the classroom can provide learning-style focused activities for all their students, because we all know how students are tragically handicapped by their inability to learn effectively from verbal presentation when they prefer tactile stimulation, visually disabled when asked to learn from listening, and so forth.
(Note to self: must find resources for, and personally finance, 10th grade district-mandated reading lesson for 2nd 6th weeks, i.e. kinesthetic learner grouping. Need feathers, glitter, digital cameras, and scallop-edged scissors.)
Another fun possibility for the “grouped” or “differentiated” classroom is Jigsawing.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr324.shtml
“Students start with a home group. That group is responsible for learning an assigned portion of a task that is prescribed by the teacher. Then the teacher separates students into new groups -- jigsaw groups -- by assigning one member from each home group to a new group. If an activity begins with groups A, B, C, and D, the jigsaw groups have a member from A, B, C, and D. In the jigsaw groups, students share information and complete some sort of project or product.”
Students teaching students! Brilliant!
I love this quote from the site referenced: "My biggest mistake in my early years was not giving my students enough choice in designing our assignments or at least trying to tie it in to their interests and experiences." For that I refer to Vicki Snider’s “Myths and Misconceptions About Teaching”:
“At what point, I wonder, do teachers have a responsibility to introduce students to something they aren’t interested in? When should teachers insist students go beyond what they already know? How can a person get interested in something about which he or she knows nothing?”
Goodness. If my students could design their own lessons, I could...well, leave teaching actually.
I've always thought of the classroom with a good teacher at the front as a group. What's so special about breaking up a big group into many smaller ones?
That would be fine if you have a teacher for each group. But you don't.
"scallop-edged scissors"
Wow! I can already feel my creative juices flowing.
Our schools try to minimize the ability grouping within each class. That's the goal; to pretend that all kids are equal. One teacher told me about how they are designing group projects where all ability levels work at their own level. Differeniated expectations. Kids don't like it when others get the same grade for doing less work. They are not treated equally.
They do have to group by ability sometimes. They aren't completely crazy, but they do it in the same room. The teacher works directly with the lowest ability kids(only), and it's all quite obvious to the others. It's a big charade.
The big question in my mind was always, will we be graded?
If we were going to be graded, I hated group work. Because it wasn't group work, it was me work, and everyone shared my grade.
If we were not going to be graded, I loved group work. Plenty of time to talk/doodle/flirt/do homework for my other classes.
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