By:Sarah

Vasquez Rikki Hubbard

Nylma JornsNatalie Bushman

Everyone Plays A Part!

• Efficient and Effective Groups– Secret? It lies in the teachers’ careful planning and

preparation and making sure that every member has something specific to do.

Nylma Jorns

Roles/Jobs

• Leadership role (obviously the leader, but can’t be someone that will dominate everything) can also be called the facilitator.

• Materials manager (manages materials )• Checker (checks on everyone and everything)• Set up (sets up )• Reporter (be careful, can be boring) It is important for groups

to discuss what to report to the class and have more than one member share.

– Most important thing: EVERYONE MUST KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO DO!!! The teacher must communicate rules, roles, and expected behavior.

Nylma Jorns

Teacher’s Role

• Let go!• You set up the rules, you train students, give

directions, give norms, assign groups, plan lesson, plan groups, plan questions, plan roles, hold students accountable,etc… the list goes on. – So, let go! Even when a problem arises, ask that

group how they think is the best way to handle it. You are there to guide them, not tell them what to do!

Nylma Jorns

Connection

• Plan! Plan! Plan!– To create the most effective and best experience, plan each

step in group work» 1.) lesson 2.)Groups 3.)student’s roles 4.)teacher’s role

• Make sure all students are involved– Even for those that love to day dream

• Teacher needs to let go and be a guide

Nylma Jorns

Christian Worldview

• Just as the church is one body and we all have different parts…The class as a whole is one body and each play different parts. We all can’t just play the same part. Ex. We all can’t be pastors. Some are worship leaders, some are ushers, some do behind the scene tasks,etc… Same applies to students!

Nylma Jorns

What is Groupwork

• Defined as, students working together in a group small enough so that everyone can participate on a task that has been clearly assigned. This is done without direct and immediate supervision.

Rikki Hubbard

Rikki Hubbard

Why Groupwork?

• It helps achieve intellectual and social learning goals.

• It facilitates conceptual knowledge by encouraging students to exercise their thinking of abstract concepts.

• Students develop higher order thinking skills.• Assists students in the retention of basic skills

and their oral language proficiency.

Rikki Hubbard

The Dilemma of Groupwork

• Unequal participation may occur.• Dominance and inequality in group members

who are equal in status may arise, creating competition.

• The student with the most knowledge of the subject in his or her group may take the lead and do it all.

• Popularity (social status) and societal status (sex, race, ethnicity, etc.) may keep some students from participating.

Rikki Hubbard

Preparing Students for Cooperation

• Students must be prepared for cooperation so that they know how to behave in the groupwork situation without direct supervision.

• The norms need to be set. They are rules for how one ought to behave. Sometimes they are written, sometimes they are unspoken (see next slide for some examples by the author).

• Explain to students the purpose for groupwork.

Rikki HUbbard

Norms of a Traditional Classroom

• Do your own work.• Don’t pay attention to what other students are doing.• Never give advice from a fellow student while doing

an assignment in class.• Pay attention to what the teacher is saying and doing

and not to anything else.• Keep your eyes toward the front of the room.• Be quiet.

– Norms should be reinforced by repetition, reward and punishment.

Rikki Hubbard

Social Learning Principles

• Bandura (1969) created these simple principles of social learning to help introduce new behaviors to children.– 1. New behaviors must be labeled and discussed.– 2. Students must learn to recognize when new behaviors

occur.– 3. Students must be able to use labels and discuss

behavior in an objective way.– 4. Students must have a chance to practice new behaviors.– 5. New behaviors should be reinforced when they occur.

Natalie Bushman

Training for Cooperation

• Core Skills • Responding to the Needs of the Group• Teaching Specific Cooperative Behaviors• Special Norms for Group Behavior• Effective Group Functioning

• Skillbuilders - Each of these core skills can be developed through a series of targeted group development activities called “skillbuilders” (see Appendix A). Exercises should meet the following principles:

1. Label and describe new behaviors2. Teach kids to recognize new behaviors3. Students should be able to discuss new behaviors4. Students should practice new behaviors5. Immediately reinforce new behaviors

Natalie Bushman

Cooperation and Anti-Social Behavior

• Chapter 4 : Preparing

Students for Cooperation

• Conflict is a common occurrence in group activities, and should be allowed or encouraged as long as the disagreement is being resolved respectfully. When it gets out of hand, try the following techniques:

1. Have the students use “I feel” statements instead of accusing or tattling.

2. Follow these up with positive requests such as “I want you to wait your turn in line” instead of “Stop cutting in line”.

3. Finish with the group evaluating their own performance and think of ways to improve in the future.

• SO WHAT? Teachers should employ these group conflict resolution strategies when overseeing group work.

Natalie Bushman

Norms as a Practical Classroom Tool

• Chapter 4 : Preparing

Students for Cooperation

• Skillbuilders are an essential tool in the development of establishing and internalizing norms for group work.

• Establishing proper norms for group work is just as beneficial to classroom function and student learning as establishing consistent ground rules for classroom behavior. It allows the teacher more flexibility in facilitating actual learning, instead of constantly fostering teamwork or providing conflict resolution during group activities.

• SO WHAT? Therefore teachers should use skillbuilders, or similar group work techniques early in the school year to establish group work norms.

Natalie Bushman

Patterns for Working Together

• Chapter 5 : Planning

Groupwork in Stages

• Questions for Establishing Proper Groupwork1. Is the objective routine learning or conceptual thinking?2. What type of interaction is desired?

• Make sure you implement strategies for both individual and group

• accountability. This will keep everybody engaged as well as • working toward the group objective.

• SO WHAT? Teachers should plan ahead to establish how the students will interact. This planning shall include ways to engage individual students to work toward group goals.

Natalie Bushman

CreatingThe Task

• Chapter 5 : Planning

Groupwork in Stages

• Limited Exchange – Group activities that:• Have only one correct answer• Involve routine learning• Can be done easily by one person

• Equal Exchange – to encourage equal exchange in group activities, tasks should:

• Have multiple correct answers or ways to solve• Require multiple students to make small contributions• Require a variety of skills and behaviors• Is challenging

Natalie Bushman

Preparing the Situation

• Chapter 5 : Planning

Groupwork in Stages

• Planning and Orientation• Written Instructions• Size of Groups• Composing Groups• Classroom Ecology for Groups• Planning a Wrap-up

• SO WHAT? Teachers should think about each of these issues prior to formulating group activities.

Natalie Bushman

Planning theEvaluation

• Chapter 5 : Planning

Groupwork in Stages

• Evaluation of group work can take two primary methods:

1. Peer Review2. Testing and Grading

• SO WHAT? Therefore teachers should plan out their evaluation strategies ahead of time, and gear the group instructions to include type of evaluation.

Sarah Vasquez

Treating Expectations for Competence

• One of the biggest issues that arise in groupwork is nonparticipation

• Two strategies will have some impact on this issue:• Establishing cooperative norms such as “everyone

participates” and “everyone helps”• Giving every student a part or a role to play.

Sarah Vasquez

Make it Work! Working on Different Levels

Make the Students the Expert!

• Every student in your class is an expert in something-work with that!

• Have low status students become a teacher of high status students on a new and challenging task.

• Multiple Abilities Strategy:– Convince the students that

many different abilities are required for the task.

– Creating a mixed set of expectations for each student.

What does this mean? We must cater to the specific learning needs of all of our students!

Sarah Vasquez

Effective Assignment of Competence

Three Critical Features• Evaluations must be public• The evaluations must be

specific, referring to particular intellectual abilities/skills

• The abilities/skills of the low status student must be made relevant to the groups task.

Matter of fact• Be honest.• Be specific.• There are many students that

ranger from the middle to the low status that will benefit from your constant evaluation.

• Use more multiple ability tasks featuring higher order thinking and integrating basic skills.

Sarah Vasquez

Evaluating Your Engineering

• Be critical of your groupwork the first time you try it. Even if you have faithfully adhered to the general principles for designing groupwork, principles do not fit concrete situations without adjustments. Even with the best laid plans, there is room for improvement. (pg. 136)

• In doing so YOU benefit by learning from reflective thought and implication of adjustments for the benefit of the groupwork.

Sarah Vasquez

Tools for Evaluation of Your Role

Before and During Groupwork• Have a peer teacher

observe you as your class performs groupwork.

• Use a student questionnaire.

• Use systematic interaction scoring-score each group as they are working.

After Groupwork• Improving the Groupwork:

– Confer with the peer teacher you had observing you, take the criticism as constructive.

– Look at everything REFLECTIVELY.

– What worked well and what needs to be adjusted?

– What does this mean?• By looking reflectively at our

roles, we give our students OUR very best, this will reflect in the students’ performance.

Sarah Vasquez

Groupwork in the Bilingual Classroom

Working with Muliple Languages Strategies for ELLs• The issues of social class

and of culture are thoroughly mixed with the issue of language.

• There are several approaches to ELL groupwork.

• It is up to us to discern what approach works best for our current students!

• Oral proficiency: second language learning is accelerated when learners have meaningful interaction with peers who are native speakers of the language.– By developing heterogeneous

groups, students are able to teach and learn from one another in spite of language barriers.

Sarah Vasquez

Finding Out Activity

Learning Stations: Activity Cards

• Each child is responsible for completing the task or activity that is on the card or worksheet that they are given.

• Worksheets and cards are in English and Spanish. Otherwise information will be lost in translation!

Management:Its is essential to assure that all students have access to a task.Provide a forum where differences in ideas about what to do and about what good answers are can be shared and discussed.Take care of the problems of children that tend to become frustrated or who often become disengaged.

Sarah Vasquez

Achievement Results

Putting Groupwork to the Test• Students that are LEP that were

tested at the beginning of the school year and later in the year showed significant gains in EP.

• Gains are connected to specific experiences in the classroom.

• Students whose teachers set the stage for more talking and working together had higher average gains in abstract concepts.

Conclusions and Christian Worldview

• You can create an active learning community with Active learning stations with effective heterogeneous group work.

• Deuteronomy 32:2:– “Let my teaching fall like rain

and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” NIV.