Designing Groupwork

Chapter 1: Groupwork as a Strategy for Classrooms

The first chapter gives an introduction to the nature and effectiveness of group work and to why the author compiled her work into this book. She discusses her application of theories to elementary and middle level students and how the basic tenants of her studies have held true for both levels. She is still in the process of studying at the time of publication, but has achieved success. 

From my own experiences, group work is the quickest and easiest way to get students talking. That is not to say that they are talking about what you designed their conversation to mirror. That being the case, it is important to provide relevant and engaging tasks for group work to be successful. 

I'm curious about which of Cohen's basic tenants of group work hold strong across the spectrum of age and ability. What are the fundamentals in other words that we should all know and implement to create successful group dynamics. 

Chapter 2: Why Groupwork?

The second chapter proposes the question "why group work?" It continues on to answer that question with the achievement of accomplishing intellectual goals, social goals, and solutions to common classroom problems. Intellectual goals refer to the conceptual application of the learning. This is hands on an experimental in a way. The social goals refer to the bonds that are created through interaction and experience with others. This is how students prepare to interact in the adult world. Finally the trouble shooting section discusses ways like giving more time to create better opportunities for students to learn through their interactions. 

I really agree with the section about giving more time to students to interact and work together toward their learning goals. I've found in my own experiences with students who have been modeled for that they are much more successful in their group work. They will be on task if they know what they are supposed to do.

I'm curious about developing my own group work projects that can span months of instruction and involve all students in the work. I am very interested in project based learning. I think students should be guided rather than lectured to. I think that workshops are much more effective than lectures.

Chapter 3: The Dilemma of Groupwork

In this chapter Cohen discusses the problem of some students doing more work than other students. She discusses how it is impossible to ensure that all members have the same status in a group because that just isn't how things work, dominance and inequality are part of the human experience. The perception that people have of one another will always be the dominating factor in the interaction between the group members. The danger here lies in the low status students, for they will not receive equitable access to the learning that is occurring.

I think for a large part of elementary school I considered myself a low status student. I was quiet and didn't talk because I was afraid of the ridicule that accompanied my answers. It took a long time and the developing of a lot of trust in relationships before I was willing to participate in class discussion, and I'm still hesitant to raise my hand at times. I get nervous, my heart rate increases, and I feel generally uncomfortable. But only with my peers.

I am excited to help disrupt situations that create dominance and hierarchy. I therefore am excited to continue reading more about how to ensure equitable outcomes and create group work that involves all members in a fair and transparent way.     

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Chapter 12: Relationships

This presentation details the topics and themes of chapter twelve of Rethinking High School. First watch the presentation. Then come back to this page and post a comment below on one thing you found interesting and one thing you still want to know more about.

Chapter 12 on Prezi

Disrupting Class

The first thing that I connected with from the Disrupting class article was the manifold reasons why people believe our schools are not making the grade. There are so many different opinions, and they are all possible reasons why we're flunking as a system. However, we can't be that bad. Some students are learning. Are they learning in spite of us? What I think we really gain from all of these perspectives is that there are a lot of areas where we could improve and the road to improvement won't have a single starting point. We need to keep our eyes and minds open to the many issues we must address and change.
Secondly I was fascinated by their approach. Rather then examining schools from the inside, which can be a conundrum of similar ideas vying for the other to cease to exist, they are looking at schools from the outside. I think that if true reform is to happen it most likely won't come from inside but rather from the outside. It's sort of like solving a maze. If you get too close you can't see what will come next. However if you're too far the maze becomes a solitary object. On the other hand if the maze is examined from the right distance then it becomes easier to predict snags and choose the best route for success.
Next I was moved by the example of Henry Ford's auto plant and how the explanation made a perfect argument for interdisciplinary teaching. We must be in close commune with each other to effective create. If one aspect of a creation doesn't work with another the utility is lost. Take for example a student who is writing a paper on physics. Well this student just happens to be an excellent physicist. It's her passion. She eats, sleeps, and dreams physics. She has a tattoo of Newton on her forearm so she never forgets who the father of her religion is. Okay, but she got an F on her paper. What happened? Well she didn't know how to write. Her sentences were filled with syntactic flaws, her spelling was atrocious, and the entire first page was one sentence. We need each discipline to work together to create a viable product. We can't remain islands, or we will perish.
Finally I really feel strongly about the correlation between intelligences and intrinsic motivations. I feel that we all naturally enjoy success more than failure. We've all been told that you must fail in order to succeed, but failure is never the fun part. The fun part is when it clicks, when you get it. So it only makes sense that if multiple intelligences are engaged during the learning process that more students will succeed. Following this result should come a deeper intrinsic happiness grounded purely in the students successful completion of a project or simple the acquisition of some knowledge. Learning is only fun when you're learning.
My first question is does the author believe that each person has one specific type of intelligence that they gravitate toward? Or maybe I should ask, do I believe that students don't have a strong suit? I think that people are all very different. Some might have a strong suit. Some might not. And some might have many. I think the important thing here is that we teach to many rather than a couple. I think that everyone should be literate. However that doesn't mean that students shouldn't be good at listening and speaking. To me teaching to multiple intelligences means helping students improve in each one.
My second question is how do we restructure education to be more like a computer. I think that open source is how our schools should function. We should compile curriculum, not throw it out and buy new stuff. We should be able to evolve our thinking without the school districts approval. One major problem that stands out to me about public education is that the bureaucracy is stifling, moreover it's suffocating.
How can we get their hands off of our materials and out of our pockets? Why do we need so many curriculum directors when so many teachers are creating curriculum on their own? Is there a super curriculum? I believe the answer is yes. It is one that can change seamlessly, without the signatures of multiple people. One that can evolve through the efforts and ambition of the entire community, not just a school board.

Week One Reading Reflection - Rethinking High School

Ringing my Bell

As I read chapter one of "Rethinking High School" one thing that continually resonated with me was the idea of learning by doing. I think that hands on is the best practice, that doing is knowing (or at least closer to it). By allowing students to engage in real world tasks we help them to truly invest in their learning and experience their newly acquired knowledge through usage. Furthermore, when students are actively involved in "doing" larger scale projects they are more likely to be taking on multiple disciplines of study. For example, a census project could provide students opportunities to work collaboratively to collect information, to synthesize the results using mathematics, and to write about how their results relate to specific elements of their social science and language arts studies. Most importantly the students task would require them to go outside of the comfort and safety of a tablet arm chair desk in a polygonal room and interact with the communities and the world around them at large. Doing could mean that they are on a computer in the classroom or a resource room creating an artistic and visually pleasing form for presenting their findings. As long as students seek answers by thinking critically to solve problems and create unique and personal products we will know they are learning. In this way our assessments also become more valid, especially if the previous assessments were multiple guess. Learning by doing creates able and confident citizens who, even during their most fresh and naive step into the adult world, will have experience to lean on.

Mediocre Measures
Not that it's a horrible practice, but I found the part about the educators and creators of Best Practice High School reflecting on their own experience as parents a little short sided. The authors mention that the three of them took their experiences with their collective eight children and evaluated the feelings that they've experienced from their children. I think they came up with a good synopsis: "Some of our children were welcomed and reasonably well served by their schools, others had mixed or indifferent experiences, and some were ignored, misunderstood, or injured." The problem I have is that it is still merely a personal reflection. I think actually surveying students (anonymously) would render much more discrete understandings of how the students feel in their schools.
Second to?
Creating curricular paths to success was right down Best Practices High's alley. They both are concerned with constructing meaning rather than filling kids up with information and are more concerned with what students can actually do than how many of the correct bubbles they can find. 
What about you Mr. Sullivan?
I'm excited to work with my colleagues, especially from different disciplines, on creating tasks, assignments, and assessments that engage the students in two or more disciplines at a time. I think that with the help of technology we can tear down the walls that divide our disciplines and find ways to inculcate the skills we all posses into rich, rigorous, and stimulating activities for all of the teachers' students to experience and interact with, sans limitation.