Chapter 7 covered Cooperative Learning. The book talked about things such as:
-Keep group sizes small
-Combine cooperative learning with other classroom structures
-Don't worry about grouping by skill levels
-Use different types of grouping (Formal, Informal, Base)
-Do not overuse
In our group work the week prior we talked about the above book recommendations and added that we felt roles needed to be defined and progress should be evaluated frequently. Group work is good preparation for life outside of school. It teaches many important life skills like communication, conflict resolution, organization, project management, meeting deadlines, exposure to other points of view and more.
One thing that I feel is really important is to make sure that the project you assign the group has a good variety of different types of activities. You want to make sure that everyone in the group has a chance to use a skill that they feel is a strength. If the project is an art project, for example, it may alienate the group members that are not strong in artistic disciplines. By providing a variety of facets to the group project it will allow each student a chance to shine.
The Chapter 8 topic was Reinforcing Effort. The book talked about the importance of having students believe that effort can make a difference. It also recommended having students keep track of their effort and achievement and effort. I think keeping track of those two things is where technology can really help the students and teachers. The hard part will be defining effort and getting the students to see what true effort looks like. In order to help the students see what "effort" looks like they suggest using a rubric that maps out behaviors that are indicative of someone giving effort and having different levels for each behavior displayed on the rubric. I think this can be an effective model. I have used rubrics like this before but never for something that is hard to see, like effort. Once students see what behaviors they need to exhibit it becomes a matter of proving to students that putting the effort forth makes a difference. This can be more challenging than you think, especially for students who can cruise through and get good grades without putting forth a lot of effort. In order to convince those types of students I found it best to give them "post-assessments" a few weeks later to see how much they've retained. In most cases they will not retain as much as the students that put forth high levels of effort because they most likely crammed right before the test, scored well, and then didn't retain the info. With good study habits, note taking, and homework completion (all categories of effort) they will see that they can retain more info. Spreadsheets are probably the best way to analyze data so that you can show progress, compare and contrast data, and show relationships between effort and results. Spreadsheets can get kind of boring (not to me!!), though, so using something like Google forms or Survey Monkey might be a good way to more actively engage the students while still providing data to play with.
I have really renewed my interest in using rubrics with my students. I think that creating a rubric focused on student effort is an awesome way to hold the students accountable for their actions and choices, as well as because it provides students with specific targets and states expectations clearly.
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