I think I can sum everything up pretty quickly...it depends. Looking over my survey results, some students preffer to work in groups, others think they get too distracted. When I look at my notes/thoughts from the classroom, some students work great in groups while others can't stay on track with another person nearby.
I figured my findings would be consistent, full of clarity. Well that's simply not true. I thought I would find amazing results with student success, but it seems like it's just like previous years when I did group work casually. The students who excelled in the past, are still excelling now: motivated students who are able to stay on track. Those struggling are overly social and lack self control at times. Those students in the middle seemed to be in the middle before.
My successes have been in finding new and more creative ways to form groups, but overall it hasn't been anything eye opening or philosophy changing.
I should also include my structure hasn't bee as consistent and demanding as I realized it needed to be. This is obviously a major factor needed in setting up group work, but it's been hard to stay consistent for me personally.
I hope you're not getting discouraged, Mike! I think as you keep trying new strategies and approaches, you will start seeing more success.
ReplyDeleteKeep with it Mike! What percentage of the kids did well with the group work? It would be interesting to see if that percentage was higher when doing non-group work stuff. As teachers, we have to try things or we will never know if they work. Some things just don't go as well as we would like them to, but that is okay. It is a good learning experience.
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