Europe A-Z

Just thought I'd give an update on an activity I'm planning for tomorrow.  We are studying the great continent of Europe in geography class.  I'm going to give them time to find some information on our neighbors across the pond.  This activity can be used as an introduction or assessment on a topic.  I will have the class find 26 key words (person, place, event, etc) from A-Z pertaining to Europe.  For example: A - Athens: Capital of Greece.  Hopefully you get the point.  Maybe they'll provide a little more detail.

Updates to follow.

Post-Winter Break

I'm hoping to renew some of my enthusiasm from early in the year.  Coming back from an extended break might give a renewed sense of openness to accepting others among the students.  We ended the year with some negativity towards forced group work.  Maybe a lot of these thoughts come from my perceptions of the problems.  If I simply focused on the groups successfully accomplishing tasks, working together well, and overall having a good time (which is probably the majority) I would think positively about the whole idea.  I guess it's hard to maintain a positive outlook when you start the year feeling a new idea will solve every issue and dilemma ever seen in the classroom.  Basically I need to step back during our second semester and focus on the positives.

Update - Kind of

I haven't done much to update my AR process as of late.  I still need to evaluate my survey results and adjust my practice based on those results.  I also am looking to gather more observational notes moving forward.

Mid AR Summary

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. 

Post Conference

I feel like I saw a lot of nice stuff at the Fall Conference.  It was really cool to hear what people were doing in their classrooms.  As far as AR is concerned, I picked up some ideas about collecting data.  Other people discussed their surveys as well as other ways of collecting data.  Some specific examples: having a co-worker come in to observe and take notes on a class session, simple observation notes from a teacher, parent surveys, etc.  I feel like it was a nice chance to check in with others and have realistic conversations about our progress.

Updates

Group work has been running along.  Some bumps in the road, but definitely some successes.  I surveyed my students to find their early thoughts on working in groups and found most like it with a few still not sold on the process.  Of course many say they want to work with friends, but they're starting to understand they won't always have that option.

Question

How can I stucture group work to most effectively create a positive environment and increase student achievement?