Cooperative learning can be so rewarding for students or very frustrating. It is difficult for teachers to make sure that all group members not only have a job that they are capable of doing, but one that they WILL do! All the planning in the world won't help if the students don't want to work together. On the other hand, when the students do work well together, and really pull together as a team toward a common goal, the assignment can be fantastic for everyone involved. My biggest problem is how to get rid of the drama that tends to associate itself with anything that a group of middle school students do. The rolling of eyes, the refusal to work with someone, the bossiness of a student, the talkativeness of another all add up to a huge challenge for a teacher. I enjoy cooperative learning - I like to use this teaching tool whenever I can. I just wish someone would come up with a way to take the drama out of it!!!
Every Wednesday in Winter the Middle School and High School have Advisory -a time when staff members sit down with an assigned group of students and go over that week's grades, missing assignments and talk about any problems they may be having with teachers or other students. When meeting with my advise-es, I try to accent the positive and find out why there are negatives. I have one student who, being a 6th grader, is new to the whole Middle School scene. He wasn't doing very well in Math, but was afraid to ask anyone (including the Math teacher) for help. I was able to find out what his problem was (he couldn't solve the problems at the end of the assignment, which get harder the farther you go into the assignment, so he just wouldn't hand the assignment in) and acting as a go-between with him and his teacher, was able to get him to hand in all his assignments (for partial credit if nothing else!) and raise his grade to a C+. When that student logs onto his account and sees how his grade has changes through his effort, his face lights up. He's very proud of himself, and I'm proud of him to. I think this is a good example of reinforcing effort - a positive influence that reinforced my student's effort.
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What a great story about reinforcing effort, Denise! Very inspiring! I can totally relate to what you said about cooperative learning also. It can be a lot of drama, especially with middle schoolers! Bill gave me a piece of advice this week that stuck with me, and that is to assign each group member a specific task within the group; they seem to fight more when left to their own planning. I need to remember to do this with each cooperative learning project I assign. I haven't always done that in the past, and then I have definitely seen the breakdown in cooperative learning.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Andi. I think I will start to assign a specific task - that way I'll be able to see who is actually doing the work as well as eliminating some of the drama!
ReplyDeleteI also teach middle school and find that the drama can be so overwhelming for collaborative learning as well. I love the idea Andi mentioned (that Bill mentioned to her! HA!) and will have to try assigning specific tasks to each student rather than letting the group decide.
ReplyDeleteI have also really liked using base groups throughout the year. I've noticed it helps build relationships with students that might not have ever talked to each other before. My base groups are set up in the beginning of the year and switch at semester. These groups are used for critique circles and by the end of the semester, the students have worked out many of the bugs and don't complain as much. They have to learn to work with one another peacefully and successfully.
I completely understand middle school drama and kids being upset over partners/group members. Since I have been adding the technology component to groupwork, there has been less drama. If kids do not like each other, they can "divide and conquer." However, I still make them communicate with each other during the process so that the end product is seamless and has all of the necessary elements. I think this has been good for the kids because they know group work does require a little of the collaboration but they still have the freedom to create their own piece from the part of the project they agreed to complete.
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