Group Work and Communication: How Do We Do It??

As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room at the NCTM conference. I cannot tell y'all how incredibly excited I am to finally be here! It has been a long time coming starting in about October when I applied for a grant offered to undergrads at the university that I attend. Then, a few months later, I found out that I was one of three undergrads who were chosen to receive the grant! Now, here I am! We've only had one session so far, and it was great! But I'll write more about the conference next week. For now...

This week Tovani shared her thoughts on group work and assessment of them. I was interested to hear what she would say about this topic because the only experience I have is as a student in groups myself. We used group work very little in the classroom in which I did student teaching. I know that I strongly disliked group work (and still do) because it generally means a larger project and that I would be doing most of the work. Sadly, students cannot easily dole out tasks evenly in a group and do equal amounts of work. Because I am a planner and get things done, I was often made the leader of the group and had to do parts of the project that others conveniently forgot. And there was no choice on the matter whether to do their part or not, because I would get a bad grade if I didn't! Everyone got the same grade. It was awful.

But, Tovani works with her groups of students in different ways. She walks around and assesses individuals within the group to make sure that everyone is doing a fair share of work. She helps students to delegate different parts of the project. She also set clear standards along with the students of what was expected during discussions and group work. Everyone should have done any reading necessary, come prepared with notes and their book, and be ready to discuss and engage in a conversation. Tovani even brought in a friend to help her model to her students what good and bad behavior looked like in a group discussion without telling them what to think. She let them watch her and then she collected the observations of good and bad behaviors.

Through the chapters in Tovani's book, it is so clear to see the relationships that she builds with her students through communication. She takes care to write detailed feedback for each student which provides her with a students who trusts her more and is more willing to work for her. I loved the idea she had on a conversation calendar. It is a small sheet of paper with 2 rows of 5 boxes each. Across the top of the paper, the top 5 boxes are labeled with the days of the school week, Monday through Friday. Then, in the top box, students are allowed to write either something about themselves or ask her a question. It could be something that they were afraid to ask earlier or something about her. Then, the students record the grade (out of 20 points) that they think they should receive for participation and class that day. Tovani then responds to their comment in the box below and writes the grade that they actually received for participation that day. At the end of the week, Tovani totals up the points for that week and records it in her grade book. I love this idea! And though I am a math person, I think that I'd like to use this to increase communication in my classroom.

What do y'all think? Groups? Communication? How does all of this work?

"Content Literacy - the ability of someone to interact with and use strategies to interpret the content of some subject (in its own language) including being able to speak, listen to, read, and write in that language"

{Sassy}