Monday, February 16, 2015
Dr. Ries asks a question about collaborative learning
Recall collaborative learning activities in which you have participated while you were in middle and high school. What aspect of these activities do you recall positively? What aspect were not useful at all? How might these experiences influence your own approach to engaging the students that you teach in collaborative interactions and/or projects?
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Dr. Ries submission from Michael Berstein
ReplyDeleteThrough my middle school and high school years I recall my teachers using collaborative activities in the class room. There is one I remember specifically because it was really beneficial, my calc teacher senior year in high school gave a group assignment that we needed to make a video to teach the class a topic of choice. My partner and I choice to teach factors. We were able to get creative and turn our lesson into a fun experience. In our video we incorporated a song that we made, at the time the song was popular so the other students really enjoyed the experience. Making the presentation I learned the material very quickly and gained more knowledge of this particular topic. .
One activity that sticks into my mind was group work in class, I didn't like this approach in the classroom because in my experience with working with someone to solve problems, we would just solve the problems by ourselves and then just share answers with each other. Also, one of the students could be lazy and not participate in group work at all they would just wait for the answer and use their partner.
All these past experiences are beneficial, because it will help me get the most out of all my students. I will be able to do this because I will give them activities that will make them enjoy learning and grow and understanding with the material. I believe that the student will only learn if the student is interested and into the topic, and I believe that's the teachers job.... to give activities that will make it a fun learning environment from which all the students can learn. .
I really do not remember many collaborative learning exercises from when I was in school... What I do remember did not make a positive impact on me. I can remember the other kids in my group trying to skirt the work and pawn it off on myself or the other kids that actually did their work. I really did not like being graded for work that I busted my back on and others did nothing, yet reaped rewards.
ReplyDeleteFast forward into the future with my son in the 5th grade... He was give a project to work on with other kids in his class. Each student was specifically responsible for a particular item and were graded as such. He had to work with this fellow classmates to build a Lenape Longhouse in history class. His part was to bring objects such as tree bark and twigs and explain in an essay why these items were important to the Indians. This I remember as a positive experience, and a fun learning project.
While in high school and middle school, there were several occasions that I participated in collaborative learning activities both in and out of the classroom. There were many times that we had been assigned group projects, especially in middle school. With these group assignments, I (as a student) was able to develop my abilities to work with others, as well as building on my leadership skills when necessary. I was able to learn how to communicate effectively with other students and with my teachers. We were given the opportunity to work together as a team on a larger project so that the outcome was successful. Though there were times that everything worked out the right way and everyone worked together effectively, there were also times that students did not meet the demands of the team and/or the assignment. This often happened when the teacher had chosen the groups. Looking back, I can see that the teachers often tried to use heterogeneous groupings for group projects, allowing students of all learning levels to have the opportunity to work together. But most of the time, the lower learning students did not contribute to the group, which brought down the grade of the entire group or forced other students in the group to “pick up the slack” of the students that did not contribute their assigned portions. I can also recall doing think-pair-share activities in many different classes as a “do now” activity at the beginning of class or at the start of a new lesson.
ReplyDeleteThese experiences influenced me when it comes to collaborative learning activities to try to allow students to pick their own groups for certain things, this way they cannot blame me as the teacher for placing students in a group and not contributing the same amount as other students had. I would also have students do an evaluation at the end of the assignment to account for which students contributed what portion of the assignment and can be graded accordingly to the amount of work they contributed. I would definitely do in-class collaborative learning activities, like think-pair-share or student interviews, with my future classes and use these activities as a formative assessment of what the students are learning and how they are progressing within the lesson.