OER4Schools/Review of group work

Title: Introduction to OER4Schools
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The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource

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  Introduction to OER4Schools

  2.3 - More on questioning

Table of contents.

Introduction to OER4Schools >>>

Facilitator's version, Participants' version

Review of homework and classwork

• In the last session, you planned Talking Points about a topic. Did you try teaching through the talking points during this week? If yes, how did your pupils respond to the talking points? Share your experience about as many points given below:

• Which activity did you use for team building?
• How did you get everybody to participate?
• Were students able to explain their reasoning and understanding to peers?
• Were there ‘free riders’ or individuals dominating the discussion? How did you address this?

• Will you plan Talking Points activity again for your pupils? What changes will you make to the points for this activity, so that they are more effective for group discussion? Some of the things that you can think about, are: number of correct/incorrect/unsure statements, wording of statements, length of statements, concrete and abstract statements.

• Did you recruit any older students as Classroom Assistants this week? For which teaching activity were they recruited? Did you use any criteria for choosing them? What is your assessment of their usefulness for achieving lesson objectives? What is the impact on the learning of the classroom assistants by carrying out this role? Discuss any issues that you faced in recruiting or by recruiting classroom assistants. Remember: it is very important that classroom assistants are recruited with full cooperation of the students, their parents, teachers and the school administration. It needs to be a voluntary activity.

• Did you download or try to download images that could be used with the Talking Points? Share any technology issues that you faced while downloading. Also describe the steps if you were able to resolve them. Otherwise, discuss unresolved issues with your peers for ideas on how they can be resolved.

• While downloading images for Talking Points, did you face any conceptual issues such as availability of images related to the teaching concept or choosing images that were relevant? Did using images improve the effectiveness of Talking Points? Give examples to support your response.

Objectives of this session

• To consolidate learning about group work

• To plan an effective group work activity using ICT

Activity One: Consolidating aspects of group work

Educator note

This is the last session focussing specifically on group work. In it we review the key aspects of the previous sessions.

For this activity, you will need the questionnaire on group work. Give the participants at least 20 minutes to fill in the questionnaire, especially section D. More time can also be given if needed by the participants.

It is important that participants think about the meaning of each aspect as discussed during the previous sessions (not their own interpreted meaning) and its implementation in their classrooms. They can refer to the previous sessions (online or on paper) for this.

You can ask the participants to write their responses in their first language if it will help in expressing their thoughts.

Encourage participants to answer carefully the last question in the questionnaire. They should think about their agenda regarding teaching through group work. This will be required for Activity Four during the session.

In Unit 3 you have discussed and reflected on a variety of topics related to group work. Here is a list for recap:

• Exploratory Talk
• Same tasks group work
• Different tasks group work
• Group composition and formation
• Ground rules for group work
• Group size and seating arrangement
• Carousel of activities for group work
• Seating arrangement during group work with computers
• Sharing ICT resources within groups
• Sharing ICT resources across groups
• Using non-ICT resources during group work
• Talking Points activity for promoting group interaction
• Recruiting classroom assistants for helping in group work

Individual work (11 min). Answer the questionnaire on group work. Be honest about your responses for section A and C. Be reflective about your responses for section D. Carefully and realistically plan your agenda for carrying out group work in your classroom.

Whole group activity (11 min). Take turns to recap meaning of the different aspects of group work and share your responses from section D. This means that one participant explains the meaning of one aspect of group work briefly. Other participants share their responses as listed in section D of the questionnaire for this aspect. Then another participant explains the meaning of another aspect followed by sharing of responses.

Activity Two: Revisiting issues of group work

In Unit 3 you have also discussed and reflected on issues about teaching through group work. Some persistent issues are:

• Teacher’s role for effective group work
• Ensuring participation of every member
• Deciding appropriate grouping strategy
• Learning of every member of the group being a group responsibility
• Bully effect and free rider effect (issue of copying)
• Seating arrangement during group work with ICTs such as computers

Educator note

You will need a flipchart (preferably one sheet for each issue) or concept mapping software to record strategies suggested by the participants.

Whole group Brainstorm (11 min). It is inevitable that you would have discussed some of the issues about group work during Activity 1. Now, extend the previous discussion and brainstorm strategies that you can use for resolving the issues mentioned above. Suggest realistic and practical strategies that the facilitator can record on the flipchart or concept mapping software (see Unit 2, Session 4 for concept mapping).

Educator note

Make sure that you cover the strategies for all of the points mentioned below:

• Teacher’s role - during lesson planning, carrying out and concluding group work
• Ensuring participation of every member - contribution to the task and feeling free to express opinion by agreeing or disagreeing
• Deciding appropriate grouping strategy - in view of the learning objectives
• Learning of every group member being a group responsibility - at the time or carrying out group work and reporting it
• Bully effect and free rider effect - for pupils who are dominating, shy and even lazy
• Seating arrangement during group work with ICTs - all arrangements that increase optimum use of ICT resources

Review of group work

Educator note

This is the last session focussing specifically on group work. In it we review the key elements of the previous sessions, and then give time to an extended planning task.

Unit 3 on group work covered a number of topics, including same-task and different-tasks group work (3.1), supporting reasoning and managing groupwork (3.2), mixed pace groupwork with and without ICT (3.3), group work with ICT (3.4), and talking points and effective group work (3.5).

Pair work (11 min). Review the previous sessions in pairs (e.g. using your paper handouts or the online version), and make a note of any points that stand out to you, that you found helpful, or would like to raise in the following group discussion. To give an example, you might note down types of group work, and briefly note the three types (“same task groupwork”, carousel-style groupwork, “different tasks groupwork”) and reflect on how you have been able to make progress with your group work in class.

Group discussion (11 min). Share your reflections with the group, perhaps drawing a mindmap of what suggestions are made.

Educator note

It's important to note down any points that arise, because these will be used in the planning task below.

Further notes on group work

There are many aspects to group work, and over time more things will occur to you, which you should share with your colleagues. For instance, you could think about managing group work outside the classroom, doing group work with additional available resources (e.g. books, newspapers, other technologies). Group work, like all the other interactive techniques we have talked about, will continue to be part of your arsenal of learning techniques, and it will be particularly important for project-based work.

Also, remember to use the ICTs you already know about in group work. For instance, think of innovative ways you can use EtherPad. You might consider trying out group work as follows:

• You do carousel-style group work, where you form groups of 2-4 students: some of those groups work with netbooks, others do another task. For 2-4 students per netbook, say with 12 netbooks, this forms 12 groups, and occupies 24 to 48 students; the other students then do a non-ICT task. We would encourage you to try this with small group, say 2 or 3 using a netbook.
• Then, among the 12 groups with netbooks, 3 groups share an etherpad, that they use for a joint task (i.e. there are 4 etherpads in use at the same time, each EtherPad has contributions from 3 groups only).

Homework

Drawing on the points that arose in the discussion above, plan a group work task, e.g. including different-task group work, talking points in conjunction with the downloaded images, magic microphone, etc. Make sure you include an ICT element, and draw on classroom assistants if possible.

Computer tasks: Remember to keep practising your typing skills! (The awarding of a certificate at the end of the course will also depend on your typing skills!). Also, take some time to explore the other applications installed on your computers, and reflect on how they could be used for interactive teaching and learning.