Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Review of homework
Last time, you were trying out your your 10 talking points. How did this go? What 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?
Classroom assistants. Did you manage to involve some classroom assistants? Are there further issues that need to be discussed? (Refere to the points for discussion from the last session.) It's very important that involvement of classroom assistants is doing with full cooperation of the students, parents, teachers and the school administration.
Computer tasks. You were also asked to download images that could be used in conjunction with talking points. We will use these in the planning task later. Were there any problems?
Review of group work
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.
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 the following structure for group work:
- carousel-style group work
- 3-4 students per netbook (with 12 netbooks, this forms 12 groups, and occupies 36 to 48 students; the other students do a non-ICT task)
- Among the 12 groups, 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.
