Group work- challenging our students and ourselves

“The Label of ‘problematic student’ should never be seen as permanent or as indicative of unchanging characteristics of the person. Similarly, avoid seeing some students as ‘natural leaders.’ With proper training and your insistence that people play their roles most students should be able to perform leadership functions” (Cohen 75).

This quote stood out to me for many reasons. But first off, I haven’t seen structured group work in the classroom yet but there has been group work, casually. No one has necessarily had jobs or “leader positions” because there has only been brainstorming or paired group activities. I do know that students will be in groups for guided reading but this is based off of their reading levels and I am wondering if there will be group activities for them to do as well. I am interested to see what happens throughout the year and I hope to include this form of regulated group work that includes both individual work as well as group responsibilities. I thought that was a key point in the article, as well. Students need to have individual responsibilities but then report to the group and participate in collaboration and I hope to plan for this in the classroom.

As for the quote, I thought that this is indicative to our teaching profession. Teachers, as hard as they may try not to, judge students based on their behavior, but often forget that students behavior differs based on the situation they are in at the time. Students who have a difficult time with group instruction may actually work better in groups and possess attributes teachers may overlook. This ideal is crucial to keep in mind. With this being said the article gave a great comparison and challenged to teachers to take this farther and avoid seeing certain students as leaders. Although students many be natural leaders other students need to be challenged in these positions as well and leaders must also learn to take a step back and allow others to lead them. In real world scenarios people need to be versatile in their roles and we need to prepare our students for all of these roles. Overall this article was very beneficial and I am hoping to incorporate all forms of group work in my teaching and planning as well as challenge my students for many roles in life.

Blog post 2- Cohen Article- Group Work

After reading this article I found many new insights on what group work entails and the different problems that may arise from having students work in groups. Out of the entire article-the most interesting thing that I thought of this article was the way that students were treating each other and acting when they were put into small groups. Reading about the student named Anna had to deal with seemed very upsetting to me and I feel that it is the teachers as well as the students responsibility to make the classroom seem like a community where everyone gets along and works together. Further down the article I came across a quote that I felt was very fitting for how I am feeling about group work upon reading the beginning of the article. “Small task groups tend to develop hierarchies where some members are more active and influential than others. This is a status ordering-an agreed-upon social ranking where everyone feels it is better to have a high rank within the status order than a low rank. Group members who have high rank are seen as more competent and as having done more to guide and lead the group” (The Dilemma of Group Work, page 27.) This blog is interesting to me because it explains why group work can go wrong when the classroom and students have little positive experience with working in small groups and developing hierarchies needs to be leveled down to developing more equal task work where all students feel comfortable contributing to the group. The group members that are scene as having a hiring rank and being more competent need to be leveled out and even give them a chance to ‘help’ the others, giving them more of a job type role verses just feeling like they are above the other students because they have more knowledge. This can be very troubling for the student (s) on the lower end of the hierarchy because they can feel like they are not good enough or the others in the group do not want their opinion so they shut down- which is never something that a student should be feeling or should happen while in school.
From this quote- in my classroom treating small group work in a status ordering rank is not what I want. This has helped me realize that I want my classroom to be a total community and for all students to feel comfortable when they have to break off into groups and work. I never want a student to feel like Anna or the two African-American students who were not given much chance to talk because they were the minority of the classroom. I want the total opposite of that and know that I will achieve it because I have been in Anna’s and the two African-American positions before and it was not fun and it made me not like working in groups and therefore my school work suffered. All around students need to be happy and willing to participate when given the chance.

Smith Difficulties

I chose to blog about the Smith article because I felt as though I was somewhat confused. Near the end of the task evaluations, a small disagreement begins about task A which involves students completing a dot pattern without providing any real directions. “The ensuing discussion highlighted the fact that no procedure or pathway was stated or implied for task A, yet the group had included the use of procedure as a hallmark of tasks that were classified as procedures without connections and procedures with connections” (Smith, pg. 347). The argument can be looked at more as higher-level tasks versus lower-level tasks. However, the group decided that this problem could be viewed as simply doing mathematics, which is considered an higher-level demand because it “requires students to explore and understand the nature of mathematical, concepts, processes, and relationships” and a variety of other reasons listed under the Levels of Demands section (Smith, pg. 348). This is confusing to me because no age group was ever listed. As a college graduate, this task is extremely easy and would definitely be classified as lower-level. I believe that this holds true to the higher grades in elementary. However, those in the younger grades would have to draw on their prior knowledge and really have to work to figure out on to solve this problem. Without any real directions or steps laid out for students, it becomes a higher-level task because they are simply not used to it. It is also higher-level for younger age groups because they cannot simply let their new pattern speak for their answer because they are then ask to put their thought into words. I believe explaining mathematical procedures  at any age is difficult because we are so used to letting different numbers, patterns, graphs, etc. speak for our thought process.

I believe that it is important for teachers to get together to brainstorm different mathematical activities because everyone has their own creative input. Leveling the different tasks using the Smith classifications can be extremely helpful. However, I believe that in my placement this type of classification can be very difficult because every concept is new to my students. They do not have much of a mathematical background besides counting and basic arithmetic. What do you girls think because I know that my thoughts are everywhere?  I think that reading this article a second time just confused me more!  

Case Study two- first grade

Case two: “This is a triangle because it just looks right.”

For this case study students were paired up into groups and had to categorize geometric shapes. They were working with triangles and one of the groups put all of the equilateral triangles into a pile with all of the obtuse and scalene triangles into an ‘other’ pile. The teacher came around and started engaging in discussion. From this discussion she learned, through student talk, that students thought triangles were only triangles if all of the sides are the same. They had a cookie cutter concept of triangles and couldn’t analyze that any shape with three straight sides and three corners was in fact a triangle. The teacher did not, however, correct them immediately but brought this up in another lesson with another activity.

For the second activity, she had students make triangles of all different sizes and then the talk was directed once again towards what makes up a triangle. After putting together different sized triangles using strips of paper and brads students were questioning the same idea: what makes up a triangle? She got students to the place where they have observed and encountered and now they were ready for explanation. Through talk she was able to discover students misconceptions and further develop their reasoning through their own thinking.

After reflecting on this I noticed that the teacher allowed students to sleep on a concept without correcting them immediately. As a teacher I often want to correct students right away, but by incorporating another activity and engaging students in another classroom discussion, students will understand the concept more fully as opposed to receiving a quick correction. This was an enlightening case study, which I will try and incorporate into my own teaching. I need to learn to give more wait time and allow students to sleep on their ideas.

Blog Post 1- Repeating

Blog Number one- This is the first blog for the semester. I am glad to have a blog to share with other’s in the class and hear their ideas as well.
Out of the five talk moves the one that I find the most interesting is ‘repeating.’ The reason that I find this most interesting is because I believe that a great way for students to learn is through their peers. I have always found that when a student is told an instruction by a teacher and they have some confusion but ask a peer it can sometimes can make more sense coming from a peer because it is put into their “own words” and easier for them to understand. I also think that this talk move stood out to me the most because myself as a student would not always hear the direction or information that was being said the first time and I would need it to be repeated. When I would raise my hand to ask my teacher I sometimes got in trouble because they thought that I was not listening. That was not the case, I was listening I just needed to hear it more than once for it to really sink in. By a teacher asking another student to repeat it, it gives the students a chance (like me) who may need to hear something more than once an out, they will not have to ask themselves but they will still receive the information.
Challenges or obstacles that can occur from the talk move that I chose (repeating) is that after awhile students can start to take advantage of this and may not be listening at all because they know that it is going to get repeated by another student, this poses as a challenge. An obstacle that could occur as well is if a student that is called on to repeat is not listening, they will not know what to repeat. Lastly, a challenge that this poses as well is if a student does not understand the math concept that is being taught and therefore has no idea how to repeat or even understand what is being said because they cannot comprehend it as they are struggling. That I believe is one of the biggest challenges.

Just a little clarification!

I know that it seems a bit odd to have Mrs. Stire as a contributer but I created a blog for my teacher, so I had to change the name. After curriculum night and once my teacher understands everything, I should be changing it back but for now I am Mrs. Stire! :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Revoicing

While reading Chapin, I felt like all of the talk moves stood out. Each talk move stemmed from another and promoted better instruction and learning for the students. However, I felt like talk move 1, revoicing, was the most important because it helps to maintain clear lines of communication between one's thoughts and his or her explanation. Revoicing is also important for those on the other end of the conversation because it helps to clarify any confusion in the talk. As Chapin states, "When students talk about mathematics, it's often very difficult to understand what they say" (Chapin, 2009). Too often, mathematic classrooms are lecture-based, not allowing for any student talk to occur.

In many classrooms, mathematics is demonstrated through steps or procedures rather than talk. For example as I traveled through grade school, one would demonstrate his or her understanding of an idea by showing his or her work on the chalkboard. Many times, the student's demonstration contained little or no talk. It was evident through the student's work if he or she properly completed the problem. Math class was practically silent besides the teacher lecturing for so many years. On a rare occasion, the teacher would ask for someone to explain his or her ideas. This was always extremely difficult because math students are trained to explain their ideas through numbers or symbols, never through talk. Teaching kids the importance of talk at a young age will help to eliminate the uncomfortable feeling of explaining mathematic ideas through talk.

Revoicing is extremely important because it helps students to clarify their thoughts so they are clearly understood. As Chapin and myself explain, talking about mathematical ideas is difficult. Revoicing helps to track one's ideas and provides the best possible explanation. Through my prior experiences, I have seen how useful revoicing can be and through Chapin's examples, I can see how easily it can be applied.