Today in EDCI 336, we participated in an EdCamp. An EdCamp is where you can move from room to room when you feel like it, and participate in the topic you choose. Linked here is the post about our EdCamp with all the rules and room topics.
The room I decided to go to first and ended up spending my whole time in, was about “how to use group work in the classroom.”
We started off not really knowing what to do, talk about, or the process of how this EdCamp worked. But eventually, one person stepped up and began the conversation by asking a question about our experiences with group work. This was the starting point of our conversation that carried on very nicely through many different topics in this category.
Here is our rooms google doc that we contributed to, and below I have listed the notes I took regarding group work.
How to use group work in the classroom:
- Cons:
- Easy to do what you’re comfortable with and not help with every aspect
- Ensure an even workload
- Can’t split off and have 2 people focusing on different topic
- Hard to talk with interrupting and talking over since it’s hard to hear online
- Ways to combat these:
- Frame group work that everyone’s in it together, and work as a team (unit)
- Have an open communication line between group members
- Assign each person a different role in the group – all contribute equally
- As a teacher, would you use group work?
- Group work is a good way to build soft skills (leadership, teamwork, etc)
- Build connections
- How to grade group work?
- Base on group, but individual assessment – anonymous
- Not all people work well together – get feedback on group members and on self assessment
- Could have groups could create a document on what specifically each person contributed to the project
- Ensuring to allot time for group work to be done in class – observe and talk with students on what they’re working on and where they’re pulling their weight
- At the start of a project, have each group create a plan/document where students can identify what each person’s role is in the group
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash.com