This morning I had a lesson of PSHEE with year 7. They are currently on the topic of Fair Trade and working in the ICT room on a presentation. The teacher gave the students the option of working in a pair or working on their own. I really liked that she gave them the option. I have noticed some students work better on their own.
I starting thinking about group work and the following questions came to mind-
- Is it better to give students the option to work on their own?
- Does there need to be a balance between individual work and group work? Like, surely those students who want to always work on their own need to learn how to work in a team environment? I wonder what a 'healthy' ratio is for this?
- Does the teacher assign people to groups?
- Do you want to mix up the GnT and SENs with the rest? or do you make clear GnT and SEN groups so that you can give them the level of work relevant to their ability?
I asked the teacher who said it really does depend on the work that is being covered at the time. It is always good to have a balance of group and individual work. In some cases it will be appropriate to mix GnT with SEN's so as to challenge the SEN's and get the GnT's to teacher the 'weaker' students. On the other hand, its also good to have definite ability groups where you can aim who assignments/tasks to a group. She said a subtle way of putting people into organised group is to, at the beginning of the year, stick a colour dot on their books. That way when you do group work its easy to assemble groups all you need to say is "all blue dots together, all yellow dots together..."
No comments:
Post a Comment