Successful Group Work... Finally

It took forever, but I think I’m finally starting to get a true fell for what good teaching is. I finally feel like my power points are the correct size and depth for what I want to cover, my worksheets assess what they are supposed to assess, my kids are somewhat quiet when I am speaking and during work, and I think that I have finally conquered the beast that used to be the bane of my existence... group work.

I remember trying out group work during the summer just to see how it would go and it is obvious to me now how poor of an approach that is. With group work you have to be an incredible multi-tasker, answering and coming to the aid of every stupid little question that each group inevitably asks because they were not present, were asleep, or, most likely, just did not care to attempt to comprehend your futile efforts to teach them how to find the intersection of two lines on a calculator or some other skill that will be on a test in three or four months that they do not care about at that moment because their foresight does not go beyond what unhealthy, if not illegal, fun they will be having that weekend... *takes a deep breath*... Also, you have to rule with an iron fist and have a very structured setting for them to work under.  For example, I pick the groups beforehand in order to not let best friends be with best friends as that can certainly be a recipe for disaster. Also, I present rules and consequences for that particular activity on the power point before the activity is started and I stick to it almost vehemently for the duration of the class period. Perhaps most powerful is my cheap method of usually keeping a score in some way and having a variety of edible rewards for the winning group. That usually seems to entice them to work though the expenditures keep me from trying group work very often.

I remember my team teacher telling me this summer that I should not try group work until around late-October or November.  Naturally, I didn’t listen and tried it when the second year teacher across the hall from me suggested it in mid-September. Suffice it to say that the team teacher was pretty spot on with her suggestion (I still don’t think they can figure out multi-step equations by hand). However, through trial and tribulation I  have figured out a sufficiently acceptable formula for conducting group work. Who knows... maybe it’ll even get easy one day.