Unit 5

What will you do to better prepare students for their team/group/partner interactions

Team work is always a hard call. It can be very difficult convincing a 7 year old why it really can be beneficial. By now they have also formed their distinct friendships and have very clear ideas about who they should be paired with. At times it works. For example today, I partnered them up to read about motion. To check for understanding they used their whiteboards and listed one important fact from each chapter. It was very clear who the assignment worked for and who it did not. Yet, I will persevere because I do see the benefits when it works.

I will continue to work on modeling group work, charting the successes, asking for their feedback, asking them to tell what their ideal group would look like. I hope that what they will remember from their experiences is that sharing ideas is a powerful tool in learning, and can make learning a lot of fun.