“The most common error in writing instructions is to provide too much detail, as if teachers were instructing an individual on how to carry out a technical task step by step. This approach, designed to provide as much certainty as possible, has a deadening effect on group discussion- there is nothing left to discuss”.
This quote stood out to me because I often notice myself making this mistake. I haven’t yet developed any lessons that include group work but I think that this could still apply. For example, during writing time I usually circle around the room answering any questions that the students may have. A lot of students have questions about how to spell words and I typically catch myself giving students the answers instead of encouraging them to look it up in the dictionary. Now that I’ve been catching myself I’ve been trying hard to not let this continue. I think that sometimes it’s easier to just give students the answer than deal with the frustration that comes with pushing the student a little harder.
Now, back to group work. The article is advocating for the importance of full group participation, and I agree. If we oversimplify instructions, the students won’t need to communicate in order to complete the task. Understanding this will be useful in my classroom as I begin to write lesson plans. My class has been doing a lot of “team building” exercises where students need to work together as a group to design or build something. There have been a few groups who struggle to work well together (one student is too bossy, one student is left out, etc.) and in the future I will try to develop tasks that require all students to participate. I think that one of the best ways to do this is to give each group member a part of the job that they are in charge of, but then hold all group members accountable for the final product. This will hopefully encourage all students to not only play a part, but also to communicate so that everyone understands how the group got from point A to point B.
I'm glad you picked that quote, Amy. I've seen it action before and it's no fun watching a potentially engaging discussion be destroyed by modeling. What's more I think is that all that added direction takes away from the creativity of it all--whether this be in a discussion or project making atmosphere. It is something that I've recognized our teachers planning against during team time. During the planning sessions for the geodesic dome and the inexpensive tower there were teachers who wanted to give out more explicit directions but several stated that they thought the process and results would be more authentic if they "just let the kids figure it out for themselves." I think this was indeed the case; those two projects had results that varied from group to group, showing that different experiences were had. In many of these groups I did notice some taking on much more responsibility than others...I would let to see team time activities such as these fit to your model where each member is accountable for something.
ReplyDelete