Every Group Project You Have Ever Done: Hangover Meme
How true is this? Every single teacher — scratch that — person I’ve ever shown this to laughs hard and says they can identify with either being or hating one of the people in this picture from the movie, The Hangover.
Yet, schools are still assigning group work, and even moreso now that Project Based Learning is on the rise. With groupwork being an important hinge to making PBL work in our classrooms, what are you doing that ensures that the situation above isn’t happening in your classroom?
I’d love to hear your ideas for successful group work and my next post will share some of the ideas that I’ve been able to gather and practice to pretty decent success my students and I had over a half-decade of experience learning and teaching in a PBL school.
Looking forward to seeing your ideas!
Related articles
- 3 Ingredients for Assessing Learning in the PBL Classroom (gingerlewman.wordpress.com)
One of the things I try in my 5th grade classroom is making sure to offer a variety of choices. Of course there are times I assign students to work together, but as much as possible, I like to let them choose their partners. In my class I tell my students they make work in a 1-2-3:
1. If you want to work alone, that is fine. However, if you tell one person you are working alone, you must tell anyone who asks the same thing. I don’t want student #1 to tell student #2, “No thanks” when asked to work together, only to have student #2 find #1 working with another classmate later!
2. If you want to work in a group of 2, awesome. However, choose wisely or I will assign you to a group or ask you to work on your own or with me as your partner!
3. If you want to work in a group of 3, super. If you are in a group of 2 and a third person asks to join, make it work! I stress to my students that these are not forever partners, and everyone can work together for a short time, even if they are not best buds. If you are in a group of 3 and a 4th person asks to join, split into 2 groups of 2.
I also stress that students be their own advocates, and we talk about what that means. Mostly, when it comes to partners, it means students should not just be looking around the room from their seat, HOPING that someone will ask them to join their group. If students want a partner, it is their responsibility to find one.
Amanda, I think these are wonderful suggestions for group work. It’s obvious you’re working to help your kids develop the ability to make good choices as well as continue to foster strong interpersonal skills with their peers. And of course, I can see persistence and perseverance happening in that type of environment too.
You’re not a fan of groups bigger than 3? I’m not really either. Why do you choose three or fewer?
Thank you so much for sharing!
Love that picture of hangover! perfect example!
[…] based on ability-levels and their interest in the topic (see my passionate posts about grouping here, here, and here, and in that order). Once the kids have more experience with being PBL learners, […]