Monday, September 27, 2010
Cohen Group-work
Reading through the group-article I was reminded of a lot of conversations that my TE 401 class had last year. I don't specifically remember reading this exact article but the ideas are very similar to those that we covered last year. The biggest idea is the concept of status. This is a very intriguing idea to me. I have observed a lot of group work, as well as participated in a lot of group work (especially in our TE classes). The thing that really sticks out to me is how pretty much all issues of Status in group work settings is derived from perception rather than reality. That is why I chose the following quote from chapter 5: Dembo and McAullife (1987) demonstrated clearly that what is going on here is due to the perceptions of "high ability" rather than to some actual difference in ability. A lot of this part of the article discussed some of the things that lead to this perception. One of the major factors is reading ability. If a student is perceived to be a good reader, other students are more apt to turn to them to lead the group or to simply bow to their ideas without questioning or thinking for themselves. This is quite worrying to me, especially in my fifth grade class. A lot of kids are now starting to delve into more advanced books and series, while many others are not. The problem that I see with this, is that a lot of students are ignoring the guidelines to choosing a just right book that we have gone over and are choosing to read books that are too advanced for their reading level. While the student who knows he isn't ready for a more advanced book and instead is reading a book more suited to his reading level is probably getting more out of his book, the student that looks like their book is advanced is perceived as "higher achieving" even though they probably aren't getting as much out of their book. It is very interesting how crucial a simple perception that students might not even know they are making can dictate the way group work plays out. Some of the things we talked about last year to try and curb this status effect, is to 1. make sure that the assignment is "group worthy". In other words don't just make an assignment a group assignment for the sake of doing it, first make sure that there really is a need for students to work in groups to get more out of the assignment. And 2. complex instruction can be very effective if used correctly. By delegating jobs and tasks to students you give them some personal responsibility to contribute to their group by completing their assigned task. However, if that task isn't seen as important or worthwhile, you are falling right back down the slippery slope you were trying to navigate.
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Dean,
ReplyDeletereading your post reminded me of a student that I worked with in my TE 401/402 placement. This student was an excellent reader. I was so impressed at the ability he had to read. What I did not realize until the 3rd week of being in the class and working with him, was that he had no comprehension skills. He was really good at reading, but he couldn't explain what he was reading or answer questions about his reading. This reminded me of the quote you used, saying that it might be perceived ability rather than actual ability.
Had I not pushed him in the comprehension, I might have never known his ability or lack thereof in comprehension. It is so important that we get that one on one time with our students to tackle issues like this. Thank goodness this wasn't in the middle of the year and we were able to work on comprehension strategies. But what we also realized is that he needed to be moved down in a ready level. One that was easier for him to understand. because even though he could read the book really well, it took him a few tries to actually be able to tell us what the book was about, or answer questions regarding the book. This student was perceived as a really good reader to the other students, but it is so important to delve deeper and tackle those hidden problems. our job as an investigative teacher is never over!!
Thanks for the great post, enjoyed reading and connecting to it!
Dean,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post. I am in a fifth grade classroom as well and I find that I have very similar problems in my classroom. I have students who are high readers picking books that are way to low for them or students that are low picking high books. As a teacher, it is so hard for me to tell a student that they cannot read a book they are interested in. I do not want to turn students way from reading. We have conferences with the students to make sure they are reading "just right" books.
I found in my class that I do not know if the students are reading "just right" books because the students are not reading. I met with some of the students on the forth week of reading workshop and they are only on page 40 of their first book. They said they just do not like reading.
As teachers, we have a hard task of having students read at their level, however finding books they enjoy reading. I have yet to see a system that works great in 5th grade because they all want to read "what's cool" and not what works for them.
Let me know if you have a system that works at Novi!
Megan