I am currently placed in a first grade classroom in which the students sit in groups of 6-8 desks per group. Before reading about group work and classroom talk, I had not put much thought into the groups my students sit in...but now I have a lot to think about:
Although the students are sitting in groups, group work is never encouraged or even allowed during my time in the classroom. I have to say that this is more than a bit contradictory. How can these students learn from each other if they are not allowed to work with each other? Moreover, what is the point of having students placed in groups if group work is not part of the classroom instruction?
I have noticed that in my placement classroom, the "classroom talk" is dominated by the teacher and a select few students who seem to have high levels of confidence. I am in the classroom for 5 hours at a time and on some days, I do not hear a third of the students speak. This is very troubling.
I think that the Gibbons readings offered some very good ideas on group work. I am especially interested in the ways to make sure that all students are participating in the group work, while still making sure the group work is productive. I hope that I can learn to incorporate these ideas into my placement and my own classroom someday.
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I agree that it is quite disheartening and disturbing that nearly 1/3 of the students do not talk in your placement classroom. I don't understand why the students would be placed into seating groups but then never work in those groups. My CT has his students in to groups as well, he changes up the classroom and groups a few times a year just to keep it new, but he will have them work together for S.S or Science experiments. Does the teacher not notice or just not care? The Gibbons reading did offer some great ideas for getting all of the students involved in some type of communication in the classroom. I'm trying to take those ideas and figure out how I could use them in a deaf signing classroom as well, sometimes the deaf students don't want to signor communicate either.
ReplyDeleteI have a very similar seating arrangment in my kindergarten class. The children do coloring and cuting worksheets for most of the day. with a small time to do centers, if they are "good."
ReplyDeleteI know that there are better ways for the children to learn but I feel helpless to change anything other than to demonstrate benificial teacing through my own lesson plans. It is a hard balance.