Year Level: 1
Teacher: Adele Murray
Focus area: Participating and Contributing (in co-operative groups)
Research Questions:
Question 1. Implementation: How can students be supported to participate and contribute through the use of small group work?
Question 2. Engagement: What impact does the use of small group work have on student’s engagement during topic lessons?
Question 3. Knowledge: What impact does working in groups of 4 have on their topic knowledge?
Success Criteria for Knowledge
Expert: I can carry out a good/bad chart in relation to our response to the junior school ‘Disaster Day’.
Practitioner: I can discuss how to prepare for the natural disasters that could affect me in Houghton Valley/Wellington.
Apprentice: I can discuss natural disasters and how they can affect me in Houghton Valley.
Novice: I can discuss natural disasters that could occur in New Zealand.
Question 4. Competency: What impact does working in groups of 4 have on their ability to participate and contribute.
Success Criteria for Competency
Expert: I can identify the good and bad points of working in a group of 4, and what I need to do better next time.
Practitioner: I can describe how I could participate and contribute equally in a similar task.
Apprentice: I can state how I participated equally in a group task. Novice: I can partially contribute to a group task.
Learning Story:
At the beginning of the year I had noticed the poor interpersonal skills of my new class. They were reluctant to work with each other in pairs and therefore my random buddy system was being protested against. I kept up with it, slightly rigging the ‘randomness’ of the buddies and eventually we had a class culture of an expectation where everyone will work with everybody.
At the beginning of term 3, I had 6 new students move up from the NE class. They quickly fitted in with our routines, expectations and our class culture. I decided that it was time to put as much effort into the teaching of group work skills as I had into our paired work. Up until then we had done some group work activities, but I hadn’t specifically tought them how to work successfully in a small group.
So I began term 4 by assessing their group work skills, and their knowledge of natural disasters. I started teaching some of the small group skills out of the Socially Speaking Programme, provided by our RTLB. We then began working through the “What’s the Plan Stan?” civil defense unit, gradually building up our knowledge of natural disasters. Next, we applied our new knowledge by doing several small group activities, such as venn diagrams and cause and effect charts. I collected data on their engagement levels.
Children working in their co-operative groups, making a chart about the effects of natural disasters.
By week 8 we were ready for our junior school 'Disaster Day'. This involved 4 classrooms being told that a magnitude 7.4 earthquake and just struck and we were going to be stuck in our classrooms for at least 2 days! We worked through different scenarios and tried to apply our new knowledge. The next week, I did the unit post test, which was the same as the pre test, with a good/bad chart on the back. I also asked them whether they preferred to work in pairs or 4s.
Results:
Outcome 1. Engagement: SCALE: 1 = never, 2 = not very often, 3 = about half the time, 4 = often, 5 = always
Mean level of engagement of students ...
Offered ideas - 3.7
Asked questions - 3.8
Listened to and thought about other's ideas and responded respectfully - 4.6
Used positive body language related to task - 4.4
Persevered in order to enact related task - 3.9
Showed evidence of being active learners outside school time - 3.7
Showed interest in directing their own learning - 3.8
Had behavioural issues that impacted on their learning - 1.6
Showed evidence of using what they have learnt - 3.9
Overall mean level of engagement of students = 4.2
Outcome 2. Knowledge: Number of students who were ...
8. Proficient experts - at start 0; at end 0
7. Beginning experts - at start 0; at end 7
6. Proficient practitioners - at start 0; at end 2
5. Beginning practitioners - at start 1; at end 3
4. Proficient apprentices - at start 0; at end 2
3. Beginning apprentices - at start 1; at end 1
2. Proficient novices - at start 6; at end 1
1. Beginning novices - at start 13; at end 0
Knowledge effect size = 1.3
Outcome 3. Competency: Number of students who were ... 8. Proficient experts - at start 0; at end 1
7. Beginning experts - at start 0; at end 7
6. Proficient practitioners - at start 0; at end 1
5. Beginning practitioners - at start 0; at end 2
4. Proficient apprentices - at start 0; at end 3
3. Beginning apprentices - at start 8; at end 3
2. Proficient novices - at start 0; at end 2
1. Beginning novices - at start 13; at end 2
Competency effect size = 1.5
Conclusions: PMI
Plus:
- Children loved the 'disasters topic' and it coincided with national/international events.
- The 'Teaching Social Skills' programme was very good, and I will start 2010 by using it again.
- Children were very engaged during activities.
- I choose the cooperative group make up well, and they were very sucessful.
- The increase in knowledge was pleasing.
- The childrens' self assessment of their participation levels was very accurate, I was surprised but pleased. We had done some of these before and I think this helped. We also have, as part of our class culture the belief that being wrong is ok as it gives us something to strive for.
- My 3 new children, whilst not included in this data, improved in both knowledge and competency.
- I learnt a lot about teaching co-operative group skills, and good ways to use different co-operative activities in topic teaching.
Minus
- I did the post test too late. Some children seemed to have forgotten important information.
- I did an example of a 'good/bad' chart just before the post test, but doing some more beforehand would have been good.
- I didn't refer to the website enough. I realised too late certain things that needed doing. I will however know better when guiding the next teachers!
Interesting
- Although the poutama seemed linear, some children, at the end of the unit, could do the practitioner level but not the apprentice level. I had to use my own judgement as to where to score them.
- Exactly half of the students preferred group work to paired work. They were able to give me good reasons as to why, and also the good/bad points about working in pairs and groups.
