B.+Working+with+students

B. Work with students in groups.
When I was working with the students in the first project, the students were working together to untie four knots on a rope. The goal was to untie each of the knots without ever letting go of the rope. The student put each knot between their two hands, standing side by side. They then began working together to find the solution to the problem. There were only two groups in the class, but the class was lively and competitive. Each student wanted to participate in the completion of the activity. The students understood the task but not how to solve the problem, which was the learning experience. As one group figured out a solution the other group was able to learn from the other students. I was able to both give my input and watch the interaction as the students and the students tried to figure out how to untie the knots. I was able to give suggestions, sometimes they worked sometimes they did not. I think that this group project was great to watch. The students worked together then reflected on the activity. The reason I enjoyed working with this activity is because I thought this was a great group building activity. The teacher was a facilitator and monitor, but the students had to cooperatively figure out the problem. Students had to work through the "knots" of group work to finish the project. In one group a single student took the lead, in the other group two people worked together to figure out the solution. The second group was able to figure out and solve the problem first, but both groups were able to finish the problem.

The second group project I was involved with was the creating of students very own game instructions. The students had to figure out how to play the game, then how to compose a instruction manual for the game. The groups were on their second or third day of the project when I was involved. The students had been put into groups at random. Therefore the cooperative learning was slightly difficult because of relationships of the students. What I mean is that best friends are not working together. I think that this added another dynamic and working strategy into the project. The students had to not only figure out how to play and explain the game but how to work with another person, not matter what personal feelings are. Some partnerships became a leader-follower type group. Others, the students worked equally to figure out the best ways to play the game. I helped the students come up with new ideas that may come up as problems in their instructions of the game. I was also able to interact with the leader-follower groups by making sure both students were involved, which they were. I think this was a great activity for Practical Communication because the students had to work with different people, again reflect after the activity, and were engaged by the creative aspect of creating new from the old.