Group Work In The Classroom

As a teacher, I will use theorist Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory to improve my classroom and teaching. Piaget’s idea of how the child’s mind develops and functions has greatly influenced educational theories. He is known for studying the child’s development of understanding through close observation of the child, while talking and listening to them as they work on instruction he provides to them. Principle teaching implications have been taken from Piaget’s theory that will be a major impact on my practice in education. By using these implications, I will create a better learning environment for my students, and I will become a better teacher by creating my lessons to work with the way my students’ process information given to them.

Wasik (2008) addresses the issues of small groups in early childhood education classrooms. Small group instruction seems to be the most underused method of teaching in the early childhood education classroom. There are some interesting facts about this method of teaching the young child. Wasik (2008) says that there are seven different issues on small groups.

The first instructional strategy I plan to use to engage my students in this lesson is small group instruction. My rationale for using small group instruction is for students who are not fully grasping the concepts and do not feel comfortable moving on to work independently. I will be able to take this group of students and continue to work with them in a closer setting to provide the support need and allow them to get comfortable to the new content. Another instructional strategy I plan to use to engage my students in this lesson is “mirror,” a Whole Brain Teaching instructional strategy where students repeat what you say and do. My rationale for using this instructional strategy is so that students can memorize the steps they need to take

These days there are a lot of ways to teach students. Some of the examples are traditional teaching, educational games, projects. etc. One of the ways of teaching students is group learning. Of course like other teaching methods, there are disagreements on its efficiency of teaching students. I personally think that this is a good way to teach us, students. It can give chance to help others, make classroom pace faster, and help practice important social skills like leadership. Group learning is a good way to teach students.

In the 20th century students in school did not do group work and worked independently. In a 21st century classroom, teachers allow students to collaborate more and work together which helps them build teamwork,and can get work done faster than by themselves.

Assessing complex text in this summer’s English 300 has effectively been achieved with our in-class work groups. We were assigned random small groups consisting of 4 to 5 people to discuss our homework readings and critical thinking answers assigned the previous class. Assigned to these small groups, we are subjected to verbal communication with fellow group members. During small group discussions, we are presented with different opinions, interpretation, and understandings of the text from our readings from each individual group member. Once the material was analyzed and discussed, we gathered for an open discussion in a class circle that required participation of each individual. Having the opportunity to speak openly and expresses individual

The purpose of this essay is to reflect on my facilitation skills during my Facilitating Group Learning session on Online Dating.

According to IAC (no date) that “reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences and actions”. It helps us gain insight and see how to move forward. States on Moon (2016) “we reflect in order to learn something, or we learn as a result of reflecting”.

The constructionist teacher takes on a mediational role rather than adopting an instructionist position. Teaching "at" students is replaced by assisting them to understand—and help one another to understand—problems in a hands-on way.

The first teaching strategy that will be described is group work. Toseland and Rivas (1984:12) define groupwork as a goal directed activity with small groups of people aimed at meeting a socio-emotional needs and accomplishing tasks. In a multi-grade classroom groupwork is one of the ideal method that is used to carry out teaching and learning since time is of upmost important. Students that usually make up groups are grouped by teachers according to their abilities, interests and ages. Teacher may group students in many different ways depending on the lesson that she wants to teach. Some of these ways are mixed grouping, pair grouping, gender grouping, randomly grouping and peer grouping just to name a few. In a mixed ability grouping, the learners are both working at a slow and fast pace. In this grouping both has some positives and negatives on students for example, who are working at a slow pace can benefit from the ones who are working fast in term of explanation of topic in a more simpler form, communication skill_____. It can also can faster students to drop interest in learning since there is limited or no competition for them in the group.

Piaget’s theory of constructivism argues that humans produce knowledge (epistemology) and through experience they form meanings for these. One of the two components which generate a person’s knowledge is Assimilation. Assimilation is ultimately the idea of changing ones perception, meaning that once an individual encounters a new experience they could incorporate it with old experiences causing them to extend their knowledge, and clarify what was misunderstood previously. The second component is Accommodation; this is the process were ones existing knowledge requires alterations in order to deal with the recent situation or object. An example of this would be a child having an existing knowledge about dogs having four legs and fur, consequentially assuming that all four legged animals are dogs. When the child comes to know that

Cooperative learning is classroom structure that incorporates the collaboration of students into small groups to work together for an overall community goal. It is a structure to maximize each student’s educational strengths in a classroom setting to achieve, not only academic success but also social learning experience. How to implement students in cooperative learning make it difficult versus traditional individualism teaching, where the success of the student relies on each student. There three different types of cooperative learning: Formal, Informal and Cooperative Base Groups. Each type has different benefits of interdependence structured depending on how individuals interact with each other, to determine the overall outcome.

More and more group works have been found in the nowadays world. Group work has been shown effective in productivity and satisfaction at workplace (Katzell & Guzzo, 1983). Meanwhile, group works are also found in higher education, many courses are assessed by workshop, group presentation and final group project. Owing to the collaborative power, students are more active to learn in a group than study individually (Ruel et al, 2003). Taking the part-time MBA course as the example, here we will evaluate the usefulness of group work as a pedagogical tool. Group dynamics are impactful in academic aspects along with managerial skills development (Muff, 2012). However, there is potential drawback and problem may result from group work, so that the strategies to minimise problem and its potential effects will also be discussed.

As the theories of learning change, so do the curriculums of schools, colleges, and universities. In earlier studies of learning theories- especially Thorndike; it was the general “train” of thought that learning is influenced by some outside stimuli or rather some type of behavior. But other theorists have proved that there are fallacies in that “thought”. Other theorists such as Dewey theorized that “nothing is constant” (Roth, 2012). While yet, theorists such as Piaget (1905) and Bandura (1963) argued that all learning is based upon prior learning and the learner must be actively involved in the process and the learning environment. The cognitivists felt that

Piaget was a constructivist theorist and had the belief that learning in school should be demonstrated through experiences and interactions within your surroundings (Fosnot, 2013). Vygotsky, another theorist, went further with his understanding of this, demonstrating social constructivism, with the belief that allowing social interaction with a group of children and adults would enable pupils to develop their learning and allow them to learn from each other’s experiences (Tucker, 2010). This social constructivist approach proposes that group work is therefore essential in allowing children to develop an understanding of aspects in maths. Vygotsky believes in the importance of interaction with other peers to develop learning (Muijs and Reynolds, 2001) and this collaborative learning approach would allow for this. However, Hansen (2011) explains that when children work in small groups they may misunderstand key teaching points and errors may occur in their work. For this not to occur the teacher must assist and observe each maths group effectively to make sure they each understand their work fully. It can also be argued though that to allow for errors in children’s work when working in a group would “encourage children to review their thinking, leading to self-correction” (Anghileri, as cited by Hansen, 2011, p.14). The teacher must therefore be the