Friday, 9 October 2015
Wow! Had a fun and productive class with the students today. We practiced working as a team. This may seem trite, but was so necessary. I knew it was needed when students were not working together simply because I put them together as a team. Instead of talking to each other about their work, they simply handed each other their work to read. What a bust! Where's the engagement in that. It's not enjoyable for students and even less so to observers.
So I planned to teach accountable talk idea(l)s and then engage in a very simple activity that would involve everyone. In their new teams, based on personality, observation and skill, students had to think of the names of as many adults in the school or on the bus as possible. The group naming the most, would get a dollapoly (Monolopy dollar) in their bucket. Teams could earn or lose additional dollapolies based on the Accountable Talk protocol. 100% engagement. Students thought long and hard (for about 5 minutes) of names. This contest continued with teams thinking of adjectives to describe water. Students monitored their own behavior and others' behavior as well. It was a dream class. After total immersion into this activity, there remained just 15 minutes to deliver the actual curriculum objective. 15 minutes was aplenty. Students worked together to develop a universal theme based on the unit readings. There were multiple.
So much fun! So much work! How can this team spirit be maintaind? Seriously, how? Hmmmm.....
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