Group items tagged

One of the roundtables that I went to at ISTE was about an interesting research project that tracked how teachers and students used wikis and blogs in the classroom - Web 2.0 in the Classroom, Blogs and Wikis.

Building positive group work ethics in project-based learning Teach_Tec 4 Nov 2011 8:59 AM 0 Can you think of a job or profession that is done alone? No co-workers to consult, no team responsible for contributing different pieces of a project, no meetings (well, maybe that might be okay ; ) It's hard to come up with many. Artist? Author? (at least during the initial writing process). We could probably come up with a few more, but the list is relatively short. Working in teams, collaborating with others in our work and life is fundamental. Not only do we gain social benefits, but the ability to combine the strengths of a team most often leads to a better end result. Though we've all heard that initial reaction from students as a group project is introduced: 'Can we pick our own groups?' or even worse, 'Do I have to be with him/her?' The skills of working effectively in groups need to be coached, practiced and encouraged. So when you see reflective comments such as these (from real students) it is encouraging: "A good team looks like a team that is on task, getting along and sharing." (5th grade) "A good team looks like a friendly team with members working together. I have learned practical skills that will help me get a job." (5th grade) "A good team looks and sounds like they are working together, improvising, compromising, discussing ideas calmly and working out disagreements." (6th grade) "In the real world you may have to work with people you do not like and you need to know how to still be productive." (6th grade) So how did these students get here? Pauline Roberts, a 5th and 6th grade teacher at the Birmingham Covington School in Bloomfield Hills, MI has made developing these skills a priority. The unique program she and her colleagues have collaborated on at this 3rd - 8th grade public school is called ENGAGE. The focus is to embed 21st century skills across multiple grades and all parts of the curriculum with a specific

"Welcome to Wikipedia for Schools! This selection of articles from Wikipedia matches the UK National Curriculum and can be used by school children around the world. 6000 articles, 26 million words and 50,000 images make Wikipedia for Schools bigger than Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia put together! Wikipedia is great, but it wasn't designed with the National Curriculum in mind. And because anyone can edit it, articles sometimes get vandalised. That's why we've put together this special collection to make learning as easy and safe as it can be. Here at SOS Children, we've checked all the articles, tidied them up a bit, and put them together by school subject."