I like rows; rows are neat, orderly, straight, and easy to maneuver through. On the other hand, they may be isolating, individualizing, and separating. What’s a teacher to do when tasked with embracing the idea of building 21st-century skills with students? For starters, try moving away from the comfort zone into (not to sound like Disney) a whole new world.
This year I have committed my classroom design to be set up in groups of four, not just for those evaluation/observation days or those activity days, instead it is for every day. (Well, maybe not on individual assessment days
) I would love to be able to stop writing here and tell you that simply arranging students in groups of four magically instills both collaboration and communication skills, it does not.What has evolved since arranging the students into groups of four started with a simple sharing exercise on that first day of school. “Everyone in the group will share their favorite vegetable, you’ve got one minute, go.” Non-threatening and now you know something about the people you find yourself sitting next to in the group, right? I followed up by asking the whole class if there were any unusual vegetables mentioned. Yes, someone had selected bananas.
Later, I needed to pass out some papers, so I had the groups do another share, “Share the number of cousins you have with the members in your group.” I then told the students that the person with the fewest number of cousins would come up and get the papers for the group and another brief discussion ensued as they sorted out the “winner.”On the second day of school I needed to collect papers, “In your groups please share your favorite movie.” That got them talking. Following their sharing I had the person with the oldest favorite movie collect the papers. What I noticed is that they started to feel comfortable and they were communicating with each other.
Halfway through the year we still discuss, as my students say, random topics and they really enjoy sharing with each other. The benefit is that when I am in the middle of talking about an earth-shattering math idea, I may pause and say, “In your groups talk about what the end behaviors of this polynomial equation will look like and be ready to defend your decision” and my students all immediately start talking about the equation. Truly!
Building communication skills before expecting students to use them in “high stakes learning situations” seems to be benefiting my students this year. Extra bonus, with the communication skills fired up, I am noticing that students are collaborating on their in-class work as well.
