Chapter 7 (USA VS. Japan Tomorrow :), a rematch from 4 years ago).

I think allowing our students to work amongst groups in conversation can allow you to find and search for students who need help. Two of my favorite classes in collage where both classes we had a ton of group discussion about how to solve a particular problem. We were simply given the problem and more or less we knew what we needed to do. Get to work on solving it. If you think about our history we don’t know exactly what happened, we only know accounts of it and historians are really in a sense telling a story. That is all history really is, it’s a story usually written by the winning side. Not everything though, what about science. Is science exact? Mathematicians use other ideas and thoughts to build upon their own.  In fact in science everything is really just a theory that has been agreed upon amongst the scientific community they have agreed it to be true. Does this mean we should stop researching it or studying something?

I read an article called “Why do Americans stink at math?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html?_r=0). One of the real differences in an American classroom and one from Japan was how students were instructed. In America we gave a lecture on problems and assigned a bunch of problems for the students to do. In Japan the students were given a problem and tried to solve the problems first, in a sense struggle. I found struggling myself helped me not only want to learn but be really creative in my thinking. In my experience sometimes we were way off and sometimes we were surprised how close were where to solving it.

The author of my book Tovani writes about working in small groups and why. She compiles this list.

1.       Discussion..

2.       Stimulates higher levels of thinking develops social skills, develops listening skills, encourages articulation of thinking, honors all learners, holds kids accountable helps students remember, allows students to make connections, allows other to see different perspectives and promotes deeper understanding.

But how do you control every group? I can see how simply saying ok class get into groups and chaos. How do you know if every table was on task? Even in collage we would be off topics at times. It’s important to give the class some rules first.

Chapter seven was truly on working in goups and how it helps grow understanding.

What works:

1.       Show kids how to discuss. Use real-world examples.

2.       Give students specific feedback.

3.       Use powerful pieces: No one wants to discuss something dull.

4.       Anticipate stumbling blocks. Think about adult groups. What do you do when one person talks all the time. How can a group be brought back on track? How can new thinking be generated.