Next and forward steps
Based on the findings from the first phase of the A.R. I feel like I have found some things that can be improved upon as well as some forward steps that take things my students are doing well and adding to those, while continuing to answer my original A.R. questions.
1. Formal roles during collaborative work time.
One of the most important parts of collaborative group work is the role that each student plays in generating insight, knowledge, skill and work towards the final goal. Formulating these roles once in a group is an invaluable skill and though the end goal may be to reach a point where students are able to work these roles out amongst themselves, sometimes a bit of scaffolding is needed.
For phase two I would like to implement defined roles for each of the students. They will still decide who will take on each role, and I anticipate that I will require the roles to change as the process moves forward, but they will have solid expectations to perform within each role. Absent or not, on top of it or not for the day, students will be held to their roles.
2. Groups are chosen
As I had mentioned, I debated on wether to choose my groups or to let them choose their own group members. I did this because I wanted to see what would happen in a situation where the students felt comfortable together. I was hoping that they would hit it out of the park but what happened, more often than not, was that as friends, they wanted to chat and it got the better of some of my students. Given that I was looking at collaboration as a means to increase quality of work and content knowledge, I wasn't all together unhappy with the groups but I think a more balanced view, with respect to student interactions, and placement of student abilities in groups might generate a better result for them.
3. Formal peer review is integrated into the collaborative writing process.
About half the time I was looking at literature for writing in the History classroom I encountered 'peer review'. It was, in fact, one of the first ideas I had about an implementation but I didn't feel it went far enough in hitting on what my students needed. Over the course of implementation and after reading the results, I realized just how valuable this could be to use within the collaborative writing process. While I did suggest, and offer time for students to come up with an outline and a rough draft to be looked over by the group, I did not provide a structure, rubric, or specific expectations that they would be held accountable to. I feel like both mechanics and demonstrated content knowledge lowered a bit when using the collaborative writing process and I believe this key step might help to heighten quality. In this case, I believe setting up specific peer review expectations in a graphic organizer and having the students deliberately read one portion of the essay out loud while all students fill out the G.O., which would largely be based upon the expectations rubric, before discussing what they have found. I would then ask that students to discuss and fix things they have noted as being on the lower end of the scale. I believe this may push the examination into a collaborative effort as well and allow the students to teach, learn, and practice both content, structure, mechanical, and negotiation skills and knowledge. This would be turned in as part of the project.
4. Students describe their participation through writing and are given an individual grade as well as a group grade
At times, and as I read could be a problem in collaboration and group work, not all students were working at all times towards the greater project. During some of the observations, I noticed frustration from the lack of solid roles and a lack of participation by one or two students at various times. Further, on a couple of occasions students came to speak to me directly about how absent members of their group were causing a problem in the project. While I think generating specific roles for them to take will go a long way in addressing this, I would also like to incorporate a written addition to the project where students write about what contributions they have done and if they have fulfilled the plan that they had set as this student's individual goals. In this case, I would like to ask for accountability on individual work and introduce an individual grade along with the group project grade. The larger of the two would still be the final collaborative writing essay, however, I wonder if students will be more motivated through more levels of accountability throughout the process. This may also solve the contention and subsequent hesitation students as a whole have when asked to work within the confines of a group project.
Timeline for Phase Two
Based on the findings from the first phase of the A.R. I feel like I have found some things that can be improved upon as well as some forward steps that take things my students are doing well and adding to those, while continuing to answer my original A.R. questions.
1. Formal roles during collaborative work time.
One of the most important parts of collaborative group work is the role that each student plays in generating insight, knowledge, skill and work towards the final goal. Formulating these roles once in a group is an invaluable skill and though the end goal may be to reach a point where students are able to work these roles out amongst themselves, sometimes a bit of scaffolding is needed.
For phase two I would like to implement defined roles for each of the students. They will still decide who will take on each role, and I anticipate that I will require the roles to change as the process moves forward, but they will have solid expectations to perform within each role. Absent or not, on top of it or not for the day, students will be held to their roles.
2. Groups are chosen
As I had mentioned, I debated on wether to choose my groups or to let them choose their own group members. I did this because I wanted to see what would happen in a situation where the students felt comfortable together. I was hoping that they would hit it out of the park but what happened, more often than not, was that as friends, they wanted to chat and it got the better of some of my students. Given that I was looking at collaboration as a means to increase quality of work and content knowledge, I wasn't all together unhappy with the groups but I think a more balanced view, with respect to student interactions, and placement of student abilities in groups might generate a better result for them.
3. Formal peer review is integrated into the collaborative writing process.
About half the time I was looking at literature for writing in the History classroom I encountered 'peer review'. It was, in fact, one of the first ideas I had about an implementation but I didn't feel it went far enough in hitting on what my students needed. Over the course of implementation and after reading the results, I realized just how valuable this could be to use within the collaborative writing process. While I did suggest, and offer time for students to come up with an outline and a rough draft to be looked over by the group, I did not provide a structure, rubric, or specific expectations that they would be held accountable to. I feel like both mechanics and demonstrated content knowledge lowered a bit when using the collaborative writing process and I believe this key step might help to heighten quality. In this case, I believe setting up specific peer review expectations in a graphic organizer and having the students deliberately read one portion of the essay out loud while all students fill out the G.O., which would largely be based upon the expectations rubric, before discussing what they have found. I would then ask that students to discuss and fix things they have noted as being on the lower end of the scale. I believe this may push the examination into a collaborative effort as well and allow the students to teach, learn, and practice both content, structure, mechanical, and negotiation skills and knowledge. This would be turned in as part of the project.
4. Students describe their participation through writing and are given an individual grade as well as a group grade
At times, and as I read could be a problem in collaboration and group work, not all students were working at all times towards the greater project. During some of the observations, I noticed frustration from the lack of solid roles and a lack of participation by one or two students at various times. Further, on a couple of occasions students came to speak to me directly about how absent members of their group were causing a problem in the project. While I think generating specific roles for them to take will go a long way in addressing this, I would also like to incorporate a written addition to the project where students write about what contributions they have done and if they have fulfilled the plan that they had set as this student's individual goals. In this case, I would like to ask for accountability on individual work and introduce an individual grade along with the group project grade. The larger of the two would still be the final collaborative writing essay, however, I wonder if students will be more motivated through more levels of accountability throughout the process. This may also solve the contention and subsequent hesitation students as a whole have when asked to work within the confines of a group project.
Timeline for Phase Two
- New collaborative essay project begins January 7th -12th, 2014
- Formal Group Roles and Expectations given January 7th, 2013
- Peer review January 11th, 2014
- Writing day January 12th, 2014