{"content":{"sharePage":{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"51481862","dateCreated":"1331246987","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"LEM0N","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/LEM0N","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51481862"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Lemontrel's Post","description":"I strive to incorporate more group-work into my lessons, however I struggle with managing my classes well enough for the groups to be productive. In my math classes, my students are grouped together when completing mini-posters or working on different levels of math problems together. Besides explaining their thought processes when completing math problems or describing how others make mistakes, I am not sure how to incorporate a beneficial group assignment to the class. Tovani's examples in chapter seven did not seem easily applicable to my classroom at all.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51480332","dateCreated":"1331245147","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"Martin.mintz","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/Martin.mintz","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51480332"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Martin's Post","description":"Hello-
\nTovani was really helpful in outlining both the benefits of group work (WHY we do it in the first place!) and the best ways to implement it\/avoid pitfalls (WHAT are we to do?)
\nI have been doing more and more group work (as I become more confident in my ability to control the classroom when students are doing this!) so I think I am reading this at the perfect time. Two areas that i found most informative were a) what are ways to make group work even better for the group AND the individuals in it and b) what are the benefits of group work? I have always been a fan of it and knew that group work is celebrated in my school, but I have never REALLY thought about why we do group work. What specifically do I want my students to get out of this group work that they are not going to get just by doing the work at their desks individually? Roles are also a great idea that I know many people have already talked about, but that seems like the best way to not only format\/think about it for myself but also as a way for students to navigate the work. I believe this to be able to help them understand what they are not only supposed to do but also what are the benefits of doing it... WHY are we doing this? There are so many good answers to that question, I think.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51476676","dateCreated":"1331241625","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"terrencekumar","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/terrencekumar","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51476676"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"terrence's post","description":"Tovani\u2019s suggestions for a point based system of grading are great. However, I can see this becoming very troublesome. I once attempted to use a similar point based system to grade my students\u2019 progress during laboratory periods.
\n My motivation for this system was exactly the same as Tovani\u2019s. Prior to this system, I had students who perform very well during the lab period and follow the lab protocol expertly. Unfortunately, some of these same students would not do lab reports well or simply not hand them in it at all. Therefore, I created a point system similarly to Tovani\u2019s. I ended this system after several weeks, because it severely limited my flexibility during a lesson.
\n I imagine that this could happen during group work as well. If a teacher intends to check that everyone has written three sticky notes while observing the groups, he or she may not see all the groups in time. There may be times when there are too many questions to be answered or too many struggling groups. When this would occur, I would end up voiding that grade entirely which is just plain old bad. The reason I stopped this system altogether, rather than modify it, was I did not think I would be able to teach and assess at the same time. I always struggle during lab periods to finish on time (I rarely do).","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51452344","dateCreated":"1331217731","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"cfinch45","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/cfinch45","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51452344"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Chris Finch","description":"Last night\u2019s reading highlighted three areas of interest for me. First, the in-class activity \u201cfishbowl\u201d is something our direct manager would like us to incorporate into our classroom, so it was nice to get a professional-fishbowler\u2019s take on the activity. Second, Tovani\u2019s discussion of assessments gave a much-needed, fresh perspective on how we should test our students. Lastly, Tovani\u2019s continued debate on the subject of content teachers being literacy teachers resonated with me in Chapter 9.
\nOn page 92, Tovani describes \u201cfishbowling\u201d \u2026 \u201cWe (did) something called a fishbowl in front of the class\u2026we would sit in front of the students, modeling what we wanted them to see, while they watched and then talked about what they saw.\u201d \u2026 Huh? At first this idea seemed strange, but I realized that we have done this process inadvertently in my class through our seminar activities. Further, after sitting in on one of our English classes, I have seen the multiple advantages of facilitating a fishbowl activity. They allow a student to practice a skill under peer review and audience. In it, a group of students are chosen to discuss a given topic while the rest of the class watches, listens, or reads the transcript of the discussion. A secondary discussion occurs concerning the outcomes and process of the first. This becomes an in-house method of practice and immediate assessment.
\nOn page 103, Tovani further qualifies the importance of activities such as the fishbowl when she states, \u201c\u2026the aim of assessment is primarily to educate and improve student performance, not merely audit it.\u201d In our classroom we have attempted, and succeeded to a certain extent in holding classroom seminars. Seminars have offered effective ways for our students to demonstrate their knowledge of the topic. However, the fishbowl activity offers room to both educate and improve our students performance through peer assessment.
\nLastly, on page 121 Tovani states the following: \u201cI think most of us became teachers because we love our content so much\u2026We love this content so much, we\u2019ve dedicated the better part of our lives teaching it to others. I don\u2019t see how we can be teachers of this content without spending at least some of our time with students helping them learn how to read about it.\u201d The first half of this statement is not the case for me. I did not become a teacher to profess Global History and Geography 1. I am not in love with my content. In fact, I am learning the material as we go throughout the year. I have often struggled to keep up with learning the material, regurgitating it, and processing it in an effective way to teach to high school freshman. However, what I have noticed is that because of this relative freshness of content, I have no personal attachment to orating grandiose stories of world civilizations. I think we do a fair job at teaching the general points of Global 1 that \u201cWILL BE ON THE REGENTS!!!\u201d (ahhhhh!), but my co-teacher and I have been able to focus a great deal of our energy on literacy skills. We spend a majority of our time lesson-planning for the skills associate with our course and grade-level rather than the content. So, in this case, I believe a lack of \u201clove for content\u201d has had a positive effect.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51449502","dateCreated":"1331214657","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"amandajhall","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/amandajhall","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51449502"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Amanda Hall's Post","description":"Yet again, I found this week\u2019s reading of Tovani incredibly frustrating and redundant as it relates to my own teaching practice. I often found that the more interesting activities that I would like to replicate in my classroom like fishbowling but such activities significantly violate the structure and culture of genre practice. Group work happens everyday in my classroom as it is an integral part of the genre practice formats. On average the students in my self-contained class will have group work for 40mins a week per course. The greatest contention I have with the structure and formatting of group work in my class, is that Learning Cultures makes for little to no allowance for extended group work- like the completion of a large-scale research project- something which Tovani argues is important.
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\nAssessment is another issue, Learning Cultures has failed to tease out in terms of the Reading portion of the practice. Since the philosophical premise that surrounds learning cultures is that the student fuels their own learning, whole-class assessment in the form of a test, homework, etc is voided since all students are working on different books, standards, etc. The Writing formats for genre practice hold students more accountable, they require that students produce a certain number of genre papers, but nothing more. So once more, I find myself frustrated with how little of what Tovani says is applicable to me.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"51449620","body":"use this one!","dateCreated":"1331214814","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"amandajhall","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/amandajhall","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"51449424","dateCreated":"1331214560","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"amandajhall","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/amandajhall","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51449424"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Amanda Hall's Post","description":"Yet again, I found this week\u2019s reading of Tovani incredibly frustrating and redundant as it relates to my own teaching practice. I often found that the more interesting activities that I would like to replicate in my classroom like fishbowling but such activities significantly violate the structure and culture of genre practice. Group work happens everyday in my classroom as it is an integral part of the genre practice formats. On average the students in my self-contained class will have group work for 40mins a week per course. The greatest contention I have with the structure and formatting of group work in my class, is that Learning Cultures makes for little to no allowance for extended group work- like the completion of a large-scale research project- something which Tovani argues is important.
\nAssessment is another issue, Learning Cultures has failed to tease out in terms of the Reading portion of the practice. Since the philosophical premise that surrounds learning cultures is that the student fuels their own learning, whole-class assessment in the form of a test, homework, etc is voided since all students are working on different books, standards, etc. The Writing formats for genre practice hold students more accountable, they require that students produce a certain number of genre papers, but nothing more. So once more, I find myself frustrated with how little of what Tovani says is applicable to me.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"51449538","body":"please see my other post","dateCreated":"1331214694","smartDate":"Mar 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"amandajhall","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/amandajhall","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"51440334","dateCreated":"1331181141","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"emilylynnmiller","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/emilylynnmiller","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51440334"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Emily's Post","description":"At my school, it is required that we do mostly group work every single day. I was told we do this because we had a Quality Review (and that's what the State likes) and because our desks are a strange shape and only fit in the room in circles - perfect for group work. I was pretty opposed to the idea of it at first (purely management reasons), but it has grown on me significantly. That being said, I do still struggle to find a way to do it successfully 100% of the time. (Can be hit or miss, less miss as I get better at my job, but still.)
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\nNow, while what you just read has little to do explicitly with Tovani's reading, I will say that I now actually understand WHY group work actually matters and I should be doing it. This will actually help me when designing group work because I get to have a purpose in mind and know the point of what I'm doing. I like the idea of assigning roles, but I tried that once and it didn't go exactly as smoothly as I wanted it to. (Partially because the roles were kind of intense and designed by someone not at my school, but I also wonder how age plays into it?) I intend to try when I'm slightly better at my job.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51440000","dateCreated":"1331180290","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"MaddyG28","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/MaddyG28","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51440000"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Maddy's Post","description":"As a first year teacher who does not have the best classroom management nor peripheral vision, I must admit that that the very few group activities that my students have engaged in have been extremely educational; for both me and my students. It is unfortunate that several of my students are not mature enough (or maybe I just don't do a good enough job at monitoring them) to have many more group discussions.
\nIt is amazing the kinds of things that students notice, dispute and converse about when they are not under the pressure of a whole group setting. I found chapter 7 extremely helpful because of the wonderful ideas that it provided me with on how to administer group work. I never realized how helpful and important it would be for the students to see how group work is actually done. It is also important to recognize that not every assignment can be done in groups. Group work should be about interesting pieces so that all the students can contribute and be engaged.
\nOne major component of group work that I struggle with is creating groups. Unfortunately, my students cannot be trusted to create their own groups (which is probably very normal for seventh graders) and I am not sure which kinds of personalities should be matched together. What should be the low to high student ratio in a group? How do I make sure that one person is not running the show? How do I prevent my lower struggling students from lower the overall group grade? How do I grade group work fairly?
\nToday's reading really had me thinking critically about group work and how cumbersome it could be to a teacher.On the other hand, it also helped me realize that all the effort and planning that goes into group work is usually always worth it.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51436800","dateCreated":"1331174550","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"AvaMarron","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/AvaMarron","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51436800"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Ava's Post 3\/8","description":"Tovani outlined group work strategies in chapter 7. I feel like these strategies were right on but hard to implement right now with every else going on in my classroom. So many of these suggestions and ideas, I completely agree with but do not have the time or space to deeply process in order to make them actually happen. Many times I would like to use Tovani's ideas, but there are so many other pressing things going on I cannot up the level of my instruction.
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\nThese chapters from Tovani give me the impression that she has more room for creativity and autonomy at her school. My school is very systematic and any change to the norm is seen as somewhat scary. I hope I can use all these strategies, but my princpal may push back on the shift in system.
\nI do agree with with her overall critical thinking philosophies. She also pushes back and gives a reality check to teachers, reminding us that \u201cOur classrooms aren\u2019t the only place where kids might learn to \u2018query and examine and ponder\u2019. But they are one place, and it matters that we see how important it is to offer students the opportunity again and again to take us up on the chance to think hard about the world around them.\u201d I completely agree! I wish I could use my student's families and 360 world in a more integrated way in my teaching.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"51436424","dateCreated":"1331173934","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"ellen.louise.dunn","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/ellen.louise.dunn","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51436424"},"dateDigested":1532919216,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"I am Aaron...","description":"I don't particularly have anything meaningful to say in this week's post. Most of my thoughts on this reading were roughly on par with "<-- Erased."
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\nI have been thinking a lot about group work\/we do. So, while I found the group work section interesting, it was ultimately not especially relevant to my math classes. In terms of practical advice, I think Tovani\u2019s point on group work is very true\u2014namely, that expectations need to be clear. Norms need to be set.
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\nBut for me in math class, expectations have less to do with setting a standard for appropriate discussion behavior (eye contact, etc) and more to do with clearly delineating roles in group activity. For math, my group work usually involves a worksheet or finished product. As long as each person knows what the division of labor is, things go fine. And ultimately, grades for group work are based on the accurate completion of math problems, not the qualitative judgement of a conversation.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"51439622","body":"I also take the same approach to group work in my instruction. I either assign roles to students in groups or I let students choose their roles. This allows for differentiation\/caters to multiple intelligences, but mostly sets my students up for a successful product. However, unlike math, I rely on the conversation\/discussion groups partake in. I think it is their conversation that reflects their true thinking about the material. As such, their in class participation grade is affected by their group discussions.","dateCreated":"1331179416","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"christinepeters13","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/christinepeters13","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]}],"more":true},"comments":[]},"http":{"code":200,"status":"OK"},"redirectUrl":null,"javascript":null,"notices":{"warning":[],"error":[],"info":[],"success":[]}}