Golden Groups

 In the fall I thought long about a group work "contest" to try to motivate my students to work together more effectively.  The contest idea came from a Language Arts teacher who had seen a teacher at a school in Chicago use a contest strategy in his classroom.  She told me that he would have the top group take a picture with an old basketball trophy and post the picture in the classroom.   

I was so excited about this idea that I wanted to get my hands on a trophy immediately.  I knew I had some of my own trophies but seeing they were boxed up somewhere in a different state I needed to utilize other sources.  I ran down to the school office to talk to the queen of Ebay AKA our secretary  and she helped me get my hands on a vintage track trophy- FOR FREE! Many thanks to the 19?? Chute Middle School track team for winning me this beauty!

When I got the trophy it just had the two gold runners.  I didn't want it to seem like a random track trophy so I added more flair to make it more personalized to group work.  This trophy seems to be an ongoing project because I can't seem to keep the large G in place.  Spring break will be my time to do give a big makeover to the trophy - I am seeing some gold spray paint and some scrap book items being added. 

So I am sure you are wondering how I determine the "golden group".  Remember my group norm marbles?  I keep track of the amount of marbles each group earns throughout a unit/book.  The group with the most marbles earns the honors of being the golden group!  Those students get a "golden group member" pencil (from oriental trading), a picture with the trophy and an invitation to a golden group donut breakfast.

Here are a couple of pictures of my first golden groups!

Sorry I had to blur out their beautiful smiles (privacy reasons). 

The pictures are first displayed outside my door so that the school can see my golden group members.  I love to see students and teachers stop to look at the pictures!

Once a new group has been announced the pictures outside my door are moved to the "Golden Group Hall of Fame" in the back of my room (it is in the background of the group pictures).  After the first golden group unit I realized that I was doing group work too often and the routine of the marbles was getting stale.  I decided to do group work less often so the opportunity to earn marbles seems more special. 

I will be sure to post a new picture when my trophy gets a makeover.  Since the golden G falls off about once a week the trophy is in need of some major cosmetic surgery!

Group Work Wednesday: The Wumps

This is my first year using the Connected Math Project (CMP2) for my 7th grade math curriculum.  We are finishing the Stretching and Shrinking book which uses characters called the "Wumps" to teach similarity.  The Wumps are plotted on a coordinate plane and students look to see which characters are imposters.  My students had been doing a TON of plotting/graphing over the past month so I decided to get creative with this lesson.  Thanks to Leslie over at Jack of all Trades I found peg boards were the perfect way to display our wumps! 

I went to Home Depot and purchased the 8ft by 4ft  sheet of peg board.  I had it cut in the store to 2 ft by 2 ft squares.

I bought golf tees (still need to buy more) for the points and yarn to create the line segments. 

Students worked in groups of four to create the characters in their math notebooks and then created one character on the pegboard.  My students were TOTALLY into this activity!

I loved how they really had to work together to get the figure together (they earned lots of group norm marbles this day!).  It took some real problem solving to move the yarn around the golf tees and not pull out other tees. 

And now....

THE WUMPS

 I ran out of golf tees but found flat push pins for the eyes.  I put tape around the sharp point to help them stay in the hole.

Can you spot the imposters???   

So fun to use the peg boards!!  The Wumps are still up in my room since we are still in the Stretching and Shrinking book.  I don't want to take them down!  I can't wait to find another lesson for the peg boards!

Happy Wednesday!

Group Work Wednesday: Must buy cups...

Today was my district's monthly school improvement half day.  One thing that I value on our half days is the time to meet with math teachers in the other middle schools.  Among many great ideas shared today, one teacher brought up her use of plastic cups for group work.  She uses the cups (red, yellow, and green) to allow kids to signal if they need teacher assistance.  The cups are not a new idea to me.  In fact, I have had a "group work cups" poster in my room for 3 years! Unfortunately I have never actually BOUGHT the cups to use with my groups.  It is difficult to find all three colors in the same size in grocery stores. Living in the great city of Chicago, you don't have too many convenient Party City stores to help you with needed paper/plastic goods.  Let's face it - I often just flat out forget that I need these plastic cups.

Since I have never gotten my act together with the cups my poster has had a meaningless spot on my wall.

The poor poster is currently blocked by my Agenda/Homework whiteboard.

I like the cup idea because it allows students to assess how they are doing on a problem.  This also allows me to not swoop in and save a group before they even know their solution is WAY off.  I like the idea that students have to acknowledge that something is wrong.  I think this will also help with my support teachers that tend to hover around a group and guide them through an entire problem.  It will be easier for me to advise them to "stay away" or "only listen" when the cup is green.   Lastly, this will hopefully help the 4 hands and shouting of "Ms. Gates!" when I am helping another groups. (will take some training)

I am excited to see if the cups strengthen my group work activities!


The quest for the cups is back on! (First stop - Target)

Group Work Wednesday - Marbles

After a few weeks of group work with the group norms listed on the wall I noticed students still weren't working well together.  I tried grouping students by ability levels but had trouble with my lower students working without a teacher sitting with the group.  I tried mixing up the ability levels but then the high students were too dominant and did not give the lower students time to think.  And of course we all have the students who will let anyone and everyone do the work for them while they either socialize or take a nap.  OK- so I might exaggerate on the nap scenario but the socializing is too much of a reality in 7th grade. 

I needed to get my students to care more about their own learning.  I wanted them to realize their participation in their group impacts their learning every day.  If I could get groups to REALLY work together everyone would become a much stronger math student.  To encourage the practice of group norms I decided to give marbles to groups when I saw them demonstrating a norm.  The marbles are then recorded in my gradebook as a participation grade.  I made it part of their grade so that students start to realize they are not successful unless the GROUP is successful.  Therefore, in order for groups to earn marbles EVERYONE must be practicing the group norm.    

Instead of giving a group a marble for "working well" together (which is too vague for most middle school students) I give a marble to a groups when I see students being patient (waiting for his/her group member to finish writing before moving on to the next problem).  To ensure students knew what I would be looking for we focused on one norm each day for about a week.  

I used "Looks like/Sounds like" flipcharts to help pinpoint specific behaviors.  

 * Please ignore my odd choice of colors as backgrounds* 

In groups then as a class we listed what I would hear or see that would gain a group a marble.  After the list was made I would keep the list up while the groups worked together on the math activity of the day.  I gave marbles for ONLY the group norm for that day  (it was hard at times to give five).

Now that we have practiced all of the group norms individually, I now give marbles for all group norms demonstrated.  I often try to tell students why they are getting the marble so they will repeat the behavior or action.  I also tell students when I want to give them a marble but "can't" when I see a certain group norm not being followed.

In the beginning it was really hard to get around to give marbles because groups still needed so much attention.  I have noticed over the past couple of weeks I am able to walk around more and assess each group more often.  This is a good indication that the marbles are working!  I am looking forward to see continued progress with group work after a couple of months of marbles. 

Stay tuned....

Group Work Wendnesday

My focus this year is to find strategies to help my students work in successful groups.  I started off the school year by having my students work in groups on the very first day.  I had my students participate in the "broken circles" activity from this AWESOME book.

I have tried many of the activities in this book to teach students the importance of group norms but my favorite is the "broken circles" activity.

The template to make the circle pieces can be found in the book.  A fellow math teacher enlarged the circles and cut them out on card stock.  After doing the activity I want to use a thicker material like foam board so students can see the small gaps when their pieces don't fit perfectly.  

I use the following flipchart pages during the activity.

(Thank you Ms. Nelson for creating these for our department!)

I have students take a few minutes to reflect on the last slide's questions individually and then we discuss them as a class.  After we have discussed these questions I asked the groups to generate group norms for the class to follow based off of the circle activity. 

2011/2012 Group Norms:

Let everyone participate

Eye contact

Be patient 

Focus on the group (not just yourself)   * my favorite*

Be involved

Cooperate

Share Ideas

I loved what my students came up with and wanted to keep these norms in the front of their minds.  I created a bellringer the next day for students to vote on the most important group norm.  Here are the results:

Let everyone participate was thought to be most important - by a long shot!

I posted the group norms and ranked them from "most" important to "least" important according to my students.  I didn't actually number them because I wanted everyone to value all the norms.

**I don't know what I was thinking with the pink "O" and "M".. They were switched out for the purple the day after I took this picture.**

  I point to the group norms almost daily throughout group activities.  I also always remind students that THEY came up with the norms so they should be able to practice them in their groups.  I really like having group norms rather than rule or expectations.  I feel that although my students need frequent reminders they embrace the norms and take them seriously in their groups.  

Happy Wednesday! 

Group Work Wednesday

Over the past two years I have become very interested in group work.  When my class size grew from 16 to 26 (with MAP scores from the 2nd to the 98th percentile in the same class) group work became more appealing to reach all ability levels.  In my mind I could create amazing group work activities where students would put their heads together to solve rich problems, and learn from their engaging conversations.

Then reality sank in...   

It is really hard to find those "rich" problems.  It is even harder (and time consuming) to create your own.  Even though students were suppose to come to a consensus about a solution, I always had students who could never explain how they got to their answer.  Oh, and those "engaging" conversations students were having about math- always seem to switch to what happened over the weekend when they saw me focused on a different group.

Things NEEDED to change....

After reading a few books, attending a couple of workshops, and a curriculum centered around group work, I think I am finally onto something.  Although my students are still not working at the level I want them to, I have seen enough success to keep me exploring different strategies.  I want to keep reflecting on my strategies so I have decided to devote Wednesdays to reflect and share my successes and failures.

If anyone has any tips or tricks that have worked please share!  

Stay tuned for my first post next week on group norms!