West: Day 2. Tuesday March 13

Today in class we started group research projects of a national parks in the west. After looking at their preassessments, I realized the students could not name many landforms in the west and thought these would give the students a better idea of what is out there.

After the groups I had put together yesterday did not work well together, I decided to talk to the class about my expectations and I then allowed the students to choose groups. This went really well for some students. They grabbed some people they worked well with and ran off into a corner to eagerly start working. On the other end of the spectrum, however, one boy was upset by group pickings and started to cry. I felt awful, but getting to know this student better I would not be surprised if something like this has happened before. But still, I am not sure this was worth the group choice, particularly when I had this student in mind when allowing the students to make the choice. Another change I made was I was not satisfied with some of the answers students were giving to questions the day before so I created a 'Do Now' based on the question. This worked very well and I was very satisfied with the number of students who understood the point.

The group choices made groups work better together, but I was also aware of more homogeneous ability groups. I was careful then to scaffold the groups that needed the most instruction and guidance staying on task. They were suppose to work on one sheet as individuals with the provided research materials we found for them and then on one sheet as a group. The purpose was to get accurate individual assessment and group assessment. While my directions were very clear, I noticed gradually and inevitably possibly that the students were sharing findings. This is great for understanding, but I am not sure which students actually found the answers. I think this could have been prevented with the material access. My partner and I had done all the research for them and found several sources in which they were suppose to share and pass along. The amount may have been overwhelming to some and then some were holding on to more than their share. Next time I would have provided each student in the group one page of information that was all the same. This way they would be more likely to be working along and not depending on the person with the access to materials and would not be overwhelmed. Then we could also gauge individual acheivement but with the group aspect, all students would come to an understanding.

The timing of the lesson went well and I was able to provide individual feedback on responses as well as group feedback for the work the next day.