Reading Response 5 - "Deep Thoughts" on Chapters 6-8

“Giving Everyone a Part”

I’m still not too sure how I feel about assigning specific roles for students in cooperative groups. From what I have seen so far, students rarely adhere to the specifics of their assigned role. The idea of individual roles, theoretically, combats some of the status issues that students face when working in groups. While I definitely think that these issues need to be addressed, I also think that they can just as effectively be eliminated by simply teaching students interpersonal skills like listening, getting everyone involved, and understanding opposing viewpoints. At my last school site, there was one teacher in particular who used lots of cooperative groupwork with assigned roles. In asking some of the students in her class, most of them said that they disliked having these roles. They believed that they would have been just as effective as a group without them. Agreed, sometimes students don’t always know what is best for their development. However, the viewpoint is at least one that is worth considering.

Thoughts I Had While Reading…

What should a teacher do when the task that has been assigned is simply not engaging the students? I know we need to be flexible, but would a whole class ever have complete disinterest in a task? If that happens, what would you do?

How do we ensure that students are helping other students in ways that are beneficial? We need to make sure they are guiding each other, without simply giving each other the “answers.” With students who are so focused on grades and just getting assignments done, this seems like a challenging task for a teacher.