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17 Tweaks That Make a BIG Difference in Group Work

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Colorado Convention Center, Mile High Ballroom 2A

Explore and create: Exploratory Creation lab
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Presenters

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Curriculum Director
Hamilton Consultants
@conniehamilton
Connie Hamilton has served the field of education as a teacher, instructional coach, elementary and secondary principal, and district curriculum director. She is the author/co-author of seven books for teachers and school leaders. Connie is known for hands-on, practical approaches to solving instructional snafus. Educators love how she offers specific strategies that actually work and can be used immediately. Often referred to as “The Questioning Guru”, Connie has a unique ability to coach administrators and teachers to guide them through reflection and professional discovery for an amazing PD experience.

Session description

Do you want to improve the quality of group work but your learners are not as engaged as you'd like? Join me to learn about simple tweaks to how you're activating student collaboration that make a big difference. Time management, group roles and lack of student confidence will all be addressed.

Purpose & objective

Group work doesn't have to be completely unstructured time that leads to over socializing and an inequitable allocation of work and learning. Structures, protocols, and expectations increase the depth of understanding and the efficiency of time when students work with their peers. Making these small tweaks to yield positive results requires us to reflect on how our planning, activation, and monitoring of group work impacts the students' effectiveness. Not only will we identify these common pitfalls, but we will offer replacement methods that make a big difference in the success of collaborative learning.

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Outline

Teachers as Students: Self assessment and reflection (2 minutes)
Assumptions and Beliefs about Group Work: Agree/Disagree Hold Ups (3 minutes)
Tips 1-3, Grouping Structurers: Start-Stop-Continue (5 minutes)
Tips 4-5, Giving Directions: Cause/Effect Map (5 minutes)
Tip 6, Answering Questions About the Task: Replacing Reaction Matching (5 minutes)
Tips 7-9, Assigning Roles: Pick 5 for Your Class (5 minutes)
Halfway through reflection: Triad (6 minutes)
Tips 10-12, Supporting Learning: Do/Avoid Commitment Task (5 minutes)
Tips 13-14, Teacher's Primary Role: Make an Analogy (5 minutes)
Tips 15-17, Learning Tasks: Glows and Grows (5 minutes)
Closure: Priortizing Impact: Done and Run (9 minutes)
Transitions and Q&A: 5 minutes

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Supporting research

Peer collaboration and group work is heavily researched yet, isn't a primary method for student learning in many classrooms. The ideas in this sessions come from the presenter's book, Hacking Group Work. This is not a sales pitch for the book; the workshop models the ways collaborative learning can be facilitated and brings the strategies alive for partipants to experience.

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Session specifications

Topic:
Communication & collaboration
Grade level:
PK-12
Skill level:
Beginner
Audience:
Coaches, Professional developers, Teachers
Attendee devices:
Devices not needed
ISTE Standards:
For Educators:
Learner
  • Stay current with research that supports improved student learning outcomes, including findings from the learning sciences.
For Students:
Creative Communicator
  • Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.