One of Ms. Goodwin’s comments got me thinking. In Hogwarts, at the beginning of the year, there is a ceremony where students are divided into houses by a Sorting Hat. Here is what Ms. Goodwin said about the practice:
“Peer pressure was rather encouraged, although not the bad kind. The suggestion that a student who did poorly gave the entire House a bad name was enough to make the slackers buck up.”
I tend to agree with her. In my instruction, I do a lot of group work. This year, as a librarian, I often will leave it up to the classroom teacher if we choose the groups or allow the students to do so. I see advantages to both. Next year, as I have mentioned a few times on this blog, I hope to be teaching computer programming, MS Office, and Web 2.0 Tools classes at a school in Massachusetts. All of these classes lend themselves to independent group work, preferably on solving problems with real-world application.
My thought is that it could be beneficial to students to break them into houses for the first grading period. I acknowledge the risk in grouping students prior to learning about their individual strengths and weaknesses. However, I think it could help them in a number of ways.
- In my experience, if given the opportunity to work with people they are friends with and people they are not friends with, students will always choose their friends, regardless of what is the best choice for them academically. This is human nature. It is good for the students and the school culture for them to break out of their comfort zone and make new connections.
- I have seen research the articulates how students with many connections are more likely to stay in school and to do well. My hope is that the houses would act as a family. When 1 member is struggling, the family will help. If one person’s is bullied at lunch, others will stand up for him/her. Family is there for each other no matter what; I want to replicate that in my classroom. Therefore, it is very necessary that I get my students thinking of each other as family.
- Some competition is good. I don’t mean that everything should be a fierce competition or that school should only be about something produced rather than something learned. I do think, however, that being a part of a team, and caring about that team, can get the students to take pride in their work. Publishing and publicly applying will be a big part of all of my classes. Ideally, the group members, once they begin to care about their house-mates, will not want to let them down and try harder than they might otherwise.
What do you think? Are there some dangers that I’m missing or benefits that I haven’t thought of? This is not definitely part of my syllabus yet (I haven’t even officially been hired yet.), but I like the idea. As a Harry Potter fan, I would probably buy or find a big, old hat to have the kids sit under and right a program to randomize which house the students are placed in. Please let me know what you think in the comments.
Twitter: rushtheiceberg
I completely agree with you!
Competition is not inherently a negative concept; rather, it can be used positively to raise you to a higher level.
Regarding the Hogwarth’s model…Initially, the change to this model will be difficult and result in some students not doing too well (I can only imagine the parent phone calls!)…However, once everybody understands the new concept I think it would work wonderfully!
Parents are often resistant to change, especially if it appears to give students more freedom and chances to get in trouble…I hope I am not that way when my daughter is older!
Twitter: jasontbedell
Thanks Steve.
I do anticipate push back from both parents and students if I try this. Change is difficult and my grading policy it a leap-of-faith for them as well.(See post “New Idea for Grading” http://wp.me/pAx3Z-5W)
I do think that once they get used to it, if it hasn’t failed, the students will be better for it.
Twitter: aaron_eyler
Jason,
No grouping is inherently bad so long as it is flexible. The biggest problem is that people associate grouping with tracking. Tracking is a terrible practice (http://bit.ly/buTL3D), but grouping leads me to believe that students would be moved and maneuvered according to their best interest. So long as you don’t say to them “these are your houses until _______” I think the idea would work out great.
No idea is bad if it provides flexibility, which includes the ability to abandon the idea if it doesn’t work.
Best of luck.
AE
Aaron Eyler´s last blog ..Multiple-Choice Tests: Skill or Excuse?
Twitter: jasontbedell
Thanks Aaron,
I’ve been following your blog for a while. I agree we definitely need to be flexible. If an idea isn’t working, we need to stop using it or modify it and try again. I’m not interested in tracking the students (good group, bad group, etc…); what appeals to me is really the small-group, family dynamic. I’m also hoping it will give the students some more freedom to really be creative and do amazing things. I think we (school) tends to limit kids. If we give a student a rubric that clearly delineates exactly what one must do to achieve an A, why bother going above and beyond?
Twitter: mbteach
Jason,
If you introduce the idea with a Hogwarts theme as the ‘hook’ I think you’ll get more buy in from the kids. As a former Science teacher who had students work extensively in heterogenous groups my suggestion would be to take baby steps. Having students work with other students who they don’t usually socialize with requires modeling, practice and opportunities for success with simple tasks before biting off anything big. I’ve done simple group building activities just to warm them up to engaging classmates they don’t usually talk with.
What if you had houses that had more than one group? Then there would be competition including more than one group so they could share that responsibility. As far as competition goes, sometimes just authenticity can provide enough competition (meaning the work gets shared outside the classroom walls).
Now I’m just rambling. Thanks for the thoughtful post!
Twitter: jasontbedell
Thanks Mary Beth (Do you go by Mary or Mary Beth?),
With class sizes as large as they are, I could definitely see sub-groups at times within houses, if I stuck to the 4 house idea.
If you have any of those group building activities to share, I would appreciate it. I see getting the students to bond with those students they are not comfortable with as one of the most difficult aspects of implementation.
I do plan on trying to make the work authentic and having students present/publish whenever possible. I appreciate the ramblings.
Twitter: cybraryman1
AS @mbteach wrote so eloquently it takes time to get the groups to function correctly and indeed it does take some modeling.
As for competition my Board Games cooperative learning activity was a lot of fun for the students:
http://cybraryman.com/cooperative.html
Twitter: jasontbedell
Thanks for the tip Jerry. I always appreciate your resources.