Week 1 Reflection: Groupwork

One of the books I read this summer was Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom by Elizabeth G. Cohen & Rachel A. Lotan. I have always wanted to do a more effective job of having my students work in groups.  I believe that rich group tasks are an authentic way for students to develop their mathematical thinking and it gives them an opportunity to work like mathematicians.  Too many times students develop the inaccurate belief that mathematicians sit alone in their offices pondering challenging mathematical ideas and concepts.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Mathematicians not only discuss ideas with each other, they also build on each other's work.  Sometimes over hundreds or thousands of years.

Through reading Designing Groupwork I began to understand how to develop the necessary skills in my students so that they could work in groups effectively.  I am a work in progress and will continue to reflect on the ideas of Cohen and Lotan.  In the appendix of the book, the authors provide activities that are constructed to develop students' abilities to work together effectively.  I decided to start the first week of school by using these activities with my students.

One of the biggest hurdles I had was in getting groups to share out their strategies they used in the activities during our whole group wrap up at the end of class.  Although students were engaged during the activity, it was quite the opposite when it came to the whole group.  My focus was on getting students to share their strategies so they could see that there were many "paths" to the solution.  This was important to me because I want to emphasize the importance of strategy over the solution.  So often students are so focused on "did I get the right answer" that they overlook the richness of the way (or ways) to get there.  I'm pretty patient and can sit with the "wait time" fairly well; letting the silence hang in the air in the hopes that a student will fill it.  But my goodness they just weren't opening up!

Somehow I stumbled on the idea of debriefing the groups individually as they finished the task and flushing out their particular strategy.  Then I would ask the individual group if they would be willing to share their strategy with the whole group because I thought there was value in other students hearing about it.  This worked extremely well!  I don't know if it was because I gave value to their strategy, asked "permission" for them to share, or built up their confidence so they felt comfortable sharing.  Whatever the reason, I was happy that I had more groups sharing during our whole group debriefing.

My other take away was coming to the realization that the success of a task or activity isn't always related solely to the activity itself.  It matters whether or not I feel some connection to the task.  There were a couple of activities that I just didn't feel a connection to and they did not go as well as the others.  They were perfectly good tasks, but I just didn't connect to them for some reason.  It makes me wonder if other educators have had this same observation.  Maybe my disconnection influenced how I navigated through the task and kept it from being as successful as it could have been.  And I wonder what was it specifically that kept me from connecting to it?  I'm not sure of the answer but I will continue to ponder the question as I try more tasks throughout the year.

Facing the Fear of Change

Here we are.  The day before we return for another school year.  My classroom is ready, at least for the most part.  Beginning of the year professional development has been completed.  Students are on my rosters.  And that is where I begin to feel the panic, worry, and fear set in.

Large classes with a large population of at-risk kids.  The plans of drastically changing what I have been doing year after year start to seem overwhelming.  The self-doubt sets in and throwing out the summer of research and hard work seems like an increasingly safe idea.

There is some solace in continuing to do things the way you've always done them.  At least you know what each day will bring.  Good or bad, the days will at least be familiar.  It is that fear of the unknown that can so eloquently stop us dead in our tracks.  It is in that space of the unknown that the "what ifs" take shape.  What if it doesn't work?  What if students push back at the changes?  What if parents push back?  What if I can't keep up with the workload?  What if...I fail.

Fear can be crippling.  It can stop us from making changes we know in our hearts are worthwhile.  It can turn opportunities into obstacles and possibilities into panic attacks.  How, then, do you we handle fear?  How do we face it?  How do we take away its' power?  Catherine Pratt puts an interesting spin on this fear of change in her blog post Life Change - 6 Reasons Why We're Afraid to Change.

"If you let it, your imagination can dream up a never ending supply of terrible things that could happen.  But let's think about it.  You have the ability to imagine the absolute worst thing that could happen so that means you also have the skill to use your energy to imaging the absolute best thing that could happen.  It's a matter of focus.  Why do you waste so much time imagining the worst when there's just as much of a chance of the best outcome happening?"

Fear is a choice.  We can choose to envision the worst of possibilities.  Or we can choose to envision the best.  Ultimately, neither one of them have become our reality.  Yet.

So I begin to imagine the possibilities.  The possibility that my students will take ownership over their learning because they have been given a voice in what they learn, how they learn it, and how they are assessed.  The possibility that my students develop number sense through authentic number talks.  The possibility that my students develop their critical thinking, creativity problem solving, communication, collaboration, connection making, and curiosity.  The possibility that they view mathematics conceptually rather than through mere procedure alone.  The possibility that they begin to think like mathematicians and, dare I say it, begin to love math!

I'm not sure which reality will become my truth.  Maybe a bit of each.  But I do know this, if I can choose which direction my mind will wander, I'll choose the one that puts a smile on my face.

And somehow, the fear begins to slip away.