Experiences

Group work in summary lessons

Darina Tatarlieva

Bulgaria

High Secondary School

Chemistry

Teaching in class

Direct

The technology includes the following steps:
• Formation of groups:
I divide the students in groups at random, usually are formed four groups. Each group is composed of 5 to 7 students. I prefer groups to have permanent staff. In this way in the course of group work team members have the opportunity to better understand and properly distribute activities for performing assigned tasks.
• Giving a fun game with a competitive element
- Solve the riddle /composed by me/, crossword, puzzle arrangement etc. This is a way to motivate students to be ready for team work.
The decision of the fun task is a concept that is related to the topic of the summary lesson in Biology.
• Presentation of objectives
- Final and intermediate objectives of the lesson are pre-recorded - thus at the end of the lesson students have the opportunity to re-read them and judge for themselves how and to what extent they have dealt with targets.
• Update knowledge of the studied section of Biology
- In the form of talk with the students.
• Put written task for each group
- I write on a poster tasks to each group in advance.
- The number of tasks is usually 2 for each group. They have a short and clear statement and relate specific part of the summary section.
- Tasks are designed as separate logical and semantic items of study material for a certain section.
• Initiation of rules for group work
Listen to each other!
Do not offend!
Do not mock!
Do not judge!
Speak clearly and concisely!
Strive for consensus!
• Announcement of time for individual work - usually 15-20 minutes.
• Independent group work of students
- Individual work - summarizing information, marking schemes , filling tables, etc.
- Reaching a final decisions
- Select a speaker - speakers are not one and the same every time
• Presentation of the work of the group
- The decision of each task is represented by the speaker of the group
- Listen to all answers of all groups contiguously.
• Summarizing the results of the work.
- Fix potential errors in work groups
• Evaluation of the performance of the groups
- Assessment is performed following pre-announced criteria - scientifically correct information, originality, presentation.
- The maximum score for each criterion is 2. Maximum number of points that each group can get is 6.
- Any violation of the accepted rules takes away 1 point from a score.
- I write the results of the group work on the board.
At the end of the school semester I announce the winning group.