Jay Hollowell

Hi Christina! Good response and an excellent question on assigning team member roles in a learning group situation. I might suggest, in reference to your question, that you do both. For example, have in your own mind the roles necessary for successful completion of a learning group task, then have group members come up with their own. Compare the two categories and integrate them with your suggestions. That way, students have defined their own responsibilities and have "bought-in," plus you have influenced them appropriately according to your learning outcomes. Personally, I'm an advocate of letting learning groups engage in trial… >>>

Hi Christina! It is certainly more difficult to incorporate small group work in a technically-oriented computer class. Here are a few suggestions of activities that instructors have used: Have students in groups solve a challenge or problem that you have provided them; it may be, for example, an error that needs to be corrected where the group needs to work backward. Though this can also be done individually, the group work adds a dimension of consensus as to what the problem is and how to fix it. You could even make it a contest and put the groups in competition… >>>

Hi Vickie! I like the "ride in on the elephant" approach. Grabbing student attention at the beginning of a lesson is crucial for interest and buy-in. As a young instructor, I always listed the learning objectives from the lesson on the board and often asked students what their expectations of outcomes were as well. It always amazed me how close their perceptions of learning objectives were to the actual instruction at hand. Your elephant approach reminds me of the widely-used, effective teaching model: Grab attention Develop comprehension Maximize the diversity of learning styles Relate content to former and later concepts… >>>

Hi Steve! What a phenomenal situation! It is amazing the number of young adult learners that graduate high school and beyond without having a learning disability identified or addressed - and they have so much to offer. You're right on target about watching and listening to determine student challenges. As busy as our classrooms are, helping challenged students really is on an individual, case-by-case basis. The seasoned instructor has learned to balance time spent among planned presentation and activities, individual attention to special needs, and working with the students that are more likely to be overlooked - the "stars" who… >>>

Hi Steve! Thanks for your response. Groups progressively teaching groups...what a relevant workplace, critical skill beyond acquiring the proficiency of the competency itself! A few years ago I taught a required Business Communications course (mostly grammar)from 6:00pm to 10:00pm twice per week. Can you imagine? The learning groups that we created in that class remained in formation until the end of the course (same teams). Each night, some of the in-class assignments were given to the teams as contests with points awarded for correct work. The more difficult the assignment, the more points awarded. The team with the most correct… >>>