Laura,
Keep moving forward with lab activities that simulate those real world examples.
Philip Campbell
In my classroom we do many of the labs as team projects. This allows the classroom activities to simulate a real world environment. Students have different roles within the team and are encouraged to interact.
This is something I am constantly working on.
I create groups in all my classes for classroom activities. The groups are created by name tags I created to help me remember the students' names. The tags have pictures that divide the class into their groups. For example, on day we might be in the planets group. So all the Jupiters sit together, the Plutos, and so on. Then on the next class meeting students will be in Muppet's group. And will be with a totally different set of students. This prevents students from creating their own groups with good students on one side and poor students on the other.
For next term, for my English classes, my students will be working on their papers together. For my 102 course: they have to write a cause and effect paper. I'll put them in groups of four to five, and give them a few choices of historical events or movements that are not so well known (like: The Easter Rising; or The White Rose). Then each will be required to bring an article or book about the event to share with their group. They will discuss and come up with ideas. Finally, they will write their papers. They write as individuals. but the research is done as a group. This should help them learn to work with each other.
Those are two of mine that i'm working with: one currently, and one planned for next term.
I try to at least once a week have some kind of group activity. I also have 2 students work together, each day, to accomplish the sterilization in our clinic. They must work together to get it done. Once during the course of the 9 months, I put the students into groups for a group power point presentation. They moan and groan at first, but it almost always turns out to be a positive thing for them.
James,
Teamwork is what employers want. They are focusing more and more on that everyday.
Philip Campbell
Pearlmarie,
Nice exercise. This really helps to drive home how diverse our students are, and in so many respects similar.
Philip Campbell
I stress team work to my students every day. The first time I break them into cooking groups I pick the groups. as the class progresses I have the students pick there groups. It is quite an eye opener to the students who are picked last by there classmates and seems to motivate some of them to raise their game.
Sometimes is really hard to integrate the student, because they create small groups in relation with their affinities.I always treat to break those groups during the practices and show the students the importance to be able to work with different kind of peoples.
At the beginning of each course, I ask students to write and share their autobiographies. Students recognize life experiences they have in common as well as identify life experiences that are different from their own. There is value in each as one objective is to celebrate similarities and differences of one another. Through out the course, we are reminded of these values.
Laura,
Good strategy. keep finding interesting ways to promote teamwork.
Philip Campbell
As a culinary instructor I find it very difficult to teach teamwork. My students each produce his/her own dishes every day and are very 'greedy' about grabbing ingredients. (I have worked to solve this through portioning most ingredients.
In an effort to promote teamwork I have made groups for the cleaning duties and have swithched the groups around during the course. But, I admit, even though I teach that being in a professional kitchen requires teamwork, the classroom enviornment does not its development.
I like the group setting also. The first few days of class I look to see which students take breaks together or sit in class together. Then I place them into new group settings. At first they complain but then they settle in and start to blend
Brandon,
Teamwork is important and a skill that some people are lacking.
Philip Campbell
I feel that working together to solve a problem teaches good team work and allows the instructor to see use of soft skills as they go about trying to resolve the problem.
This is a great idea! I am going to try this as a class assignment in some of my design classes. Usually, design students are very protective of their own concepts but in the real world they will have to implement other people's ideas.
I agree with Ronnie but you need to be sure that everyone in the group is participating. You do have those students that will always let others do the work and others who think if they do not do it , it will not get done.
Brittani,
Keep doing the group work, students hate it, but it is beneficial.
Philip Campbell
I do a lot of group work. Where they have to share resources and knowledge to help one another succeed.
michael,
That is a great example of bringing the real world into the classroom.
Philip Campbell
I organize my students in groups to perform mock procedures which emphasize the importance of developing good soft skills and developing team building.
