Group work. What shall we think of it? Walk down a school hallway any day and I bet you will see multiple classrooms attempting one or more components of group work. Some children thrive in group work and others are immediately lost in their group assignment. Some teachers are masters at using group assignments to provide them with time for individual student and group tutorials and other teachers view group work assignments as extended prep time. So, what shall we think of it? A child’s ability to work productively in a collaborative group is an essential learning opportunity. So, we need to apply group work properly or not use group work at all!

Let’s understand the sixth sentence first. An effective use of group work is an essential teacher tool for creating time for individual or small group tutorials. Without good tutorial time, few teachers are able to monitor student learning and do the necessary reteaching needed to assure that all students are successful. So, what are appropriate group work practices.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills tells us that the ability to work with others is an essential and necessary component for a person to succeed in this century’s world of work. http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework Specifically, to be 21st century-ready, children need to:

• Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams,
• Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal, and
• Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member.

Let’s start with these as the educational target.

These are several components of a strong instructional design using group work.

1. Group work is face-to-face work. Children need to see each other up close, share ideas with one another, discuss with and explain to each other, summarize what each other has contributed, and create a consensus together. “With one another” cannot be accomplished from opposite sides of the classroom or virtually. It is best when children are “knee to knee” at a group table or circle of chairs or desks.
2. Group work requires each child to do work. Too often group work has been accomplished by the one or two “go get ‘em” children in a group while others are cheerleaders or observers. As best practice, each child must do the initial work (reading, viewing, doing) and generate a conclusion from their initial work (written, spoken, shown). Each child must explain their initial work to the group and find similarities and differences in their collective initial work. Each child doing the initial work is the first separator between good and bad learning practice. If only some children do the initial work, the use of collaborative groups automatically is poor practice.
3. Group work requires appropriate social skills. Children need to take turns speaking and doing, listening and watching, and sharing their ideas. They need to respect the ideas of other children. Social skills do not arise by accident. While we encourage a competitive attitude in many school activities, we need to have children check their competitiveness and open themselves to cooperation and collaboration. This is an instructional target unto itself in which the teacher explains and demonstrates the active, receptive, and collaborative skills that build group collaboration.
4. Group work may apply structural roles of leader/facilitator, recorder/secretary, checker, timekeeper, summarizer/reflector. Once again, the importance of these roles creates its own teaching moment because a child needs a strong image of how these roles contribute to the group’s effectiveness. http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/roles.htGroups must be heterogeneously assigned. Ability grouping condemns a group of high ability children to a competitive race and a group of low ability children to a dearth of ideas. 1 – 4 above contribute to the success of each student regardless of their ability. Too often, proponents of gifted and talented ideology demand that high ability students work only with high ability children. There is time and place for ability grouping, but not in the design of collaborative group instruction. Resist these demands.
5. Group work allows the teacher to monitor and assess each student’s initial work, demonstration of social skills, skill in expressing a group role, skill in collaborating for consensus, and ability to work with children of differing abilities. Good practice includes an assessment rubric on each of these points.

Group work is not a group project in which one or two students do all the work or an assignment that leads to all members getting the same grade based upon the final submission. When either of these is present, children are not afforded a good instructional opportunity.

Group work is hard work for a teacher. It requires a strong conceptualization of complex learning targets, discreet instruction of skills and understandings that are embedded in a child’s cooperation and collaboration, and a complex assessment scheme. And, this is just the preparation for group work. Inside the time that children are working in groups, a teacher also needs to plan for and implement individual and small group tutorials.

The next time someone walks past your classroom door and looks in to see group work, show them that your children are actively learning and using strong 21st century collaboration skills. Your good group work instructional practices also will be displayed by the overall academic success of all your children at the end of the year because you combined group work and tutorial instruction to the advantage of all.

Words and terms matter. Reteaching is synonymous with instructional intervention. However, the word intervention today is mired in the policies and politics of RtI. If we use the term intervention to mean reteaching, too many colleagues will immediately focus on their current emotions and district initiatives related to RtI. So, let’s talk about reteaching.

Before reading further, reflect upon the number of times in the past week that 100% of the children you teach learned 100% of the information, concepts, skills or processes that you taught to them. The old and laughable adage that “if I taught it, they should have learned it” no longer cuts it. “If, when I teach I then efficiently assess their learning so that I can reteach children who have not successfully learned, then all really have learned.” That’s better.

Read on.

Reteaching is essential in the new educational environment of complex high stakes assessments with more emphasis on the word “complex” than the words “high stakes.” Children cannot afford to enter those assessments without a solid understanding of the standards being assessed. Why reteaching? Research on the term “reteaching” is thin. Lalley et al (2006) indicate that pre-teaching and re-teaching produced significant increases in student abilities the math concepts, math problems and math computation. Research on “intervention” is much more extensive. Almost every state has developed resources that assist their educators comply with new regulations related to RtI. See the research base for interventions attached to your state’s department of education.

Reteaching 101.

Marzano (2010) provides the most concise description of good practice.

While teaching new content, skills or processes, check children for their understanding and immediately clarify and/or correct misunderstandings, misconceptions and mistakes. In the flow of new instruction, asking children to summarize, apply, explain to another will indicate the accuracy of their learning. Whatever is not acceptable should and can be addressed at that moment and later verified through another check for understanding. Sounds like Madeline Hunter? She originated the terms “checking for understanding” and “reteaching” in her discussion of mastery teaching the 1980s.

Secondly, reteaching should be purposefully attached to every formative or intermediate assessment that is designed to assess for learning. Problems of misunderstanding, misconception and mistake need to be addressed that time. Typically, this means reteaching to an individual child or a small group tutorial. Plan the time and energy for post-assessment reteaching, because it will be necessary if every child is to be prepared for next learning and/or for a summative assessment in the future. Also plan an extension activity that other children can use to profit their ongoing learning while you reteach.

Lastly, reteaching cannot be a repeat. The words and approach need to respond to the child’s misunderstanding, misconception and mistake. Reteaching must explain the error in the child’s learning and then use good teaching/tutorial practice to extinguish the error(s) and create a new and accurate learning. It is a mini-lesson with all of the good practices of initial instruction including the extinction of error.

The need to reteach is not an evaluation of a teacher’s instructional effectiveness. No one achieves 100% student learning all of the time. Reteaching is a skill and process used by an effective teacher to cause all students to learn.

Effects of Pre-teaching and Re-teaching on Math Achievement and Academic Self-Concept of Students with Low Achievement in Math, Lalley, James P. et al (2006)

“Reviving Reteaching”, Robert J. Marzano, Educational Leadership (Oct 2010, Vol 68, No. 2)

I am a senior citizen who spends a lot of time with his grand daughters who are a Kindergarten student and younger. I am in awe of their capacity to see, listen, do and remember. Izzy and Aly are so early in their learning lives and I am increasingly advanced in mine, yet there are principles of learning that can be applied to the three of us. These principles are universals that assist people of all ages to learn and remember. As a grandfather, I am enjoying observing them in young people. As an older learner, I need them. As career educator, I know these with appreciation to Madeline Hunter for her instruction on retention practices.

Things that want to be remembered need to have a big “Duh!” Duh! proclaims that whatever is being heard or seen or done is important. Duh! says “pay attention.” Without a belief in the importance of the moment, a sound, scene or event is just a passing breeze. For the girls, the sense of importance can be imposed. “Gramps says,” can make many things important, as long as Gramps doesn’t speak too often or without care. Izzy loves looking and talking about things; Aly loves handling and doing things. Anything that fits into what they like to do is self-imbued with importance. When we attach personal meaning to learning, we promote memory.

I create an importance through my knowledge of what is and is not significant. This is a prize of my age. I have felt many breezes and know a wind from a breeze. I pay attention to a wind, most of the time.

Things that want to be remembered need a “…now let’s talk about this.” When I take Izz an Al to the zoo, they can fly from one exhibit area to the next. The aquarium and bird house hold so many different fish and birds that everything the girls see must seem like a blur. However, when we stop, stand still, and point to a pair of Red Sided Eclectus and talk about how the female is red and blue and male is emerald and red we are building memory muscle. The colors are vibrant. If the birds are talking, the sound of their voices is captivating. The information about their plumage is clearly seen, their voices are clearly seen, and their unusual name is very distinctive. The next time we come to the zoo, they will want to run to the bird house to find an Eclectus.

When we take time to extend and deepen the initial experiences of learning, we promote memory.

Things that want to be remembered need a significant welcome and “try out.” When I take Izz and Al to the local horse corral for a ride on a pony, we go through a small ritual. “Izz, this is Dusty. Feed Dusty this carrot and touch her nose.” “With your small hands, hold the reins in your right hand and again in your left; hand in front of hand.” “Push your feet down into the stirrups and feel how you can use your legs to keep your position in the saddle.” “How does that feel?” Engaging Izzy in the ritual, giving her small but real things to do, and asking her to talk about it makes her first and each of her following experiences on a horse very memorable. The next time she comes to the corral, she will remember these small things and they will lead quickly to another enjoyable pony ride. When we personalize and make learning feel good, we promote memory.

Things that want to be remembered need repetition. Izzy has learned the months of the year, the days of the week and how dates are sequentially numbered on a calendar due to the planned instruction and repetitions by her teacher. Each morning, Izz and her classmates talk about the month, the day, and the date. They talk about yesterday and tomorrow and last month and next month. Arithmetic tables and spelling words are learned through similar instruction and repetitions. Izzy’s teacher knows how to use daily and planned repetitions and recitations on demand to cause her students to learn these things.

Inexplicably, we often forget about the need for repeated practice and repetition when we think we are learning on our own. Good teaching and good learning plans for and conducts repetitive practice. Self-learning often is too impetuous and forgets to do so. When we use good practice theory, we promote memory.

Things that want to be remembered are strengthened when they can be transferred to other experiences, times and places. Playing catch with Izzy and Aly is teaching them hand and eye coordination and practical protocols of how to position their arms and feet, how to step into a throw and follow through with a throwing motion, and how to use both hands to keep ahold after a catch. These fundamentals apply to tossing around a football or a basketball or a beach ball. They apply in the front yard and in the school yard, and especially when they are with their cousins in a family game. Izz and Al are learning about safety, proper language, courtesy and manners, and the use of Nooks and I-Pads through the same transfer procedures. When we find ways to use processes and concepts in different settings, we promote memory.

The concepts of promoting retained learning apply to all of us at all times. I have obtained a small wood lathe for the purpose of turning wood and creating unique handles for shaving razors and new lamp bases for my writing desk and Gramps-only items for the grandkids. I am paying more attention to public policy and policy makers. And, I am learning the Spanish language. Purposefully, I am including each of the above good practices to help me become more efficient and effective in remembering and using what I learn. It works!

Inferential commentary abounds. Talk radio. Op ed pieces in the press. Blogs. Chat in the store check-out line. The President. The economy. Taxes. A quarterback who threw three interceptions. The climate. These are background noises to my ears. In almost all instances, I hear lay people who feel compelled to air their thought of the moment. It is all noise, except when the words “school” or “public education” are uttered. Then, my ears perk up faster than a cat hearing the tab of a Fancy Feast can being pulled back. Ffffft! I listen and pay attention and fume. I can abide lay opinions about many things, but not education.

Starting backwards with the solution to my fuming, I am resolved that we attempt to teach too much to children and we do not teach our too much successfully. We need to teach less well.

First, in order to teach less well, we need to identify the less that is important to be learned. This really is not that difficult. Take the great body of information in each subject area, identify only enduring concepts, skills and empirical processes that are essential for thinking like an expert-to-be in the subject area, and teach until all children have learned these. The real list of what is essential is not very big once all of the “oh, and did you knows…” are set aside. The barrier to doing this is that colleagues in our discipline may not want to reduce their “too much”. If they don’t, how will our reduction be perceived? Strange that the world was flat until a man they thought sailed over the edge came back.

We are abused by game shows that infer that the learning of trivia is the result of K-12 education. The facility to know that the Volga is a river that empties into an inland sea, the Caspian, is learned and remembered by studies that exceed the academic standards of our public schools. Books of facts are just that and, as books, the facts they contain can be referenced on demand when an educated person who knows how to use references needs to know a fact.

Second, take your time to explain clearly and until all children can explain their learning to others. Take your time to grow each child’s confidence in what they have learned and shed their inhibitions about inquiring into what they should learn next. Take your time, because there is no race against the clock or the table of contents. Children who know important things and how to think importantly can learn all the rest on their own.

These are not new thoughts. I began talking with colleagues about reducing the quantity of teaching in order to increase the quality of learning in the 80s. And, in the 90s and 00s. Talk about changing long ingrained habits did not lead to immediate change back then and leads to little change now. My colleagues are creatures of how they were taught by their teachers in grade school and how they were taught how to teach in their undergraduate and graduate programs, and their habits over time are reinforced by their faculty-mates. The common belief is that the body of knowledge we learned must be taught to children and that body just keeps getting bigger and bigger so we have to teach it faster and faster. How wrong! There is not enough time and even if there were, our efficiency at covering so much would be overwhelmed by our ineffectiveness at teaching any of it.

S0, when I feel admonished by lay critics of public education who criticize with the “…isn’t it awful that children don’t know…” or “… I was surprise that my sophomore can’t…”, I fume silently and consider that these adults are products of the way we should no longer teach. How could they know better? But, in a world with an ever growing universe of information and a need for generations of better educated adults, can we afford to teach children as we taught their parents? Not if I can help it.

I always envied my colleagues in art and music. They were experts in growing a child’s skills and understandings so that the child changed from an “I don’t know how to do this” to an accomplished “doer.” Time and again, I watched these teachers change a class of beginners into children who made art and music that displayed learned skills and earned pride. And, I looked for instructional analogies for my English and social studies classroom.

When a child’s clay on the potter’s wheel remained just a blob after all children were given an initial instruction in how to work clay on the wheel into a small mug, Mrs. Hays took the seat at the wheel. She leaned over with her arms extended and hands pointed down with her fingers slightly bowed on the outside of the blob and thumbs inserted into the top of the clay. Then, with the dexterity of her experience, a nicely formed mug began to grow. As she began, she quietly explained what the clay felt like in her hands and how she judged the amount of pressure to apply and with which fingers to apply it in order to make the walls of the mug stand up. She talked about the quality of the clay and problems that too much or too little water could create. When the child reclaimed the seat and tried to emulate what Mrs. Hays had done, Mrs. Hays told the child to explain what she was feeling in her fingers and talk about the use of finger and thumb pressure. For many students, the teacher’s showing and talking was enough to give them a successful beginning point. For other children, if the glob began to resemble a mug for just moments before caving in, Mrs. Hays would take the child’s hands in hers and begin again with her explanation only this time helping the child to adjust her younger hands to feel what older hands were doing. The teaching moment of holding and forming the child’s hands into an artist’s hands and causing a great “oh, my” was something I wanted for my teaching.

Mr. Klun was the just the best when he sat next to a young trombonist whose ear was not yet matched to the length of the slide and the notes being played. Mr. K took the trombone and made sweet notes come forth and then talked about how he extended and retracted the slide to conform the sound to the notes that the music requested. He played. He stopped and explained and showed. He played some more and stopped to explain many times. As a musician, he knew what the child was and was not doing on this non-valve instrument to create what they both wanted to hear. His talking the child through the feel/sound moment moved the child from a “don’t know how to do this” to “I can play that note.” It took a lot of such moments to grow a school concert trombonist, but time and opportunity were available in the rehearsal hall and Mr. K knew how to move from telling to explaining and showing so that the children of his bands could play any music presented to them.

Absent a classroom these days, I pose this lesson.

“We’re going to read five source documents in order to identify what each author thought about isolationism as the best foreign relations policy in the 1930s. Then, we’re going to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of an isolated nation and apply those to three international problems our nation faces today. Finally, we will write a letter to our US Senators with our recommendations for the kinds of legislation they should support to address these problems.”

This meaty assignment was laced with Common Core Standards, crossed disciplines, developed constructivist skills, but after my initial instruction in reading and document analysis I saw a need for Mrs. Hays’ and Mr. E’s “hands on hands” in order to grow my social studies children into informed students of foreign policy. I looked more fervently when children who were not cognitively meshing with the assignment gave every indication of “I don’t know how to do this.” It did not take much listening to understand that the documents contained terminology the children did not know and referred to historical events and stories from 80 years ago that were completely foreign to them. These where children whose hands did not feel the clay and whose ears and feel for the instrument were not yet developed. They needed a skillful explanation with hands on.

That was when technology once again became my friend. A document projector became my potter’s wheel and the pages projected on the screen became my clay. On one side of the classroom children who were well on their way with this assignment worked independently under my frequent gaze. On the other side, my novices gathered around the projector and, as I read the document aloud to them, I stopped on terms they did not know and references they had not heard. We marked up our documents together. We looked up some references together and they looked up others independently. We made a table showing authors at the head of the column and ideas from each author in the rows below. We labeled those rows with a word that summarized the row. In pairs, they discussed the ideas for similarities and differences and refined the table to display what they had gleaned from the source documents.

Using the projector attached to a student’s laptop, in small groups they initiated a new table with each of the given contemporary international problems atop the columns and each row headed with an idea from their source document reading. They filled in the table with their judgment of the applicability of the author’s ideas to the international problem.

With a new partner, they drafted a letter to a Senator explaining their take on one of the international problems and how isolationism would or would not be a valid policy for addressing the problem. They read their letters to each other and then combined what they thought were the best parts of their individual letters into a single letter. This small group smiled when they placed a stamp on the envelope and pressed the send key for their e-letter.

In retrospection, I found Mrs. Hays and Mr. Klun in this assignment. I heard my voice instead of their voices in the explaining and showing. At the end of the assignment, my children had grown new academic skills that were well matched with the skills they learned in art and music.