"Tell about an opportunity working with a small group"

Last week when I was down at the Elementary school the class I help got the opportunity to go to the library. When they went to the library they were read a short book and then got a little paper with questions to answer about the story they had just been read. They were allowed to seperate off into pairs or groups or work alone if they wanted. I got to just walk around and see if anyone needed help, it was extremely interesting to see what kind of groups had formed.

When you're a kid and picking groups I don't believe you really think all that much about it, you choose you're friends and move on. It was interseting to see the people who were not automatically grouped up and what kinds of groups were actually formed. Most of the groups had 3 or 4 kids who were obviously friends and acted very similar, but then you'd get groups of people who hadn't automatically known what group to be in. I found these groups to be the most interesting, it was a more diverse group of kids who in the end probably learned better because they all had very different opinions.

This was really interesting to me because it still goes to show that to some sense their is "discrimination" not that these kids are really doing it on purpose but its still somewhat there. Something else I also noted from this activity is that its probably better to assign groups, because the groups who ended up being just the wish wash of kids left behind learned a lot more from the activity from the other kids who just grouped together with their friends and didn't really work as hard.

Blog Entry #1:

"What Developmental Differences do you see in the children in the classroom?"

 

When doing my "out on the field" hours this week there was one thing that defintely suprised me right off the back. Just from spending about 10 to 15 minutes observing these kids you could tell so much about them. The first little while I was there I was simply just observing them as they worked in groups. Especially in groups it was so easy to see who has more dominant personalities and who kind of shyed back and let other people take charge. So much about them showed just through the way they reacted with the other children.
Another thing I saw was that in this group activity they were using multiple kinds of learning strategies. For their group activity they were reading this article in this little magazine and then answering some questions about it. They started by taking turns reading aloud to each other which would qualify as "auditory" learning. Along with the article was a whole bunch of pictures which would qualify as "visual" learning. Finally once they were all done with the reading and had answered the questions, each group had to put on a performance of sorts to replay what they had read about in their specific article which I qualify as "kinesthetic" learning. It was interesting to actually see a concept I had learned played out in real life.
After the lesson was over I was discussing with the teacher what I observed and she explained that over the past 10 years of teaching she'd read a lot about it and found that the children remember and relate the best when you do activites that involve all 3 learning styles. It was such a fun experience to get to see how the kids interacted and how actual classroom life is like. Just makes me more and more excited about whats to come!