Week 4 ed 2135 (2007-03-31)

Piaget: Constructivism

Vygotsky: Social Interaction is king.

Piaget - knowledge is a scheme - we modify our scheme throughout our lives


Group discussion models:
Jigsaw
Think, Pair, Share

Group discussions: source of riots and wasted time if not managed

TPS:
Stage1: Thinking
Get the person ready to learn: into Zone of Proximal Development
- must get them to think to get them into the ZPD

What are the characteristics of a good, effective, efficient group discussion?

All of the members need to have a role, or something to contribute otherwise some will feel left out and will sabotage the group by being distracting, or deliberately provocative.

The topic of discussion must be relevant and/or interesting for the members of the group - or there must be some motivation to get involved (reward/punishment? eg 'will I look stupid if I don't put in here?')

To be effective the group members must have enough background information to enable them all to move forwards - ie they should be primed equally in some way. Members should be able to identify components, define terms - ie

To be efficient, there should be a clear expectation of realistic goals and timeframe for the discussion.

Members of the group must feel safe, respected, heard

Members should have practice in group work so they know how to stay on task, stick to procedure, record findings

Do groups need a leader - nominated/self selected?

Remind groups to stay on task/track

Better to select groups, than allow groups to self select - gets people together who are not normally together. Otherwise the points of view will be too similar





Good book
'Becoming an Effective Teacher' Tony Featherston
To be good, the participants need to leave the discussion going 'wow'.