I grew up in the United States and therefore in an individualistic culture where emphasis is given to being independent. I know this way of thinking and being very well and in most cases it suits me just fine. However, there are times when being more group oriented has its advantages. Ultimately I think a blending of the two is better than one extreme or the other.
As I began my journey into the world of sailing I learned of a collectivistic culture that has taught me a great deal about being part of a group. I have only sailed on sailboats that are about 32 feet in length or less and mostly on sailboats between the length of 15 to 25 feet. These sailboats often have a crew (including the captain) of 3 to 5 people.
One of the first things I learned from captains of these sailboats was that onboard a sailboat there are no passengers. Everyone is considered part of the crew and has responsibilities at all times (except when asleep or cooking or something) for the safety and wellbeing of the sailboat and everyone on board. This means if I am not assigned a particular task then my task is to keep watch for other boats and things floating in the water and to report them out loud to the person at the tiller regardless of if I think he/she sees what I see or not. I must also be ready to respond to commands from the captain and to take any position when told to do so by the captain or first mate.
The group mentality of sailors is such that before I had a sailboat of my own, all I had to do was walk up and down the docks on race days and ask the captains if they had need of an extra crew that day. Since there were 30 to 40 sailboats participating in each race there were always crew that for one reason or another could not make it. I always got on a sailboat even with captains that knew very little about me and knew, because I told them, that I was a beginner and knew very little about sailing.
I will always remember the generosity of these captains in including me as part of their crew and for mentoring me to become a captain of my own sailboat.
I believe that some kind of group oriented way of thinking is beneficial in a classroom setting. It would need to be something that could be easily understood by the students as beneficial for the group rather than something contrived. On sailboats, it was very easy to notice how things the crew did increased or decreased the speed of the sailboat.
One way would be to have students teach each other what they learned in groups and then follow up with them to ask them what they learned that they did no know before the group discussion. Perhaps a written assessment before and after the group discussion could help them see more clearly the benefit of working with other students. However, I think more than this, if that is even possible, would be even better.
Do you have ideas on how to make classrooms more group oriented?
I think I speak for everybody when I say "We hate group projects!" I think if you want to create a group oriented activity, do so with plenty of space and time for group work to "get worked out." So many times, group work fails because they argue as to what should be done. We humans are so competitive and dislike being told what to do. I am also leary of the level of participation of the more quiet personality type.
ReplyDeleteWhen I do group oriented activities, I like to have a notecard with one element that each person is assigned to control and determine. Just an idea.
Thanks for your thoughts as it made me rethink if I really let my class have uncontrolled group projects. Uncontrolled is a scary word to me!
Thank you for your thoughts. I have not done much if any group activities where I was the teacher and let the students work things out. I had not thought of the things you mentioned here. I like your idea of assigning each member of a group one element they are in charge of.
DeleteAs for the quiet students, two thoughts come to mind. A teacher could try grouping all the quiet students together. Of course that could result in no talking, but also could force one or more of the quiet ones to talk since something must get done. Another idea is to ensure that a quiet student is with a student that will ask each member of the group what they think or you could even go so far as to assign one student the element of asking each student what they think and in this way the responsibility of one student is to try and ensure all students in their group say something.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteThat is so interesting about the sailors being group oriented. I could see the benefits of that. When you asked about how to make the class more group oriented, I thought about the BYUI learning model we have here, it is in fact group oriented. If we followed a similar model in our classrooms we would probably experience some good things.