My research took place at South Side School in Champaign, Illinois from January through March 1996. I have a heterogeneously grouped classroom of twenty-five students. I have three inclusion students with individual education plans. One student has multiple handicaps and needs a great deal of help from students and teachers. I, also, have four students with very low IQs. In the past, these students would have been placed in an EMH classroom. The minority population is about 28 percent.
My two learning activities were at opposite poles. In the first activity, which was unstructured, the students worked in cooperative groups (most of the time). This was very open and the students could teach the assigned Social Studies information they were responsible for in any way they wished. The second activity held each child responsible for outlining a section of their Social Studies book, and then, I put it all together for them to use on a test. I really enjoy trying and learning new things, and was eager to see how the children would respond to the new approaches.
For the first phase of my study, I divided my class into three groups of varying sizes. I let the students select their regular group seating and assigned two groups to a chapter. The students were assigned their chapters and were responsible for deciding what is important enough to teach, how they are going to teach the information, and how they were going to evaluate what the others learned.
The children were extremely excited to be "teachers". They took the responsibility very seriously. There were many power struggles in the groups, much anxiety and hard work. I gave the students two weeks to prepare their lessons using about four classroom hours. It was very interesting watching the students come up with solutions to their problems.
One group did an excellent job dividing the material up between the group members. The other two groups had a very difficult time figuring out who was going to do what. I had a couple of class meetings so that groups could talk about how they worked together. The Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies were still struggling. I was concerned that they might not be successful. I decided to become a Social Studies consultant. I had several periods that the groups could consult with me about their progress. This did seem to help, but the students still had some troubles.
Ready or not, we began the presentations. The Middle Colonies fell flat on their faces the first day. They had assigned some reading and many students did not do it. The group clustered in front and tried to teach using the teacher's manual and asking questions. They were very frustrated and said, "How can we teach if everyone didn't read their book?" The second day this group had a play. It went very well. The students felt much better and got a lot of information across.
The Southern Colonies was a group of girls only. They did an excellent job of discussing the chapter with the class and asking questions. The second day, this group had a play and a game. Again, the children did an excellent job and delivered the information they wanted to share in a fun way.
The New American group had the most difficulty. They really did not seriously begin working on their lessons until two days before the presentation. This was a group of boys who usually has a difficult time organizing and completing their work. The day for their presentation came. The boys actually did a good job with their discussion. They were frustrated because the same three or four people kept answering their questions. The "teaching" was short and the group depended on the workbook pages to give much information. The boys did assign a creative task at the end, that they found in the teacher's manual. They had the different groups write a sample newspaper that could have been published in the big cities of Boston or New York. The class really enjoyed this activity.
All groups gave workbook pages and a test. The tests were very long and pretty difficult. The children were surprised how much work and how difficult it is to be a teacher.
I had the students write about the Phase I activity. I asked them to tell me their thoughts, feelings, and what they had learned from it. Most of the students felt that they had learned a lot from "teaching". They had a new respect for teachers and show it by listening more attentively during instruction. The students felt that the presentations using plays, games, or creative assignments stimulated their interest and learning. These activities were fun, too.
In the second phase of my project, I gave the students a more structured individual assignment. When each student was finished with their part, I put it all together, and they took a test on the combined information from the class.
On this assignment, some children did a very good job on their part, and others were very haphazard. The test was frustrating for the students because many had not provided enough information in their outline. The grades did not turn out very well. I did not want to penalize the students who had done a good job, so, we went over the tests together using the book to find information. The only way a student could not get an A on the test was to lose it, or not correct it with us.
I asked the class to reflect on their thoughts and feelings about this structured experience in Phase II and tell me about them. The students felt very let down by the ones that did not take this very seriously and did a poor job. The students that did a poor job were just as indignant about others' poor quality work as the students who did their best to provide complete information. They did not feel that they learned very much from this assignment and did not want to do it again.
I evaluated each assignment with a group grade and an individual grade. At the beginning of this school year, the class had a group assignment that had to be presented to the class. I gave the students no guidance. They, then, gave their presentations. After all presentations were complete, we discussed what made some presentations more interesting and informational than others. From that experience and discussion, we developed an evaluation form that has been used all year for formal presentations, both group and individual. This is the form I used for the group grade (see appendix). The individual grade was based on observation of work during the preparation, and the student's part in the presentation of the project.
I think, partly because of their age, my students were bogged down by the organization of the Phase I project. There was much anxiety on all our parts. The students wanted very much to please me and impress the class. In Phase II, the students who are dependable workers did their best work. The students who have a difficult time working without supervision did not give much valuable information for use on the test.
Upon reflection, both phases of the study were valuable learning experiences for myself and the children. Most of the children really want to do Phase I again. They have a better understanding of what needs to be done and the organization problems. The students are full of ideas about how they can improve their "teaching" and assessment of learning. Possibly, they will have more confidence and skill to allow deeper inquiry. They certainly have a better understanding of what is required from a teacher.
I think that Phase I did help the students reach a better understanding of their own learning. They learned, the hard way, how to work together effectively. There was some very good content learning when, students used games and plays. They were very motivated and excited, even though it was a difficult task. I was excited about the enormous amount of learning that took place. Phase II was less successful. We have been working very hard on learning study skills, especially reading, putting information into our own words, organization of information and test-taking skills. These are extremely important skills that impact the students' future education. The main problem was that because there was no formal presentation many students did not take the assignment very seriously. I think I will use it again to help students learn that others are depending on them and responsibilities must be met. Peer pressure is an excellent motivator for most children. Peer pressure, used in moderation, is the only method I have found for motivating some children.
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