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While grading some papers last week I started thinking about the things that are working and not working with my cooperative groups. I try to keep just four people to a row, which is also the cooperative group. They have rotating jobs designed to improve the quality of work turned in, not by copying the smart person's paper, but by actually discussing and questioning among themselves. Ideally. The jobs are as follows:
*lictor: in charge of headings and mechanics--makes sure that everyone formats their papers in the right way and uses punctuation. (Trust me, this is important for when you are grading.)
*lector: in charge of reading the Latin or the questions or whatever is in front of the students--drives the pace of the group and keeps them focused on the task at hand.
*vocabularius: in charge of new vocabulary items and being the one bold enough to say, "wait, doesn't that mean X not Y?"
*grammaticus: in charge of watching for new grammar; does not have to know the grammar himself, but does need to say, what tense is vituperabat, etc. I will usually tell the grammar person what to watch for and what pitfalls might be there (like, "make sure you note that all the verbs are in the present tense!!")
In general, this works well, especially if I am constantly monitoring and asking whether everyone's doing their job. However, of late, I've noticed that while the group may be working together, they are not working in the cooperative fashion with everyone minding their jobs properly. I can tell when the lictors are not reminding people of punctuation the most. But when everyone in the group misses a whole sentence or similar, or if I can tell they are just putting down what they are remembering from the discussion of a passage and not actually LOOKING/READING the Latin, I know the lector isn't doing his job. When everyone in the group misses the same word, the vocabularius isn't doing his job. And when everyone writes "he said" instead of "he says" I know the grammaticus isn't doing his job.
Here's the thing, how do we make them accountable? Unfortunately, with kids as low performing academically with mine, everything has to be accountable or they cut corners--and thus produce papers that are time consuming to grade because of the amount of extraneous errors, esp with punctuation and spelling.
I don't usually give group grades. I hate group grades. I despise group grades. I suffered for group grades in school.
I do have a quality work grade which is separate from their Latin grade on any assignment. Here's how it works. They have one Quality Work grade per six weeks which starts at a 100 and points are subtracted from it for mechanics missed.
The thing is, it's not a critical enough grade (because it's only one out of many homework/classwork grades) for the kids to really notice I fear. But when they really do work together, the quality of the work is sooooo much better, soooo much easier and quicker to grade.
PLUS I believe as a teacher I must demand mechanics--but not penalize the Latin grade on each paper. That is, if I subtracted mechanic points from the Latin grade someone who might have gotten a 97 on the Latin assignment could end up with a 73 because of all the missing punctuation. So I want to keep that Latin grade separate.
It all about ACCOUNTABILITY and developing GOOD HABITS. Maybe along with a Quality Work grade there needs to be a group work grade? HOW could I make this work? And it needs to be LESS WORK for me and MORE for them.
Let me repeat that last item: it needs to be LESS WORK for me and MORE work for them. That is, the burden should be on them not me. You should ALWAYS have in mind the grading end of things, because let me tell you, you gotta have a life. If you create neat assignments that take forever to grade, you're working too hard. You'll burn out. Don't do it.
I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to just have a set of index cards with the names of the people who are together in a group in my grading folder that way I can check to see by the quality of their work who is doing their jobs and who isn't.
Chocolate motivates a lot of things.... Perhaps even an extra credit point to the group that produces the highest quality work. I wouldn't mind bargaining in that way because the end result is I might create a HABIT of doing quality work that could last well after my class.
It's a thought.
Now the question is, could I penalize the group with the worst quality work-- subtract a point from their average??? Ooooh, wicked, but why not? After all, they could always make up for it with a Latin Moment (for extra credit) if necessary.
But something has to be done to improve the accountability of the cooperative group work. It's still TONS better than the kind of work I used to get, but not where it should be.
Just something to think about.
*lictor: in charge of headings and mechanics--makes sure that everyone formats their papers in the right way and uses punctuation. (Trust me, this is important for when you are grading.)
*lector: in charge of reading the Latin or the questions or whatever is in front of the students--drives the pace of the group and keeps them focused on the task at hand.
*vocabularius: in charge of new vocabulary items and being the one bold enough to say, "wait, doesn't that mean X not Y?"
*grammaticus: in charge of watching for new grammar; does not have to know the grammar himself, but does need to say, what tense is vituperabat, etc. I will usually tell the grammar person what to watch for and what pitfalls might be there (like, "make sure you note that all the verbs are in the present tense!!")
In general, this works well, especially if I am constantly monitoring and asking whether everyone's doing their job. However, of late, I've noticed that while the group may be working together, they are not working in the cooperative fashion with everyone minding their jobs properly. I can tell when the lictors are not reminding people of punctuation the most. But when everyone in the group misses a whole sentence or similar, or if I can tell they are just putting down what they are remembering from the discussion of a passage and not actually LOOKING/READING the Latin, I know the lector isn't doing his job. When everyone in the group misses the same word, the vocabularius isn't doing his job. And when everyone writes "he said" instead of "he says" I know the grammaticus isn't doing his job.
Here's the thing, how do we make them accountable? Unfortunately, with kids as low performing academically with mine, everything has to be accountable or they cut corners--and thus produce papers that are time consuming to grade because of the amount of extraneous errors, esp with punctuation and spelling.
I don't usually give group grades. I hate group grades. I despise group grades. I suffered for group grades in school.
I do have a quality work grade which is separate from their Latin grade on any assignment. Here's how it works. They have one Quality Work grade per six weeks which starts at a 100 and points are subtracted from it for mechanics missed.
The thing is, it's not a critical enough grade (because it's only one out of many homework/classwork grades) for the kids to really notice I fear. But when they really do work together, the quality of the work is sooooo much better, soooo much easier and quicker to grade.
PLUS I believe as a teacher I must demand mechanics--but not penalize the Latin grade on each paper. That is, if I subtracted mechanic points from the Latin grade someone who might have gotten a 97 on the Latin assignment could end up with a 73 because of all the missing punctuation. So I want to keep that Latin grade separate.
It all about ACCOUNTABILITY and developing GOOD HABITS. Maybe along with a Quality Work grade there needs to be a group work grade? HOW could I make this work? And it needs to be LESS WORK for me and MORE for them.
Let me repeat that last item: it needs to be LESS WORK for me and MORE work for them. That is, the burden should be on them not me. You should ALWAYS have in mind the grading end of things, because let me tell you, you gotta have a life. If you create neat assignments that take forever to grade, you're working too hard. You'll burn out. Don't do it.
I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to just have a set of index cards with the names of the people who are together in a group in my grading folder that way I can check to see by the quality of their work who is doing their jobs and who isn't.
Chocolate motivates a lot of things.... Perhaps even an extra credit point to the group that produces the highest quality work. I wouldn't mind bargaining in that way because the end result is I might create a HABIT of doing quality work that could last well after my class.
It's a thought.
Now the question is, could I penalize the group with the worst quality work-- subtract a point from their average??? Ooooh, wicked, but why not? After all, they could always make up for it with a Latin Moment (for extra credit) if necessary.
But something has to be done to improve the accountability of the cooperative group work. It's still TONS better than the kind of work I used to get, but not where it should be.
Just something to think about.
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