Social Interactions in the Classroom

Although independent work in a classroom needs to be a main priority for educators, it is important to know students must learn social skills as well. A good way to do this in the classroom is to allow opportunities for group assignments. One assignment that I would like to incorporate into my classroom is allowing small groups of students to create a skit to measure their level of understanding in a given subject. I would begin by incorporating journaling (week 5, day 3 of Zadina’s workbook). I would have my students “log on” and tell me all of the prior knowledge they know about the current topic. I would then group them heterogeneously. This way each student has an opportunity to learn something from each of their classmates. I would not want all of the students in the same group to know the same information. The students would then work together to explore their topic for more information. For example, my students could work together to create a skit that would present their learning and understanding about different life cycles, or human body systems. By allowing students to work in groups, they will be working on socializing with others. They would be learning to negotiate, as well as how to show respect for others. This would all be done while learning about given content. The teacher would then be able to measure the understanding of the group as a whole. Once the group portion of the assignment is complete, the students would then need to complete an individual post reflection (“log off”) on the assignment. This would allow the educator an opportunity to see what each individual student understands, as well as any misconceptions or misunderstandings they may have about the material. This lesson could be extended by allowing the students to participate in an open discussion where they share their journal entries with the class (optional, of course).  By presenting the information in multiple ways, the students are constantly “firing” the material. In an ideal world, it would be “fired” enough in order for the information to make it to the long-term memory.