T21M2 Management

Managing Group Projects

It seems that most discussions about school collaborative projects include the concern about free-loaders and how to overcome the unfairness that results.

In many cases the teacher will observe the group dynamics and productivity but if the group has work to do out of class, the teacher may not have the opportunity to identify non-productive students. In some cases students are reluctant to "dob-in" a group member for social reasons.

One method of achieving fairness is to require students to keep a record of their meetings. For some classes this is a good opportunity to teach students about meeting protocols such as agendas and minutes. In the "Reports" part of the meeting each student can be required to show what they have done for the project. This is recorded in the minutes, including any cases where there is nothing to show. This way the non-productive student is reporting their own lack of progress and because it is recorded, the teacher can become aware of the problem and intervene if possible and at least, take this into account when grading.

This document is an except from an assignment which utilizes this method of managing a group project.

Publishing Student Work for a Real Audience

Publishing student work can be a good way of improving their communication skills. Blogs are a popular way to do this. The following video is from a YouTube Channel that provides lots of advice for using blogging in the classroom.




[Mr C]. (2015, September 14). Easy Classroom Blogging - What's a Blog For? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/6j2qPJe07X8

The next article provides a good starting point for teachers interested in blogging with their class and it contains links for further information. 

Evans, K. (2016, December 15). Blogging in Classroom - How to get Started. Retrieved from https://startbloggingonline.com/get-started-classroom-blogging/

As indicated in the previous article, there are many platforms that support class blogs. If your school uses GSuite and GMail, Blogger would be a good choice because students can use their GSuite/Gmail account to access Blogger.

Seesaw is a very popular service for elementary schools that provides a different way of sharing student work. For a brief introduction to Seesaw watch the following video.





[Aaron's Hobbies]. (2017, March 13). Using Seesaw in the Classroom. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/S0xGWKXCw6g

For more ideas on publishing student writing, watch this TEDx Talk.




Nokleby, N. (2012, August 1). Share It! Publishing Student Work Online. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/A-eRv7DRoiA

Finding Advice for My Classes

Advice on fostering the 4 C's is often generic and may leave you wondering how to implement the advice in a specific subject area and level. The 21st Century Skills Maps provide advice for Math, Arts, Geography, Science, Social Studies, and English. They also provide ICT Literacy Maps for Social Studies, English and Math.

Partnership for 21st Century Learning, (n.d.) 21st Century Skills Maps. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/our-work/resources/for-educators#SkillsMaps

Implementation Advice

The P21 Patterns of Innovation series includes webinars that show how schools and districts have managed various aspects of implementation supported by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning.

Partnership for 21st Century Learning, (2017, 2018). Patterns of Innovation. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/exemplar-program-case-studies/patterns-of-innovation