1

Gems of Pedagogy
Participant: Dan Loos
November/December 2011

Project 2: Co-construction of understanding

Research questions:

  1. What will I notice about group dynamics as I observe a group in action?
  2. What will I notice about what seems to be helping or hindering the success of the group to complete its task?
  3. Which students are doing more listening than talking? Do student reflections match my observations?
  4. Which students are doing more talking than listening? So student reflections match my observations?
  5. What will students say made their group successful or not successful in completing the task?

Methods:
Students will be asked to brainstorm possible topics for a class presentation. Each student in the group should leave the finished task with at least two possible presentation topics.
A. I will use a digital pen to take notes and record group conversations.

B. I will administer a short survey after the brainstorming task to have students reflect about the success of their group to accomplish the task.

Survey Questions

  1. Was your group successful in completing the task?
  2. What do you think made your group successful or not successful in completing the task?
  3. Did you try to ask a question to each member of the group?
  4. Which of the following is true for you?
    I talked more than I listened to others.
    I listened to others more than I talked to others.
  5. What would you have changed about your group to make it better/more effective?

Results/Analysis

Observation & Survey Occurred on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 8:30 a.m. – 9:20 a.m.

Profile of Group Members
Student1 / Male / Native Speaker of English
Student2 / Male / Native Speaker of English
Student3 / Female / Native Speaker of English
Student4 / Male / Non-native Speaker of English
Student5 / Male / Non-native Speaker of English
Student6 / Male / Non-native Speaker of English

Greg (Student 1)
Charles (Student 2)
Dino (Student 3)
Flora (Student 4)
Tekle (Student 5)
Daddy (Student 6)

Observation

I observed the interactions of 6 students: 5 males and 1 female. Three members were native speakers and 3 members were non-native speakers of English.

Student 1, a native speaker, started the conversation and decided to focus on his particular topic first. I was anticipating that this would probably happen. The student is used to voicing his feelings, doesn’t wait and contemplate before commenting and often dominates classroom conversation or attention. None of the students made any protest about his going first. I’m wondering if they are simply used to this happening or if they really desire to have an opportunity to initialize conversation before he does. I was expecting that there would be a lot more eye contact with the speaker; however, many of the members seemed to either simply look straight ahead or down at the table. Student 1 spends nearly four minutes talking about his idea. Student 2, who seems a little agitated about the length of his talk, stops Student 1 by advising him that the second topic which Student 1 suggested is too far off topic because it doesn’t relate to the content of the class. Student 1 immediately concedes. None of the other students react and Student 2 begins describing his topic. Student 2 is upset because he took his laptop into a shop to be repaired but he has been unable to get his laptop back because he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the repairs that were made. It seems like it is hard for the non-native speakers to understand what he is saying. Student 1 voices some words of compassion and then Student 6 starts talking about his computer problem. He says that he is having problems with Facebook loading photos onto his computer. His English is heavily accented so students have to ask him to repeat his sentences, but they manage to grasp the issue.All of the students then try to begin to troubleshoot the problem. (The goal of the group task gets sidetracked.) Student 3 then starts talking about the problems he is having with his computer. It keeps running scans all of the time. It sounds as if he has a malware problem. He starts talking about having taken the computer to the repair shop. He doesn’t tell them what to fix, but to simply fix it. This is the first time Student 5 attempts to speak. He comments on the difference between a computer error and a user error. Student 5 emphasizes that Student 3 may have created the problem himself because he didn’t tell the repair shop what to fix and, therefore, had no way of knowing what the problem really was and whether or not he was being charged for unnecessary work. This comment seemed to engender more attention and reaction by the members, which could be seen through body language and eye contact among one another and with the speaker. This leads to Student 4, who warned about scams, and then who began describing her problems. Student 4 says that her main problem is a cash problem; she doesn’t have Internet at home. It’s unclear what she is going to make the topic of her presentation. She talks about setting a budget. Student 1 then starts talking again but Student 5 stops him because it is his turn to speak. Student 5 starts by talking about how he learned about the I-BEST IT program. He reports how he was completely lost at first and how he eventually learned how to be a successful learner. Student 5 said that he had a student who is skilled in IT help him do the exercises. However, when Student 5 took the quizzes, he failed them. Finally, he said that he realized that he needed to take the time to do the reading on his own. He started to be successful on his quizzes. He emphasized that he needed to practice and practice. He realized that he needed to complete his assignments early so that he could gain time and be ready to take on new work and quizzes.

Student 2 is showing his impatience and says that they are done. (No one has written the presentation topics on the board.)

Student 1 says that it is important to study together and that they can often learn better and understand more by working with their peers. “It helps if I can help someone else.”

Student 4 says, “What good is education if you can’t share it?”

You can see that Student 2 and Student 6 are not engaged in the group conversation.

Dan, the instructor, hands a marker to the group gesturing that they need to write their presentation topics on the whiteboard. Student 2 takes the marker and begins to write. Each student then takes a turn to write his/her topic on the whiteboard.

Student 2 /
  1. Losing my laptop
  2. Not having a computer

Student 4 /
  1. Updating my laptop
  2. Walking through

Student 5 /
  1. Challenge in my assignments
  2. Relating to other students

Student 1 /
  1. How I was able to fix my sister’s computer
  2. Working together

Student 6 /
  1. Why do so many pictures from FaceBook remain on the host computer?
  2. Why do the programs run so slowly on my computer?

Student 3 /
  1. I inherited by daughter’s computer.
  2. I have a new keyboard.

Dan, the instructor, then takes over and reviews the topic choices. He discusses how the topics might be refocused to emphasize a main idea and what could be learned or of interest to their audience.

  • Irritated that the conversation seemed unfocused and lengthy
  • There was dialogue but it often seemed to focus on complaining about a problem rather than thinking of whether or not-- or how-- the problem might be developed into a classroom presentation and relevant to other students.
  • Delighted to see some real honest exchanges and discovery by students of their interactions with one another, e.g. Student 5 stated that he was a new student and didn’t anything about computers on his first day of class; he said that he thought his classmates would help him but that Student 2 did not offer any help when asked. I’m not sure that Student 2 really picked up on the bad feeling that resulted in his reaction; however, Student 6 now felt free to express his feelings openly.
  • I am unsure whether or not I should share the survey results with students. Student 1 seems to understand that he does the most talking. He says that he does so because he feels that he is helping others through his comments. If I show him that everyone else marked that they listened more than they talked, would he react negatively and be defensive or would he see it as something that he needs to change and work on?
  • Dilemma: The students are showing a co-construction of knowledge, but it was a lengthy process and the quality of the product is questionable.

The students did finally achieve the task of having to come up with two possible presentation topics for each student. I’m not sure that they were really thinking about how the topic might be of interest to other classmates. Once they actually try to start creating a presentation, some of the students are going to have problems developing them into a concise and meaningful presentation.

Note: At the end of the quarter all of the students except one gave an oral presentation in the ITC 140 Hardware class. Student 2 had prepared a PowerPoint presentation, but it had no organizational scheme or main idea. Student 4 completed a PowerPoint. It is clear that this student has had a lot of experience with public speaking. The student was inspiring and the student had the attention of the audience; however, I worry about the student’s ability to research, organize, and report on a topic about which the student is unfamiliar. Student 5 did an excellent job in relating personal challenges and how what has been learned in class is applied in practical and real situations. At first I was unsure about the presentation that had been prepared because the student hadn’t related it to any technology topic. The student almost didn’t give the presentation because of my comments. However, after the student listened to some of the other presentations, the student gained confidence; the presentation was on topic just as much as any of the other presentations were. Student 1 was having trouble developing a PowerPoint presentation. However, the student was encouraged to go ahead and give it. Again, it was evident that the student had a lot of experience speaking in public and he had the attention of his audience. However, I worry about the student’s ability to research, organize, and report on a topic about which the student is unfamiliar. Student 6 hadn’t prepared, but was encouraged to speak in front of the class. The students were interested in the student’s personal history and the student did fine, but there was no evidence once again of the student’s ability to organize, research, and present about an unfamiliar topic.

The content instructor wasn’t concerned about the topic of the presentations; the content teacher’s goal was to encourage students to have the confidence to speak in front of a group of their peers. The students accomplished that outcome and spoke from their hearts.

Student Survey Results (Survey was administered via the Angel online course management system immediately after the students had finished their co-construction of learning activity.)