Group Work

"In mathematics what you want is to use the group to strengthen the effectiveness of what is going on inside your head. To challenge yourself and to extend what you do. Essentially at the end of the day what goes on inside your head is what matters. It is an individual world. It is a mental world. It is my mental world, I have to operate it".

Group Working Skills

  • Listening

  • Asking questions - making sense of your own understanding

  • Explaining by telling how and why

  • Helping others - by responding to their needs

  • Helping others - to do things for themselves

  • Sharing knowledge and reasoning

  • Finding out what others think - asking for, listening to and making sense of their ideas

  • Reflecting on and making use of what has been said

  • Being concise - communicating thinking

  • Giving reasons for ideas - communicating reasoning

  • Allowing everyone to contribute

  • Pulling ideas together - sharing, listening, valuing all contributions

  • Finding out if the group is ready to make a decision - consensus making.

Guidelines for Group Work

Fran Wilson gave an excellent presentation at the Suffolk HoDs conference on the use of Group work in the Maths classroom, she explained how her belief is that Maths can be taught successfully in mixed ability classes, exclusively using Group Work.  She has successfully achieved excellent results where KS3 is mixed ability and KS4 is mixed ability within the Higher of Foundation Tier. 

Outline Presentation

Fraction Resource 1

Fraction Resource 2

Views PowerPoint

 

Mathematics instructors who have used group work in their classrooms know that carefully designed assignments and strong individual efforts by students are necessary, but not sufficient, to guarantee a successful activity. Students also need to develop the social skills that support productive mathematical work with peers. To help with this, I give my students a set of guidelines acquainting them with their rights and responsibilities during small group work - To download the complete document in word format Click here

 

Group Roles
 

To be successful it is important to allocate roles to each student - some suggested ones for groups of 4 are - Original      Simplified      

For groups of 3 I have put the following together (Page 1 is the 3 roles and the other pages are in case you want to print the roles onto different coloured card) - Click here
 

Possible Activities

 

NRICH Activities Maths Mysteries Sorting Activities Odd One Out
Contextual Problems Problem Solving Jigsaw Activities Practical Problems
Memory Maps Fermi Problems Investigations Projects
Taboo Cards Collective Memory    

 

Mathematical Relays

 

Relay 1 Relay 2 Relay 3 Relay 4
Relay 5 Relay 6 Relay 7  
Easter Relay Halloween Relay Christmas Relay  

 

Books
The Elephant in the Classroom - Chapter 1 Download    To buy Book

 

We Can Work it Out - by ATM aimed at Levels 4-5

Collaborative Problem Solving in the Mathematics Classroom
This spiral bound photocopiable book contains 25 sets of group problem-solving cards. Each set of cards contains the clues needed to solve a problem as well as some 'red herrings'. It is intended they should be shared out between a small group of children who have to share their clues verbally and solve the problem together.


Mathematical Team Games - by Tarquin - 1 899618 56 2 - Vivien Lucas
Each player only gets some of the information and so all must play a part in arriving at a solution. Sixteen tried and tested team games are provided in photocopiable form

 

The UKMT Maths Team Challenges are lively, intriguing papers designed to stimulate interest in maths in large numbers of pupils. They are tests of reasoning and mental agility which can be taken without any special preparation or revision. The three levels cover the secondary school range 11-18 and together they attract over 600,000 entries from over 4500 schools and colleges.  - Click here

Survivor

Based on the TV show, Survivor, it’s basically just a twist on collaborative learning… a FUN twist!  I’ll tell you the official rules of the game in a minute, but let me explain my motivation first…

If I just stand there and lecture, the students will get bored.  Also, as you know, math always looks easy when someone else is doing it, so they sit there and think it’s easy.  They don’t think they have to do any homework.  They fail. 

To download the complete document in word format click here

Boys and Girls in Group Work

This paper is a report of work-in-progress on the first stage of an ethnographic study of students' experiences of collaborative learning in secondary mathematics classrooms. One aim of the study was to investigate the interaction of student gender and the social construction of mathematical competence in collaborative learning contexts. Students working in small groups on investigative activities were observed and videotaped, and key informants interviewed. One approach to analysing student-student interactions was to identify the discourses circulating in the classroom and the subject positions taken up by the students. This helped to throw light on some of the ways in which power is exercised within small groups of students working independently of the teacher.

To download the complete document in word format click here