Managing Group Work

RANI KALEMUTHU
OF
SK SIMPANG AMPAT
Seminar Pendidikan Perlis 2016
MAKING GROUPWORK IN LARGE
CLASSROOM EFFECTIVE AND MANAGEABLE

One of the unavoidable realities of
working in a large school such as
A-Graded School is teaching
LARGE classes.
Tight classroom space definitely
would not allow for quick triads or
quad grouping activities.

1. My central concern in my
teaching practice is to keep
my pupils engaged and well-
managed during the lesson.
2. Achieve my teaching goals
and the learning objectives
within the given time.
3. Motivated towards pupils’
attentiveness.

1. Most of my classes are in the low 30s, even up to 40 students . My
challenge is simply that in my larger classes, I cannot monitor
behaviour as effectively as I can in smaller classes.
2. During work time, I feel alright with the conversational volume that
comes with collaboration, but I get so frustrated with students wasting
work time. It seems that the more I assist students who need help, the
more other students take advantage of my diverted attention.
3. I admit the fact that presenting and discussing a unit's learning
objectives may have taken 20 minutes with that smaller class
previously, and probably takes twice as long with this larger group.
Also, I was lamenting over the days when I could whip around the room
and spend a few quality moments with each student or group, or when I
could offer immediate and thorough support.

The first measure was to keep that large number of pupils talking and being
listened to because I knew that I have less one-on-one time individual pupil
with the given one hour time .I do ‘turn and talk frequently.
Applying a strategy in checking for understanding.
Letting the pupils fully occupied by letting them to be convenient with
academic noises via fun learning activities.

ACTION PLAN TARGET GROUP
Year Three pupils
35 pupils [26 High Proficiency Pupils &
9 Average Proficiency Pupils]

1. I let that large number of pupils talking and being listened to because I knew
that I have less one-on-one time individual pupil with the given one hour time
.I do ‘turn and talk frequently .I made them to be able to talk even for just 30
seconds.
Hot Seat Games
•Break the class into 2 teams.
•Place a chair next to the board, facing the
class.
•Students from each team rotate turns
sitting in the chair.
•Write a vocabulary word behind the
student that they cannot see.
•Each team has 20 seconds to elicit the
word written on the board from their
teammate sitting in the hot seat.
•They can only speak English. If they
speak their native tongue, erase a point
from their score.

Ice- breaking Games
Game 1——–
A perfect game for the first day of school.
Break the class into 4 to 5 teams.
Recite a short story about yourself listing 15 to 20 facts about where you’re from, your
hobbies, etc
After you recite the story, ask the class questions about specifics from your story.
The team who answers the most questions correctly wins.
Game 2——-
Tell the class a few facts about yourself.
Stuff like… Name, where you’re from, hobbies, birthday, expectations for the semester.
Then, give the class 10 to 15 minutes to write their own. Model it before assigning them .
.[Set the ground rules and let the pupils do the talking. ]
Collect the student’s papers and drop them in a hat.
Randomly draw the student’s fact sheets.
Ask the students to come to the front of class and read their list aloud.
This game is good for advanced students.

FASHION AND STYLE GAMES
•Teach the class different styles and fashion for men and women.
Goatee, beard, earrings, braids, ponytail, makeup, tank-top, t-shirt, ice
skates, high heels, etc.
•Break the class into 2 to 4 teams.
•Students from each team take turns coming to the front of class to draw on
the board.
•Describe a person that the student must draw (“Draw a man with a spiked
hair and beard, wearing a jacket, jeans and roller skates.” etc.)
•Each article of style and fashion that the student correctly draws earns
their team a point.

Break the class into 2 teams, each team forms a line to the
whiteboard.
The first student in line writes a word. The next student in line
writes a word that begins with the last letter of the previous
word.
Turtle, elephant, turn, neighbour, read, draw, … until every
student from a particular team has written a word.
Make the game difficult by changing the variables (4-letter
words only, nouns only, 5-letter words only, etc.)
* You can make your student/pupils build the word according
to the topic provided

APPLYING A STRATEGY IN CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING
BY........................
1. Thumbs up or thumbs down
2. Traffic light signal strategy to show whether they “Confused” [by showing
yellow signal], or “Do not understand” [by showing red signal] or “Got
it”[by showing green signal].* These are the Quick formative assessment
.I will rotate my focus every few days to 5 or 6 different students.
3. Parking lot system learning where the pupils in the group write a note to
reflect their feelings towards the day’s lesson and give ideas to make
them more satisfied for the next lesson. This was considered an open-
ended survey where I could find out my accomplishments, challenges
and interests.
4. Presentation in groups such as parallel writing using word cues.

21st Century
elements
Parking
Lot
Reward for the best
students of the Day &
Groupwork Rewards Jar

Hot seat

STORY LINES ON CLOTH- LINES
STORY LINES ON CLOTH- LINES
1. Pps Sing a preposition song.
2. Teacher tells a story of Where is Spot ?
3. Then after the pps knew the story , each of them will prepare a
picture with a sentence focusing on the locations of Dot .[The
children will create their own places/location to state other animals
instead of Dot . Finally , one person will be chosen as a final writer
to state where Dot is.
4. Teacher gets all of them hang the picture cards on the cloth lines
prepared .
Enrichment : Each pupil draws his/her favourite picture and paste on the
board . Later , teacher gets everyone to make a story . One person
becomes a scribe.

Story Writing
•Write the first letter to a story at the top left of the board.
•Each student must contribute one word to the story, in order.
•Make a zig-zag pattern through the class until every student has said one word.
•Write the word they say next in the story. The sentences must have correct
grammar.[past/present tense]
•Example: Write “The” to start the story. Point to the first student in the front row.
They say, “cow” then the next student says, “runs”, …
•The story will end up as something ridiculous.
•“The cow runs fast and eats bananas while jumping over a duck in the tree. A girl
eats fish every day and she is fat. I like to play guitar with my friend and we go to the
mall every Saturday.”
•Have the students read the story aloud once it is finished. They will all laugh
because it won’t make any sense.

1. The pupils had a much better understanding of the Win-Win
situation concept while working in the group. The peers made the group
members to be prepared to struggle towards victory in all tasks provided.
The high proficiency pupils had been always guiding the members to
read and sharing their knowledge all the time. I noticed this when this
group of members achieved similar or nearly rounded-off marks in their
summative test and spelling test done recently in April 2016.
2. The pupils were attentive and fully engaged with the activities
given. After this process, I noticed that I can run my less activities
with tremendous outcomes of good doers rather than providing
many tasks without any possible feedback.
By giving up these managerial tasks, now I have more time free to
spare with a child who has been absent a lot, add a step to an
assignment for that advanced student, crack a joke with the quiet one
who avoids others, or pose a strategic inquiry question to the whole
class.

3. The pupils were made to be good thinkers and lovers of the
lesson. I made my lesson filled with varied fun learning activities
every day after the two months of the trial.
The reflections that were derived from the parking lot system had
greatly driven me to come out with good activities upon their
expectations. They felt happy when I took and applied the ideas
they suggested in the class’ parking lot.
Besides that, I have made sure the pupils were in comfort zone of
learning through choosing their next working members . They were
be able to adapt to new groups all the time .
Other teachers felt the pupils in the classroom became more matured
and manageable .

CONCLUSIONS
 Trying more effective ways of managing the large
classroom absolutely addressed my central
concern about my teaching.
 Undoubtedly, those measures that were mentioned
have improved my teaching methodology and
relieved me of my fear of managing large
classroom effectively.
 This study benefited my pupils, me and
my colleagues where it illustrated the effective
environment of learning to roam when our door
suddenly swings open to visitors from the district,
let them get an eye full of engaged, enthusiastic
learners!

Thank you for
your kind
attention !

Managing Group Work

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Managing Group Work