Interesting and totally correct observation !
Over my 35+ years of teaching, I discovered that once a week "random seating" is an excellent and useful tactic.
In fact, I programmed my TI-84 calculator to display a random seating each Monday, at the beginning of a week.
The students enjoyed the lottery style event. Sometimes they were seated with their best friends, other times not.
Students of this age naturally "cligue up" if you allow it. But this does
not serve a best learning environment.
If you are interested in my TI-84 random seating program, please visit my website first... I am retired recently.
Taught rigorous Prep School/AP/IB maths for the last 15 years.
My COVID defined recent year's effort was to create professionally the 3,400 flashcards I had
hand-made for HS topics.
I have also set up a booth at a few recent conferences (at considerable expense) but have had very positive reactions.
The HS topic flash cards are awesome, and effective.
Please check out my site Mathwizflashcards,com
info@mathwizflashcards.comrickswenson2@gmail.com------------------------------
Rick Swenson
Green Valley AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-31-2022 10:45:20
From: Kathryn Kozak
Subject: IMPACT in Action - Group Collaboration
In the past I just let students pick their own groups, but now I have randomly assigned them to groups. This does two things. One it makes the students work with others and it also makes the students get up and move around the classroom. I use the group feature in Canvas that randomly assigns the students. However, in Peter Liljadahl's book he says that the students should see the random process. Does letting Canvas randomly assign the groups, and letting the students see it do that, does that meet the idea of a random process?
I really like creating random groups now and will continue this process for now on. There are times when the groups don't work well, but in most cases the groups work well together. I don't do what Chris does of assigning roles to the group members. Maybe I will try that in the fall.
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Kathryn Kozak
Instructor
Coconino CC
Flagstaff AZ
Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2022 09:34:45
From: Chris Oehrlein
Subject: IMPACT in Action - Group Collaboration
At least for the first 1/3 of the term or so, assigning and rotating defined roles help establish norms and expectations for a collaborative dynamic. Once students are comfortable with the procedure, they tend to assume and rotate the roles for the rest of the term.
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Chris Oehrlein
Oklahoma City CC
Oklahoma City OK
Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:29:53
From: Shannon Ruth
Subject: IMPACT in Action - Group Collaboration
There are many ways for us to engage with our students, but it is also important to provide ways for students to interact with one another. How do you encourage and foster group collaboration in your classroom? How do you intentionally create teams of students for group activities?
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Shannon Ruth
Mathematics Faculty
GateWay CC
Phoenix AZ
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