Act. 1 - Reflections about other groups (Nacho)

About Fernweh

I think all the class has learnt some key points about cooperative learning thanks to Fernweh. First of all that in cooperative learning all the members must be equaled involved in the work and the group has to do face to face meetings to develop the task as well as links between the members. In this sense a schedule it’s necessary to fix meetings. 

With their presentation, as well as with ours, I have realized that a “dress rehearsal” is good to do a better performance and would help people that get nervous about talking in public to overcome that fear.

There have been a couple of things I have liked a lot. First, the blanket activity they did the first day: engaging, difficult, encouraging and useful to realize how important can be cooperative work to solve a real problem. Second, they use their own web design with many little details that make the difference. For example, the Fernweh logo is everywhere so you know that’s their job. Good point.

What about the activity?

I liked the activity and think is good to remember to use it when we became teachers. in fact I keep the sheet they gave us. Thank you Fernweh and GOOD PERFORMANCE!!

About Travelchers

Good point to show the video of The Lion King Musical to show how important is cooperation work in real world, not only in school or university environment – this engage me to the presentation.

New for me it has been the Apps to create and manage groups that can help us as future teachers – I have learnt this. Also I have liked the nice pictures they have used to represent the roles, good as visual tool. In this sense I must say that I liked the power point in the way they used: accurate information and not too much in my opinion.

Finally, I have found very encouraging the philosophy they want to share with the students that they have resumed in a group motto: Let’s go for it! – This can engage and encourage students to achieve their goals.

Would I change anything in the activity?

First, I must say that I found the activity engaging and challenging – It shows me that they thought quite a lot about what to do and I appreciate that very much.

Unfortunately the task was a too difficult in the way they presented it and was hard to do it properly but, as the teacher said, small changes can make the difference and turn the activity in a successful one. I think all the people learnt that and this is the point of this subject. Just to summarize, I write down some suggestions that were said that day in order to improve about activities:

1.      Write instructions in the blackboard

2.      Don’t hide the picture of the model so students can see if they are doing it well

3.      Help students if they get stuck in the process

At any case, it was a great presentation that reflects clearly that they have worked hard and done it together. 

WELL DONE TRAVELCHERS!!!!

About Education League

First of all I must say that I like very much the idea of superheroes that fight for a better education, great!!

With their presentation I learnt that the personal goals to achieve must be significant to the person, it is important to take five minutes to think about it to fix something challenging and encouraging. About the journal of sessions, it must be done cooperatively with the contributions of all members attending to the meetings although just one person writes it down.

About difficulties that can arise it’s good to change our perspective and consider them not problems but challenges to the classroom or risks to be avoided by teacher’s work.

And if we, as teachers, want to do a competition it’s important to fix different goals for teams and persons that let everybody improve.

What about the activity?

I liked very much the activity about acrosport that they presented because I didn`t know anything about this and learnt what is about. I only suggest to Education League that remember to put the instructions of the activity in the blackboard available to be read at any moment. 

WELL DONE SUPERHEROS!!

About Othersiders

I consider that Othersiders have done a great work explaining some concepts deeply and in an understandable way, good for them. For example they talk quite a lot about the importance of cooperative learning in the XXI century world, philosophy of this way of learning, the classroom distribution to let teacher and students move freely, the importance of the rules and roles of students and the hard job a teacher must achieve to implement cooperative learning in a children classroom but it worth it.

What about the activity?

Good and challenging activity. Thanks to Othersiders we have learnt what exactly TGT–Teams-Games Tournament is and have practiced it learning about the eye in the way. Good to remember that you can put a chronometer in the blackboard if you are challenging your students to do a task as fast as they can or give them a certain amount of time to finish something. 

GREAT OTHERSIDERS!!

About Los Gochos

What to say… Great job!! I have learnt many interesting things and I`m waiting to see their presentation again.

New things for me: “the haka for learning”, the song or shout they did to engage the members of the group to the learning experience – It remember to me the Haka that the New Zealand rugby team performance before the matches to get the players fully engage with the play. We can use it in classroom so students can feel they are ready to learn.

Also they explained the teachers’ role very good and the importance of classroom organization not only to let people move freely but to have places for teams material. Los Gochos remember us the importance of explain to students the assessment methodology before they start to work because they should know how the process is going to be to focus in the important things.

What about the activity?

The activity looked very interesting (and difficult) – we will see when we’ll do it – but apparently was a fine work.

They used for their activity the ‘jigsaw’ technique and something called ‘pencil technique’ in the experts groups with which all the experts get the same knowledge to share with their peers in the base groups. With this technique the learning process is fairer and all the people learn the same. I think our group is going to use this in our ‘jigsaw’ activity. Thank you Los Gochos (jejeje) and...

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Nacho Franco Matamala