Collabo Doo Wop

So after a few long years of teaching, I am planning on integrating all--or as much as possible--of the progressive line of thinking/teaching into my Civics classes. This title--heretofore CDW--will serve as my planning zone. The first thing that I have been thinking about are some rules/practices I found for a successful group learning activity. Rules such as make eye contact, don't use negative body language, disagree agreeably, communicate your ideas effectively and so forth.

And I admit that I have taken these skills for granted. I don't remember ever "learning" these in class. I think that I acquired these from my folks and the other folks around me. But for whatever reason--and the absence of effective parenting is probably the biggest--these skills are not present in many of our students. So I'm willing to go back to square one. I've always been skeptical of the notion that teaching kids to think/understand without some base of core knowledge can be successful--and certainly there is little time to work with both of these concepts. But I'm feeling more and more conviction that that's what I get *ahem* paid for, so as Matusow might say, "I'm all in."

An issue for a later debate is what to do with students like me. I'm really not a fan of group work. I always opt out of group projects in favor of solo work if allowed. I am able and enjoy learning on my own. So do we force those students to perform just as well in a group setting?

dt