hw 1 sep 2-3 ibdp

Sep 3

Reflections on discussions of education

What/so what/now what

On September 1, all 60 IBDP/MYP students participated in a group discussion activity. Each of us was given a small rectangular piece of paper whose color was chosen from 12 different colors. Then according to colors we grouped together. Thus there were 5 members in each group. In each group, members were assigned with numbers from 1 to 5; based on the number, members were assigned with different roles. For example, all students with number 1 became the group leader who was responsible to manage the discussion; number 2 students were the recorders who were in charge of recording what was discussed; for number 3 students, observation was the role (maybe to observe each members’ behavior? The problem here was that this role was not clearly defined, at least from my perspective); number students were the presenters of groups who would present the discussion results at the end of the discussion; number 5 students were given the role to summarize and submit the results in words one day later. One interesting design of the discussion was that members in each group were not fixed. For instance, after a discussion, number 3 and 4 of group white should go to, group yellow for example, and number 3 and 4 of group yellow would go to ANOTHER group. Because of time limitation we did not change members thoroughly.

From my perspective, these arrangements-----group color, numbering the members, and switch team members----are smart arrangements for students to break through the feelings of unfamiliarity so that they are FORCED to communicate with people they used to communicate with. Let’s see some other group designs: (a) teachers let students freely group together; or (b) teachers assign each student to a planned group; or (c) a mixed design of (a) and (b) that after (a) teachers may adjust the group members. It may be clear, compare to (b) and (c), that students may not reject the grouping method we used in class as the teacher creates a protocol that everyone must obey; this method is also better than (a) as it creates communication opportunities for students who are not familiar with; meanwhile, it can also be seen as a small game in class that can make students enthusiastic about the class; what’s more, when students are switched among groups, they actually are sharing different opinions or perspectives on one topic.

This discussion design is good for