Group work in Year 7

[BoboChic]

Can you tell me how your school manages group work in Year 7? Who chooses who works with whom, the teacher or the pupils? Do the pupils work at school or are they expected to do the preparation at home? How much lead time do they get if they need to arrange group meetings at home?

And do your DC have to do presentations on PowerPoint? And, if so, have they received PowerPoint training?

This is a bit old as DD just left but:

At DD's school they tended to put themselves into groups (DD often got left out when they quickly did that which was awkward for her). They only did group work in class, but sometimes divided up bits between them to be done as homework.

Powerpoint was covered in ICT lessons, but had also been covered at primary so DD was quite competent already.

Thanks!

The DC have received PP training at primary (or at least most of them have) but that is technical training, not how you manage the effective presentation of information and ideas in between slides and voiceover (which is, in my humble management consultant experience, a very difficult skill to master, even for adults!).

DD's teacher decided on a group of four DC. Unfortunately they all live miles apart and have different EC activities which meant that the logistics of getting them together, at home, was very hard to manage. And they badly needed a lot of supervision to cope with PP.

Just wondering whether to ask the teacher to manage this a bit better in future!

Weren't they supposed to work on the ppt at school not home?

Our students use google docs, which means they can all work together while not actually together, and I can see who has done what and when.

No.

That sounds like a good idea, TheFallenMadonna. One boy didn't show for the group meeting at our home today and won't, in fact, have made any contribution at all to the presentation...

I would never expect a group to work on a PP out of school as logistically how would it work - I would never assume they all have Internet access at home reliably.

I disagree they need training on PowerPoint though - doing the work is the training! Believe me, I don't expect slick from Y7!

They are all supposed to have a computer and internet access and a color printer but in reality it doesn't seem they do. We have abundant technology and also live a stone's throw from school, with no siblings at home any longer, which means of course that it is ideal for groups to work here. Not that that means I particularly want to host them regularly...

I think if you are asking students to do presentations, giving them some guidance on how to actually present is pretty important. Otherwise why not do a different activity?

Well, exactly, TheFallenMadonna. I'm not personally a fan of just leaving them to guess their way through - hence volunteering (more or less - I couldn't really see any other viable option) to supervise this exercise and show them what a PP presentation ought to look like, where to put the notes, divide up the speaking parts. They managed to write some quite convincing illustrative vignettes that were pertinent illustrations of the main points but, tbh, if I hadn't sorted out both the technical side and the plan, they would have spent lots of time getting nowhere.

Think this is quite normal tbh. Dd is now year 8 and has had maybe 5 group presentations to prepare. It's always a complete nightmare - twice the same girl has messed up the IT side of things, it always seems to be the same dc doing the majority of the work and I'm not convinced the hassle is worth the learning outcome! I'm happy for it to happen in school, but dds are always to be completed outside school... grrrr....

Oh, thanks for sharing another tale of mismanaged group presentations! Makes me feel better!

I actually believe, deeply and profoundly, that the preparation of group presentations is an incredibly useful skill to master. However, I am beginning to realise that the skills I was (a) taught (b) practised intensively when I worked in consultancy are not even remotely mastered by the teacher who has set this particular homework. I expect she has no idea as to what she wants out of it so it will all be a bit of a learning curve.

I think it depends on the teacher as to whether they groups are picked or chosen. we have had both. Most kids seem proficient in PowerPoint, and I think the actual presentation will help hone presentation skills over the years. teachers usually give some idea of content required. the DCs usually split the work between them and each cover a certain topic/issue etc and do their own slide/s which they then combine to form the final presentation. They usually get together at school in the library for initial discussion, and finalisation, either break/lunch or after school. I think the whole process is an important learning skill - learning to work with others some of whom you would rather not have to work with is important for later life.

PP was covered in primary. With group work my kids use Skype, staying after school or dividing the task (slides in your case).Unfortunately the last option ends up with an inevitable unequal division of labour.

Yes, indeed. It was all a bit unequal as one group member did absolutely nothing. His mother, when she found out, accused the other group members of excluding him. No matey :) your son did not join in. Big difference!

Usually teacher picks here.

Then work is organised as Seeline outlines. My DD2 loves pp though so quite often happily puts together and jazzes up the presentation with content input from everyone. She cannot spell, so proof reading is the preserve of others.

Powerpoint was covered at primary school and more now in ICT classes.

I would be wary of interfering. They are y8 schoolkids trying things out, not trainee management consultants - I am glad mine don't involve me as I would find it endlessly frustrating.

I often show this meme to my classes. They recognise themselves...

Oh well, DD's group did a bit better than your meme. I would say that, between the four of them, the work was shared 50:30:20:0.