21st Century Teaching and Learning: Group Management and Facilitation

21st Century Teaching and Learning






Before we talk about integrating the 4C's into our lessons, we need to know about group management.

GROUP MANAGEMENT

Since students are seated in groups, it makes sense that teachers should equip themselves with group management and facilitation.

GROUP STRUCTURE




Introduce the table group and its members to students.  The person sitting next to him is the shoulder partner and the person opposite is the face partner.  This is important for group work when the teacher wants the students to share with their shoulder partner or the face partner or the table group.

ROLE TAGS
These role tags help students to play a role in the team and to ensure that no students are bullied into presenting or doing a certain work all the time.  Rotate the roles every now and then.
 I prefer to use Material Manager, Presenter, Reporter,  and Timekeeper.

THE QUIET SIGNAL

The teacher raises a hand and say a word to attract students' attention.  I like to say 'Hi Five' and students know it means; eyes looking at teacher, hands stop working, ears listening, mouth stop talking and body turned towards teacher.  The student will also respond by saying 'Hi Five'.  Do not put down your hands till everyone is ready and listening.  Give your instructions.

FEEDBACK SIGNALS


These signals are important as students are seated in groups and it gives feedback to teacher or as a form of formative assessment.  How do I use the traffic lights?  After giving instructions for a certain task, ask students to show whether they understand by using the traffic lights.

TRAFFIC LIGHTS

Some creative traffic lights.

THUMB SIGNALS

THE PARKING LOT

 This is a place where students post their questions. One is a poster with "Post your questions here....."  
 You can place a container or box below the sign and students can write on scraps of recycled paper and place their questions into the box.

Here are some creative parking lots by my coachees at Batang Padang.

This is what I put into my toolkit for each group:

Seating arrangement

According to the experts, 21st century classroom design should have 3 elements; the campfire (where students learn from an expert), the watering hole (where students work with others) and the cave (where students take time out to be alone, sudut santai).  With our large number of students in a class, it is almost impossible to find a place for every element.  Thus, I prefer to put students in groups of four for maximum participation.  Slanting the table groups help in creating more space for students to walk around.

Thanks to all my coachees and their friends who are so creative and able to adapt very quickly.