Student Contributor: R Markofski
This tool is used to pick students in their pods/table groups randomly and assign them roles to prevent any arguments and ensure effective collaboration.
To use this tool you will need popsicle sticks with every students names written on them. After this we assign roles to our students’ table groups, so when they are called upon they understand the role of each student in the group. The roles we used were Reporter (The reporters role is to report what the group discussed and wrote down when the teacher calls on the group) and scribe (The scribe’s job is to write everything down for the group). This tool is used to not only create a sense of fate so students don’t feel singled out for getting called on, but it also serves as a preventative tool that prevents the students from arguing about who is doing what for the group. We overall had a positive experience with this tool in the classroom students enjoyed being a part of a team and learned from each other during the collaboration of this tool.
I placed this tool in the preventative phase because this tool mediates our students ahead of time for future conflicts. For example, we were having students arguing over who out of their table group should get to share out to the teacher. This resulted in the students not being respectful to each other. To prevent more arguing in the future we created a response that allowed for randomness to chose the roles. This fits slightly into the supportive phase as well by giving them a chance to cooperate and learn from their peers. I chose the theory of influence as Teacher Directed & Collaborative because the process of choosing the roles is teacher directed by pulling the popsicle sticks. Although the rest of the tool fits into student directed and collaborative because the students are set free to work together in their new found roles.
More Information –
Tool Source: I was inspired by the Avid strategy talking heads
