The ROLKIDS - Commentary (Simona Kajtazova)

Reflection about the presentation of the group "LOS ROLKIDS":

In this reflection I will be commenting on the presentation of LOS ROLKIDS. I will attempt to answer the following questions:

·      What was the presentation about?

·      What have I learned from the presentation that I didn't know before?

At first, the group presented their PLAN that consisted of the micro tasks and their objectives. The only thing missing were the personal commitments. They did very well explain what is important for cooperative learning groups, for example:

"Pay attention to everyone."

"You can only learn with a different person."

During the presentation our professor explained us two important things concerning the number of the members a base group can have, and their distribution in the classroom. She told us, that there could only be a maximum of 5 persons in a base group. Furthermore, she explained that regarding the distribution of the classroom, the images we saw in the article are not quite correct, because it is better to place the tables of each group diagonally, to ensure a better movement through the class for the professor (this shall also be applied in expert groups). Later, the group presented us some advantages and difficulties of how to put in practise cooperative learning. For instance, nowadays a lot of schools try to apply cooperative learning in their classes, which not always works out because there is a lack of knowledge of how to do it correctly. Moreover, our professor pointed out the significance of a educators behaviour in the classroom:

"Never interrupt a talking child!"

"Teacher-centred teaching should be reduced, there are always kids that can't follow or don't understand the content discussed!"

The group was also talking about "Peer-Tutoring", a technique that is used for cooperative learning. I really liked how they explained it; they made the idea very clear. I learned that when a teacher wants to work with this strategy, he must carefully consider, which student will be the "tutor" and which one the "pupil". That means he has to know his kids to be able to give them the roles. To demonstrate that each one of the class is important, the pupils have to switch their roles. Relating to another technique named "Group-Investigation", I have learned that when it comes to the creation of the group, the students can choose themselves who they want to work with; therefore they can be less heterogeneous. At the end of the presentation we have seen the website "Webquest", a cooperative learning resource where teachers can design their lessons. The group also created sessions for maths with this program and consequently demonstrated very well how to work with it.