LIS 568: Squad Goals
Hi, World,
I just spent the past half hour building groups for a class project I'm about to begin, and oh my goodness, would I ever like to get that time back. I think that perhaps there are plenty of moments, such as this one, when grouping students becomes a task and a half-- if, say, they are about to spend the better portion of a unit in the group, for example, and there are many clashing personalities in the class of fewer than 20 students. However, there are also many instances in which I just need to get out of my head and shake up the way I put groups together.
Enter grouping apps.
Apparently, there are many of these out there, and they are something that I, once upon a time, may have balked at. Don't I know best?
Well, yeah, I do, but if I want my students to get the most out of their experience in my class, and if I want them to be placed together in the way that most avoids my personal assumptions or biases, enter the apps.
At my school, the new PE teacher is a tech wizard, and she turned my attention to Team Shake. Sure, it does sound physical education-y, but its capabilities go beyond the fields and courts and right into the library and classrooms. The app, which does cost .99 at Apple, will randomly sort your class list into groups. The BEST part, and what differentiates the app from a hat and scraps of paper, is that if you program a strength to any of your students, (which they can not see) you can then shake your groups that are heterogeneous or homogenous, whichever will work most effectively for the project at hand. As someone who has spent much time painstakingly preparing groups, this gives my students the proof that students are created totally randomly-- so no complaining to me!-- and gives me back some of my much-needed planning and activity time back.
I just spent the past half hour building groups for a class project I'm about to begin, and oh my goodness, would I ever like to get that time back. I think that perhaps there are plenty of moments, such as this one, when grouping students becomes a task and a half-- if, say, they are about to spend the better portion of a unit in the group, for example, and there are many clashing personalities in the class of fewer than 20 students. However, there are also many instances in which I just need to get out of my head and shake up the way I put groups together.
Enter grouping apps.
Apparently, there are many of these out there, and they are something that I, once upon a time, may have balked at. Don't I know best?
Well, yeah, I do, but if I want my students to get the most out of their experience in my class, and if I want them to be placed together in the way that most avoids my personal assumptions or biases, enter the apps.
At my school, the new PE teacher is a tech wizard, and she turned my attention to Team Shake. Sure, it does sound physical education-y, but its capabilities go beyond the fields and courts and right into the library and classrooms. The app, which does cost .99 at Apple, will randomly sort your class list into groups. The BEST part, and what differentiates the app from a hat and scraps of paper, is that if you program a strength to any of your students, (which they can not see) you can then shake your groups that are heterogeneous or homogenous, whichever will work most effectively for the project at hand. As someone who has spent much time painstakingly preparing groups, this gives my students the proof that students are created totally randomly-- so no complaining to me!-- and gives me back some of my much-needed planning and activity time back.
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