Collaboration......fail

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."  

Henry Ford

There are sometimes in life where a quote just really hits the mark....and today the above quote from Henry Ford was on my google dashboard, as if waiting for me to look for it.


The students in R27 work really well together in class and are becoming confident and competent users of google docs, because of this I decided to set a home learning task that put the power into their collective hands.


It was called "Operation Beans" as we would like to hold a Bake Sale at school to raise money to fill two bean bags which have been donated to me for the students to use.


I split the students up into four groups - Letter to Mr Ellery, A3 Posters, Accounting and Target Market.  I assigned students to the above groups based on their talents.  Along with the titles I gave the students guidelines on what I expected them to do.


During class I spoke through the roles and what they needed to do and spoke with a number of students about what they needed to do as individuals.


Positives:

• Some students gave it a really good go.
• A couple of students exceeded expectations.
• Shows that some students are developing their self management skills.
• Some students are applying what they have learnt in class to their home learning tasks. 

Minuses:

• Students left their work to the last minute so had no time to complete their work to a high standard.
• Some students did no work at all, and thought that this was ok.
• No group finished their task to the expected level.
• Excuses as to why they did not do it.

What would I change for next time:

• Continue to re-inforce with the students about the importance of giving something a go and really spending time thinking about what is asked of them.
• Reiterate the need for the students to seek advise from their parents about how to take their home learning to the next level.

I believe in developing the students ability to collaborate, and while this was not an epic fail, the next time I design a task like this I will go into it a little bit the wiser.