Puzzle Skill Builder

For the past few weeks we have been working on building our group work skills. We have planned a trip to the moon and a camping trip. We had given the students a list of items that they could bring with them but they were only able to choose four. The students had to work together to decide which items they were going to bring with them. During these skill builders, the students have worked on strategies of good group work. Some of these include, listening to each others ideas, letting everyone have a turn, voting to make decisions, and everyone makes a contribution.

Today, we approached these skill builders a bit differently. We assigned roles to each of the students in the group in order for them to get acclimated to the jobs that they will have during the larger group work unit. The groups were then asked to work together to build a puzzle, using only the pieces, not the top. The students did an AMAZING job! They worked so well together and had a blast working in these groups. We had amazing discussions about their great group work strategies.

Next week, we will be working more on group work. We will focus more on the jobs that we created this week. These skill builders are preparation for a larger rotation of group work that the students will do during my solo weeks of teaching. i have no doubt that the students will do an amazing job because they have already done so well!