Group activity
Group Activity
Working with your group imagine that you and your team members have been hired as education consultants for Sunnydale School, a troubled institution concerned for their students’ success. You have limited information about the specifics of the student body and the surrounding community. Each of you will observe a classroom individually and collect data to analyze as a group. Working as a team, you will produce a final recommendation for the school’s administration team. Your report will draw from the resources covered in Units 1-4, as well as the forthcoming Unit 5. Your team’s final report will be due at the end of Unit 6.
The major concern for the school is that teachers are reporting that students seem disengaged from class content, often acting out. In addition, performance on exams has been problematic; testing results are consistently low. Students have difficulty demonstrating knowledge gains and teachers are open to your suggestions about improving lesson plans, adjusting classroom management practices, or reconsidering content delivery options.
You and your team members have conducted classroom observations inside the classrooms of individual teachers. Your team has made observations across various content areas and grade levels. Create a (fictitious) list or summary of observational data you have collected about how the teacher you observed are delivering their lessons and the student behaviors that occurred during your observation. Collaborate with your members about the issues and behaviors you have noticed at the school and during the classroom observation. The fictitious data and observations will be included in your report and drive your recommendations.
Share with your partners what (fictitious) class you observed, the grade level, and what observations you documented in your visit. This content will also need to be analyzed in your report to the school’s administration team. Share with your team what recommendations you would suggest to the teacher you observed and justify your reasoning with appropriate citations from any of the readings. Your portion of the report should include:
· What did you see in the class, such as teacher practices and student behaviors or performance?
· What is the teacher’s theoretical approach? Is the teacher employing more than one? How do you know? What is your evidence?
· Is the current theoretical approach successful? What improvements would you suggest? Justify your improvements with citations from the reading.
· Are the learning domains demonstrated by the teacher appropriate for the class learning goals? Is there a variety of complex hierarchies included? What is your evidence? What suggestions do you have for the teacher? Justify your improvements with citations from the reading.
· Given the neuro-maturational state of the students and their biological ages, how you would assess the appropriateness of the teacher’s practices? Are the teacher’s strategies aligned with brain-based research about adolescent learners? Draw from course materials to defend your position.
Each team member will submit a copy of the cohesive report to the administration team. Include a one-page rationale before the report explaining your recommendations. If you are unfamiliar with the format and intention of a rationale, please review the site,
How Can You Write a Perfect Rationale, which provides a four-step process to writing a rationale.
Explain how your team approached the problem and addressed the school needs. Share how the collaboration process was important to your final product. Each team member should expect to contribute 4-5 pages (double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font). In addition to course learning resources, please include a minimum of 2 outside sources to justify your recommendations. Check all content for grammar, spelling. Be sure that you have properly cited all resources (in APA format) used.
