I sorta did a variation on the "cold calling" a week ago in student teaching, but for cooperative learning. It was after one of our afternoon class's where we had discussed ways to group people, and I was going to do a group activity...but we didn't quite have time for the activity...but I'll get to that shortly. So when the students came in, they drew an uno card from me. I had # 1-4 in 2 different colors, and there was a blue and green group. I assigned a task for each group (which would have worked nicely) but during the lesson I ended up using the numbers even more than I thought. I gave each group different problems to work on together, and I gave them directions: only #2's could ask me questions, after the students had done their problems, the #3's read the problem, and #4's did the problem at the board. For the next problem, the jobs rotated (so the #1's were included). I had this fun project to do later after snack time, about doing a scale drawing of the entire room (I had come prepared with yard sticks, measuring tape, poster board, and markers) but the other lesson, on how to set up proportions from word problems and how to do scale drawings, ended up taking much longer than I had anticipated. Hence, I learned a few things from this experience:
-After you give the uno cards, or whatever "fun" object you might use to randomly group the students, take them up. They had a little too much switching them with their buddies (trying to change their numbers and groups), and an uno card just begs to be played with...oh, but before you take them up, get them to write their number in their notebooks or on their worksheets.
-If you're teaching math, and you are doing word problems, plan for it to take longer than you think...it's not that the students can't do it, but it's the initial intimidation of seeing the numbers imbedded in words that always gives them a sense that they can't do it.
-Be flexible. I'm sure we have all had to readjust our lesson plans, so I won't elaborate.
So all in all, I think it worked quite well. More time learning since none was wasted on "so who's gonna explain the problem?"
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"After you give the uno cards...., take them up"...your quotes are fun out of context. Innovative move with incorporating fun and learning in summer school. This is definitely a must when you are in summer school and know that everyone else is outside swimming or riding their bikes :) but also during the school year as well to keep everyone interested.
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