Cooperative Groups - Jobs!

Science Groups 

It is time for a repost...I can not stress enough how important it is to have science groups set up for hands-on exploration.  Each child NEEDS a job and a responsibility.  It makes the lesson run so smoothly....  Take a peek into my Science jobs the FOSS way!

For more information about the curriculum I use, check out www.fossweb.com
 

1.  GROUPING:  FOSS recommends you have your students into groups of 4.  I usually group them this way - one high student, one lower student and two average students.  I also pay special mind to personalities as well - sensitive, high energy, etc... Laura Candler has a really good resource for cooperative learning where you make cards to help you keep record of who is grouped with who.  I recommend you go to her website: www.lauracandler.com and search for more resources under cooperative learning.

2. POSTER WITH NAMES:  Once I determine who is in the group, I make a poster that shows the students names and group number.  Each child's name is in a certain color - red, green, blue or yellow.   That is because the color will denote the job of the day.

3.  JOB CHART: Next, I put the four jobs in a pocket chart:

Getter1 - gets materials
Getter 2 - puts materials away
Reporter - reports what they did at the end of the investigation
Starter - starts the investigation first

4.  ASSIGN JOBS:  Finally, I put a square in the pocket chart next to each job.  The squares are red, yellow, green and blue.  This way if your name is red, you do the red job today.  Each day the squares rotate so that the jobs rotate.

Hope this works for you as well as it works for me!