Pairing gone wrong
I gave the class a topic and they had to choose to do the exercise either independently or in pairs . At this point 2 out of the six felt that they could work alone while the others complained that they wanted to work in pairs . I had an idea to combine a strong person with a weaker one . So i divided the group into two . Each group had 3 adults where two were weak and one was strong . This pairing soon didn't work out as the strong ones in both groups found that they were doing all the work while the others just sat back and let that one group member do the solving and that they would follow whatever the strong adult says .At that point I removed the strong person in both the groups and told them to continue working independently . To the others I told them to make pairs . This worked better . Although both parties were having difficulty however they told me that since they were sharing , the anxiety levels had gone down and they were not as worried as they were before . I found out that in some adults this idea of pairing a strong one with a weak one doesn't work well .
1 Comment/s:
Sonali, perhaps you need to reflect on what you could have done when you paired your students initially - to ensure an equal sense of accountability to complete the task. Moreover what did you notice about the student who wished to work independently - was the quality of their work better than those who (finally) worked in pairs ? What does this tell us about learners in general? And your specific learners?
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