Causal Map Essay

My causal map was influenced heavily by the assigned reading. As I previously stated, my past experience with collaborative learning, both as a student and instructor, has been more of a guessing game than science. If I consider the groups I have been assigned with during the past, I can recall inefficiency, lack of interest, incorrect size, and lack of input from us as students. This in turn translated over to my teaching. I’ve never seen a proper functional collaborative learning environment; therefore, I was doomed to make the same mistakes. My “grouping” and I use that word loosely, was typically grouping students with others so that they wouldn’t stay off task during the entire project or assignment. When you are dealing with thirteen

This is by far the most critical inputs for student success, both individual and group. It must be predetermined whether or not you will be assessing the groups individually or as whole. This is important as you choose the next steps of the process. You must then determine what the group size should be and what the diversity of the students should be. Taking into consideration the size of the project, will it be better suited for a large group? Or, a small group? A large group would consist of five students and a small group would contain two. Groups must have a proper mixture of personality, achievement, and interpersonal skills. Lastly, you should give way to some learner input. I have done this in my classroom through the use of RAFT projects. RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. This allows students or groups to have some control over how they present the content. You must always remember the purpose of the project is to learn the information. Therefore, how the information is presented is not as great of as an importance. I find that students love having input in their projects and task. Lastly, have you created a project which is challenging enough for the group but not too difficult or too easy. If the project is difficult, student relationships may begin to fall apart. But, if you make it too easy, then little effort will be make to create a meaningful