'Lazy Teacher' Group Work

by Jayne Ellmes,
Teacher of History

Inspired by a recent Good Practice briefing by Rebecca Bates and Katie Thwaites of the MFL department, I tried a different approach to group work based on Jim Smith's 'Lazy Teacher Handbook'.

I assigned students into groups and then asked them to choose roles for each student.
They were:
1. Facilitator – This member keeps things moving and records what is happening. This team member is responsible for time keeping to ensure that the team is ready to go on time.

2. Quality Checker – This team member has the job of keeping the team on task. They must make sure that their group’s work is relevant and valid. They are responsible for keeping the group’s efforts linked to the success criteria.

3. Resource Manager – Only this member of the team may come and collect resources during the allotted time. Also responsible for tidying resources away.

4. Team Rep – This team member represents the team at ‘emergency meetings’. Only they are allowed to come and ask the teacher questions.

(Editor's note: in the handbook, Time Keeper and Facilitator are two separate roles)

 

The task was displayed on the board - 'Create an A3 presentation on Elizabeth I' - success criteria were also displayed. I made the class aware of my expectations by referring to the formula of (number of students in group x hours in lesson) = total number of hours' worth of work, i.e. a group of four people should produce four hour's worth of work.

 

The "jobs" for each group member really helped keep the students focused, as did explaining that I expect X amount of hours' work depending on how many students were in the group!