The Trials and Tribulations of Teamwork

Last week we started working  in teams.  Overall, most teams did an excellent job of communicating, cooperating, and planning.  Leaders began to emerge and students began to settle into roles.  Some teams learned to deal with a team member refusing to participate.  Each team did a fine job of handling the situation, either by convincing the person to participate or by requesting help from the teacher.

While each team member will receive his own performance grade which will count towards 10% of their final grade, to be recognized as a "Best Investigation Team" every member of the team must to Outstanding work.  I encourage the students to work with each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to accomplish this task.  Problems are designed to be done cooperatively, and will never be an independent learning task.  If a student is absent, she should get the 'notes' from a team member by copying their Problem (and any notes that were given via a 'lecture' that day).  Teams that finished early were encouraged to let the 'best writer' on the team quickly proofread their sheet, and then each member was encouraged to check his work with the Problem Evaluation Sheet I will use to assess her performance.

Problem Evaluation Sheet

If a team is unable to complete the assigned task during the class period, they are encouraged to meet during study hall or share notes prior to the end of the Investigation.  At the end of the Investigation, students will be given a class period to finish any Problems or ACE exercises they were unable to complete on schedule, in addition to time to work on their Math Reflection.