Reflections on Chapter 6
Comments(2) I appreciate the overarching emphasis throughout this chapter on the value of “process over product”. Of course we want students to come out of their exercises with new discoveries and reinforced learning, but my own experience in secondary school has taught me that the process is not valued nearly enough. When we emphasize the way that we come to learn something in the classroom, we let students know that their work along the way, mistakes and all, are an important part of education. I believe that shifting the emphasis to process might take away some of student fear of being wrong/forming an opinion that might be contrary to popular belief. Most processes use collaborative, critical discussions that are highly useful in learning academic language and developing skills that allow students to work successfully in teams. All of these things are fundamental tools that will help students when they reach university programs like this one.
Perhaps another reason that I like the idea of sometimes valuing process over product is because this ties closely with artistic practices. An artist tries to be cognisant of the way their piece is developing and dialoguing with their main theme, the materials they are using, the potential audience, and especially other artists’ works. In many ways, the process is more pivotal than the final piece that is produced because it is often while making that artists learn the most. I think this can definitely be paralelled to our students’ learning processes if we give them the support and the space to make discoveries along the way.
I think it is great that you brought up the issue of assessing students based on process or product. This is something that actually came up in a different class, in a different context, and it is interesting to see how teacher candidates make sense of it.
In my other class, we were given a vignette about a group competition where most groups observed by judges actively and overtly communicated to each other in order to complete a project. There was one group who did not talk to each other much during the competition, which led the judges to have lower expectations of them. In the end, this quiet group surprised the judges and produced the best project. The point of this vignette was to get teacher candidates to be aware of different kinds of group dynamics and to be sensitive to culturally different ways of working together.
However, my criticism of this vignette was that evaluators (the judges and we teachers) seem to be focused on the end product rather than the process that went into it. Just because a group is able to product a great result doesn’t mean they work well together and doesn’t mean the individual students learned to work in a group. On a similar line, seeing a very talkative group also doesn’t mean the students know how to work together, as they could be disagreeing, off-topic, or even disrespectful. This is why it is so important for teachers to go to each group and see both what and how they are talking.
In all, I liked this week’s chapter because it acknowledged the value small groups can add to students’ learning experiences.
I endorse the praises for placing more importance on the process rather than on the final product. In my view, this conception is the very core argument that justifies choosing group work instead of individual work, for if the process did not matter, group work would only mean more than one name on the headings of assignments. Following this train of thought, Zwiers assertion (141) that teachers must “train” students to work well on groups is very coherent, because this avoids cases such as the ones raised by Jessica in which the final product was good, but the process was not necessarily fruitful. Thus, strategies of meta-discussion about group work become a crucial step to scaffold students to establish cooperative relationships that spark learning for all group members. To this end, exploring the motto “Respect, connect, build, and support” (142) is a valid suggestion to be adopted in classrooms. In addition, many of the proposed activities in Chapter 6 contain insightful elements that stimulate groups to develop a positive work, e.g. the “discussion cards” (146), which is directed toward guiding students into high-quality discussions. Positive and effective group work is something that has to be developed over time, and therefore requires a constant commitment of teachers both in their planning and in-class efforts.
Vitor Giberti