Team Challenges

I tried a new group activity in class today (inspired by Riley Lark's post at Point of Inflection ). I took one of my quizzes from last year (I no longer give traditional quizzes and tests now that I've switched to standards based grading - if you haven't heard of it, you really need to be reading dy/dan) The quiz had 8 questions on it, so I put the students in groups of 4. Each student had to solve all 8 problems, but I only graded 2 problems on each paper. Example: problems 1 and 2 from student A, 3 and 4 from student B, etc. I called it a "Team Challenge." Somehow that's incredibly less threatening to middle school students than calling it a Quiz.

Pros: I was really impressed to hear several students explaining their answers to their partners. I even heard two lower achieving students debate which formula to use to find the area of a shape. They were looking in the book for help, getting their notes out, asking each other questions: it was a miracle! For the most part, the students were on task and it forced them to work together to make sure they all agreed on the answers they submitted. (Added bonus: grading 7 group submissions vs. 28 individual ones)

Cons: A few students simply copied the answers their group came up with. How do I avoid this? I know they probably don't know how to solve the questions and don't want to ask for help - how do I change this? I debated making each person explain one problem to me, but that would take forever . . . Any ideas? At least they copied correct, complete answers. Better than doing nothing I suppose.

Overall, I think it was a success. I think I'll try it again next week.