Amelia Earhart's Strengths

Your groups will be made up of three students each. Each of you has different strengths and talents you will bring to your group. For instance, Sally, John, and Micah will be in Group #1 and they will read a biography about Amelia Earhart. Micah is very good at organizing. He will help John and Sally organize the important events from Amelia Earhart’s life on the timeline. Sally is a very good writer. She will be able to help John and Micah write the biography report. John is a very good speaker. He will present the biography report and timeline to the class. Working together, their group will create a timeline, biography report, and group presentation which will help the rest of us learn important information and facts about Amelia Earhart.

Grouping by talent/ability is beneficial to student learning in that it pairs students based on the requirements of the assignment. For instance, in this assignment, students must read a biography, write a biography report, create a timeline, and make a presentation to the class. By grouping students according to their abilities, students who are good writers, organizers, and speakers can each take a definitive role within the group. Each contributes equally to the completion of the project without any one student feeling inferior to the others. Grouping students according to ability will result in students working together as a team to complete the assignment. Homogenous grouping is beneficial to students in that it pairs students who are at the same level of learning. This allows students who ordinarily would not take a leadership role or be asked to lead in an important task to do so. Homogenous grouping allows students to demonstrate skills and creativity that might not have been obvious when working in heterogenous groups. Additionally, when grouped homogenously, higher achieving students are given the opportunity to excel at a higher level when not expected to tutor or reinforce lower achieving students. Therefore, homogenous grouping allows for greater student participation and opportunities for students to explore different group roles across all levels of academic

Honest Communication – Use your active listening skills along with “I” messages to tell your side of the story and listen…listen…listen…to the other person tell their side of the story. Remember, each person experiences the conflict from their own unique point of view, so it’s OK to disagree! WARNING! – Don’t fall into the trap of arguing about what happened or who is right. Conflict resolution is NOT about blaming. It’s about listening, understanding, and finding solutions to the problem.
3. Find a Solution – What can each person do to improve the situation? Discuss many possible solutions until you reach a compromise or agreement with a plan of action. Your plan should tell you what each person will do to solve the conflict.
REMEMBER – if you have trouble solving a conflict on your own, you can ask me for help! Utilizing the steps outlined above in conjunction with the group procedures and how to disagree nicely procedures, students will be able to resolve conflicts and/or know when to ask for help from the teacher.
Individual Accountability and Grading Students will be graded based on the completion of their individual jobs as well as how well they worked together within the group and the final group project. The maximum number of points earned will be 16. The following rubric will be used to assign