Analyse The Role Of Pupil M In Organisational Behaviour

particular seemed more engaged and less distracted by those around him, with some of the pupils around him actually having a positive impact on his behaviour.

In my planning stage it was crucial to consider the importance of differentiation. I had to remember that this particular class had such a wide variety of abilities and I had to be careful that no pupil was overlooked within my planning (see Appendix 7). In order to differentiate, I wanted to use the method of assigning each pupil a role. As my focus was on pupil M, I assigned the role of the ‘information gather’, with the other two pupils in the group acting as ‘the writer’ and ‘the boss’. I believe by establishing these roles each pupil, particularly pupil M, they had a structure

The first element to consider is the idea of positive interdependence. Johnson and Johnson (1989, 1999) state that “Teachers must give a clear task and a group goal so, students believe they ‘sink and swim’ together. Positive interdependence exists when group members perceive that they are linked with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everybody succeeds” I can see, on reflection, that this is a particularly important aspect to consider, particularly with pupil M does suffer from low confidence/anxiety. As pupil M was part of a group, the onus to succeed wasn’t on him, but the team as a whole; he felt that the activity wasn’t as daunting as there was less chance of ‘failure’. The second important characteristic Johnson and Johnson consider is the idea that cooperative learning encourages ‘promotive interaction’. Pupil M, due to special educational needs, does, on occasion, struggle to interact with his peers. To illustrate this, I could see that during the activity, despite pupil M occasionally being quiet during the group task, he was regularly encouraged by his group with praise and support, allowing him to grow in confidence as the activity progressed. As Johnson and Johnson states, “cooperative learning groups are both an academic and personal support system.” (1989, 1999) Finally, an area I feel I could develop further within cooperative learning, is that it can teach students important interpersonal and group skills. These are the skills that they will not only use in school, but in later life. In my lesson, as my focus was on pupil M, I wanted the groups to focus both on their academic work, but also their ability to work and communicate as groups. This will be something I will consider for the next cooperative learning activity I plan and implement, fully