Welcome back! We are now into our third week of the new semester and I would like to inform everyone of some new things we will be doing in our Grade 5 classroom.
Most importantly, we will be implementing a new cooperative learning strategy in our social studies class. This new strategy goes beyond our normal group work and allows the students to experience collective learning and achievement. Three new teaching methods will be used to deliver social studies content and develop a more thorough understanding of the concepts. All of this will occur in teams where students can help, support, and learn from each other as well as me. This team system promotes positive interdependence, communication skills, social skills, tolerance, and a deeper understanding of what it takes to work with others to solve problems. In short, it helps prepare students to succeed in real life. The scoring of this system follows a team philosophy as well, which rewards all members of the team for contributing in any way that their talents allow. In other words, each student benefits their team through improvement of their own work. Therefore, regardless of the level of the student, he or she will always have an opportunity to show their value to the group. We are all looking forward to starting to learn with this new strategy and I am sure that it will lead to greater achievement in social studies.
We also are developing a pen pal relationship with a 5th Grade class in rural Michigan, USA. The students there, many of whom lead very different lives than ours, have already sent us their first letters. We will be replying sometime very soon. Hopefully, kids on both sides will learn a lot about different cultures and people, find out that they are not so different from kids on the other side of the world, and maybe make a good friend. In the future, we will look into using video conferencing technology to connect with our friends in America on another level, possibly even sharing a lesson over the internet. It should be lots of fun.
