M. Victoria de Lera's activity

 El Camino Olvidado

I have been trying to use Cooperative techniques in my English classroom for some time now and even in the pandemic time we tried to do it keeping the distancing rules. It is true that, as Cristina pointed out, cooperative learning should be part of every lesson but it is not always easy, nevertheless, I tried to do my best under the circumstances and the class context.

We have started a project for this second term and in order to be carried out, we are going to put into practice the Aronson puzzle or Jigsaw technique.Let me explain what my third of CSE students are doing. They have to work on El Camino Olvidado, since it is one of the St James´ways that goes along our village. The main objective is to enhance the cultural and natural heritage of this route; for this reason, the learning products will be uploaded on a padlet inserted on our school webpage. Let me tell you the procedures: I have split the project into four subtopics; in this way, we can divide the classroom into four groups of four ( I am currently working in a rural school so I only have 16 students) My students have known each other since primary school so they know quite well they want to work with, but I always try as far as possible to do heterogeneous groups where there is always one of the strongest students with one of the weakest ones. They sit together in groups of four for the whole project and in each group a secretary or recorder is chosen so that s/he can record their findings and reflect on group progress; a gate keeper is also chosen to try equalize participation among all the participants in the group. While they are working, I use the bouncy balls website as voice level meter When they have finished their own subtopic, (2 sessions) they become experts, shuffle groups and present their findings to the other groups in another session. Finally, a quiz is played to revise the information gathered in the project.

M.Victoria de Lera Alonso