This post is part of a series, When Giftedness Gets Annoying.
Let’s look at some case studies that represent some actual instances of gifted student behaviors. The ones we’ve chosen are student profiles where a gift, interest, or talent may present with multiple sides. How do you respond to the “rough seas” of giftedness and do a positive redirect? How do you harness the best side of the behavior and help students develop skills that lead to smoother sailing?
Redirecting T
T is the student who prefers to work alone. Give her any project, and she excels in class, out of class, anywhere by digging in and hunkering down. She dives in and comes back to the surface with prolific research and products. She clearly enjoys working hard and is quite organized. With her laser focus approach, she’s done some amazing scientific investigations, and is always willing to join the science fair and competitions. Within hours of your assigning a new task, T is already on it.
However…assign her to group work, and she’s not a happy camper. You’ve noted her irritation during various shared tasks already, like some huffing and sighing when a fellow student shows up to class without a portion of the group work complete. You’ve heard her say, “I’LL just do it,” loudly and in a frustrated tone in one situation.
Then you get an email one evening: T informs you, after you’ve just appointed her group leader of an upcoming project, that she “always does all the work” and doesn’t want the “extra stress” of group facilitation. She presents you with a bulleted list of reasons why group projects never work. She requests that you give her the option to do this work as an independent study. This the first group project in several weeks. T has been able to complete a lot of independent work so far this year, and you don’t feel that differentiating this assignment for her is the best plan, because it’s a science project that requires several “hands on deck,” where students will share incoming data on a daily basis and will develop a hypothesis as a team.
You keep thinking: she’s so successful on her own, and so productive; I can see why she’s highly irritated by slacker behavior. Maybe I ought to let her alone…But for her to be successful, she needs to develop collaboration skills, social skills, and patience with her fellow human beings. Surely there’s a way to help her through this frustration and find some solutions to her concerns?
How would you respond to T’s concerns and redirect this situation in a positive way?
Share with us below!
Sally says
This is a real and persisting challenge from elementary school through graduate school. I’ve been student T and the teacher in this scenario. If the teacher creates rubrics for projects with the tasks enumerated, students in the group can determine who will complete each task. They then initial each task once it is complete. In the beginning the teacher can monitor the rubrics before the students get accustomed to self regulating. Depending on the age of the students, they can potentially create their own rubric and task list as a group if given guidance and examples.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks says
Exactly, Sally…and I dare say, even in the adult workplace, right? (I just had a friend the other day lament slackers in her law school class group project.) This is more than one kid’s personality that we’re discussing here, as you’re pointing out: we’re looking for classroom management strategies to implement and self-regulation skills to teach. You’ve shared some great ideas about how to share the ownership, even to the point of students creating them. I love that, especially if a teacher can provide past models of student work to demo before kids begin a task, such that the individual groups can each build the rubric, truly own it. It’s much easier for a group member or a teacher to say, “Hey, you wrote it, so….”
David says
I like what Sally has to say and second it. I find it is easier and mostly more effective to change the structure of the assignment than to force the student into a social and moral challenge for which he or she may not be ready.
In the stage where students may not be able to create their own rubric yet, you can still create meaningful, differentiated roles for each one of them that they choose as a group, with the proviso that if there is a dispute over roles they cannot solve, you as a teacher will determine all roles. In my experience, the threat of intervention is usually enough to get them to find a way to agree what they should do, and as a side benefit builds team cohesion by uniting them against an outside force (however helpful that force is intended!).
In addition, the more the project is structured so that no one can truly “take it over” (which some gifted students will do if they are not sufficiently challenged in their own role) but the whole endeavor is predicated on teamwork, the better.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks says
David, you raise some key points for classroom management and activity/task design. First, the role definitions (differentiated) are so key. Giving students options, and allowing students to cycle through different roles throughout the year is key. Speaking to the class as a whole about goals for groupwork (“You will try several roles this year; some may fit you better than others, but I challenge you to give them all a sincere effort”) can set up a climate of our intentions for students to grow in this skill set. I like how you encourage students to go back to the drawing board, i.e., their group, and try to fix their own problem first. I think we can even do mini-lessons in this regard–a 2-minute check-in some days that says, “3 Quick Tips for Getting Your Groupwork to Go More Smoothly” might be a great way to open up a class that’s a groupwork day. This tactic and the ones you mention take the pressure as you say off the group leader to be wholly responsible for others’ behaviors (or to think they are). We’re all in this together, right? And to your point about forcing students into a social or moral challenge: I think it depends on the severity of a student’s reaction to working in groups as to whether we conference with that student and invite them into a conversation. While we can’t make people change behaviors, we can invite them to reflect, see the consequences of choices, and discuss ultimate goals here. If a student is seeking a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment here, and the groupwork structure feels like an impediment to her, how can we help her scale this seeming obstacle? Great thoughts all around!
Tara Ray says
David,
I would love to hear more about what you do to ensure that the project is structured enough to avoid any hostile “takeovers.” This has always been the most difficult part of designing group work, in my experience. Is your structure more about timing, deadlines, benchmarks, etc.? Or is it more about the goal for the project itself, the individual assigned roles, etc.?
Thank you!
Tara
David Frauenfelder says
Hi, Tara,
I don’t know that it’s either/or. Everything you mentioned can have a big impact. Some principles of my approach:
– Mix in individual and group grades to keep all students accountable as the process continues.
– Document work with handouts that must be filled out individually; mix in formative and summative grades.
– Do not let a group grade dominate the overall grade.
– Do not let grades themselves become the motivator. For me, group projects tend to be the easiest assignments on which to make high scores. This is also important because group projects tend to generate the most anxiety among students and parents.
– Emphasize the excellence of the project as an intrinsic goal, encouraging all students in a group to own the work. I like projects that have real-world endpoints (such as skits performed in front of an audience or oral reports with multiple roles presented to a panel of judges).
– Segment responsibilities into specific, substantial roles: e.g. scribe/researcher/spokesperson for a short-term group activity. Assign roles where necessary to emphasize the strengths of the group members.
– Encourage students to reflect on their process through exit tickets (today I did x, which helped the group in x way)
– Assign the “dominant” member of a group to a more challenging job that does not allow him or her to monitor his or her groupmates
– Group the dominants together and ask them to do a more challenging project (if this works for the culture of the classroom)
– Group the “slackers” so that they all have to pull together to come up with an excellent final product.
I hope this helps.
Tara Ray says
Extremely helpful, David. Thank you so much for the amount of detail you included in your response!