The best-laid plans...

I appreciated our readings this week on how to come up with lessons that lend themselves to group work--how not every task merits a group project, for example, and how a fair amount of planning should go into any such lesson in order to make it worthwhile. However, I felt that the authors (of both articles) gave somewhat short shrift to issues that both my main- and dyad-placement teachers have raised when considering group work: how to motivate and engage students who are not only capable of doing but also would prefer to complete the task alone; and the potential for plans to go awry. The Orchestrating Discussions article, in particular, focused on such detailed planning that it made me want to ask the authors if they ever considered just winging it. And then I wondered if such planning--the accounting for every possible answer, the sequencing of student sharing--is critical because of the subject involved (math) as opposed to the subject with which I'm familiar (language arts). I have learned from both my supervising teachers that you can't plan everything, and as I sit here tonight preparing to deliver a literature lesson tomorrow, I am keeping that in mind.