After reading these chapters I still have some concerns about initially forming these cooperative groups. The group dynamic is complex, especially for social high school students. With adolescents there are many social and emotional factors that could help to influence cooperative groups. If I am able to delegate authority, then the group should take responsibility for solving interpersonal problems. Conflict resolution is an important concept to maintaing an effective learning environment. I will have a hard time though stepping back and letting the groups have control. Letting go of that authority will be a challenge for me. I have the tendency to allow myself to be too involved with answering questions, clarifying tasks, etc. With practice I will find that it is the responsibility of the other group members to answers questions first before I become involved.
I also find it hard to coordinate working with another teacher or research specialist. This seems like an ideal situation benefitting the students, but it seems like this would be hard to coordinate. Being a beginning teacher, I find teaming up with an experienced teacher who has worked with cooperative groups a valuable resource.
Another issue that was brought up in the reading was the status and hierarchy of students perceived in the class. I must not assume that some students are better at specific tasks. To elevate this problem of higher status students taking the leadership role, the roles must be alternated. I can allow for lower status students to have a challenging and valued task within the group (expert-summarizer-facilitator). Hopefully I will get to experience this type of groupwork more this semester.
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