Having students integrated in the classroom is thoroughly necessary in order to avoid discrimination. For instance, some teachers pretend that keeping the problematic students on one side and the smart ones on the other, is the best way to make use of the time and not to get stuck, focusing their attention just in one group of students.
Indeed, all those “easy solutions” have to do with what Jane Jacobs claims in her book The Death and Life of American Cities which talks about the general design of cities. For example, she talks about the bad distribution of resourses which is increasing social differences between citizens. Likewise, if we divided the classroom into categories, we actually would be increasing hostility between students and not challenging them to learn. Therefore, learning mainly takes place when interaction and integration are part of the class or when different students participate and share their opinions and questions between them. For this reason, asking students for working with different partners challenges them to be cooperative and interact with their classmates.
On the other hand, disagreeing with the abstract of Malcolm Gladwell`s article “Designs for Working”: there are no great changes that we can make in terms of the classroom design. For example, it is really complicated to ask students for making a circle and work all together. Therefore, taking into account that we have about forty three students per class, we do not have the enough time to wait while they make the circle specially control their noise and commotion as a result of our request.
Overall, a nicely written post! I wanted to see you actually quote from the JJ piece, so when we make revisions, try to include a quotation that will elaborate on why certain easy solutions don't work.
ResponderEliminarsome corrections:
focusing their attention *on just* one group of students.
On the other hand, disagreeing with the abstract of Malcolm Gladwell`s article “Designs for Working”: there are no great changes that we can make in terms of the classroom design.
(What other point is "On the other hand" contrasting with? Moreover, who is disagreeing here? I think you forgot a subject. Regardless, you want to avoid saying "I," so why don't you express your negative assessment in a different way. Perhaps you mean to compare Gladwell's advice with JJ's? If so, make that clear instead of simply saying "ON the other hand".