(6)+Development+of+Social+and+Group+Skills

Development of Social and Group Skills
You also have one student who is not good with his social skills and you are worried about his performance in any group task.

Students who are at risk from lack of performance in the classroom and group tasks due to poor social skills can benefit from a variety of in class implemented strategies. As teacher the first point is to ensure the learning material is interesting and challenging and that learning for students especially those at risk, is meaningful and engaging with high expectations set for all students. Learning tasks also need to be supplemented with supportive instruction, appropriate assessment and professional development. Cooperative learning tasks can lead to higher achievement as a group and individually, they can also help improve social skills and self esteem as well as contribute to the development of higher order thinking skills and appreciation for others views. Specific strategies that can aid a student/ students with poor social skills include a specific set of steps to be established in the classroom:
 * // Develop and present a strategy that would encourage communication and the development of social/group skills for the student who has these learning needs. //


 * 1) Seating arrangements in the classroom must be laid out to encourage cooperative learning preferably in heterogonous groups. Students can be grouped in a variety of ways; however in the case of the teaching problem presented students can be grouped in mixed skills from those high achievers to those with less motivation for history. Either in pairs or fours, to concentrate learning and not allow for students to be swamped in a large group and lose focus. Seats can be arranged in small groups around the room with all groups having visibility of the board.
 * 2) Students need to be responsible for their own learning to define goals and make them meaningful to students for increased motivation and student participation. By creating traits that group members should exhibit individually and together, students are creating goals to achieve identifying strength and weaknesses and strategies to manage productivity. When eight desirable traits are agreed upon in the classroom and how to develop them, a list is created which is displayed in the room to assist if any problems arise. This step can also be supplemented with team building exercises.
 * 3) Students can build social skills through seating and meaningful learning. However, allocating roles within the cooperative task can especially encourage those with poor skills to step up to an identifiable role. These roles will include specific identified traits from the above steps. Roles can be given to students being sure not to single out certain students, each student will be allocated a role to be accountable for. Roles can be allocated through creative methods such as handing out worksheets with a specific colour, each colour worksheet being a specific role in the group, all tasks within this group are shared equally amongst all students.
 * 4) Students can work up to more comprehensive cooperative tasks by beginning cooperative learning on a small level through tasks such as think pair share. This task can be used to encourage discussion between pairs, pairs can also then be grouped and allow greater discussion and slowly develop these skills. Students can move onto more developed cooperative tasks such as structured problem solving activities. Students can select or brainstorm problems, problems are discussed amongst the group where each member must prepare to discuss the response individually, and then individuals from groups are called to present.

This strategy can be implemented in a single class or throughout the year to aid all students in building cooperative learning skills not just students with poor social skills.