Lots of Group Work at Blair Magnet SMCS?

[Anonymous]

Curious to know if 9th and 10th grade classes have a lot of group work, particularly with the magnet classes? DS is fine with group work but generally prefers to work on his own if he has a choice. He's on the shy side and I think seeing how so many kids seem to know each other at information night this past week, he feels a bit overwhelmed and intimidated.

[Anonymous]

Not a lot so far in 9th. The group work so far has been where it’s optional and perfectly fine to do individually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know if 9th and 10th grade classes have a lot of group work, particularly with the magnet classes? DS is fine with group work but generally prefers to work on his own if he has a choice. He's on the shy side and I think seeing how so many kids seem to know each other at information night this past week, he feels a bit overwhelmed and intimidated.

It is a great skill to learn. My 9th grader have had group work but she told me 2-5 kids tends not to and have an issue with it. There was an incident where she told me a girl didn't want to work in a group and the teacher had to pull her outside and have a talk with her in precalculus. Some situations, it is mandatory.

Moreover aside from the magnet classes, there are assignments in other classes that require collaboration. My daughter had a project with partners in history, English etc. It will happen at some point. I believe it prepares them for the real world. We must all learn to work with someone even the difficult folks as my kid is to learning firsthand.

I have a shy kid but she has no problem doing what she has to do to get that grade. It is part of life. Sometimes we must do the things that we don't want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know if 9th and 10th grade classes have a lot of group work, particularly with the magnet classes? DS is fine with group work but generally prefers to work on his own if he has a choice. He's on the shy side and I think seeing how so many kids seem to know each other at information night this past week, he feels a bit overwhelmed and intimidated.

It is a great skill to learn. My 9th grader have had group work but she told me 2-5 kids tends not to and have an issue with it. There was an incident where she told me a girl didn't want to work in a group and the teacher had to pull her outside and have a talk with her in precalculus. Some situations, it is mandatory.

Moreover aside from the magnet classes, there are assignments in other classes that require collaboration. My daughter had a project with partners in history, English etc. It will happen at some point. I believe it prepares them for the real world. We must all learn to work with someone even the difficult folks as my kid is to learning firsthand.

I have a shy kid but she has no problem doing what she has to do to get that grade. It is part of life. Sometimes we must do the things that we don't want to do.

I agree it's a helpful real-world skill, but it doesn't translate well to the classroom because of a lack of direct supervision, which makes assigning accurate individual grades difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a lot so far in 9th. The group work so far has been where it’s optional and perfectly fine to do individually.

My 10th grader has often mentioned group or partner work but I don't know whether any of it has been mandatory or not.

Math - Encouraged regularly by some teachers, but really informal, to work through problem sets in class.
Research - In 9th lots of work in groups but it's a different teacher this year so may be different.
Science - Every three or four assignments was a group or partner project.
CS - Not really

There are a lot of kids coming who know each other from previous schools like TPMS or activities and your child will feel it in 9th especially at the beginning. But many of the friend groups will absorb new kids or break apart by 10th as the kids grow. It's not something that should cause anxiety but hopefully it's good to know going in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know if 9th and 10th grade classes have a lot of group work, particularly with the magnet classes? DS is fine with group work but generally prefers to work on his own if he has a choice. He's on the shy side and I think seeing how so many kids seem to know each other at information night this past week, he feels a bit overwhelmed and intimidated.

It is a great skill to learn. My 9th grader have had group work but she told me 2-5 kids tends not to and have an issue with it. There was an incident where she told me a girl didn't want to work in a group and the teacher had to pull her outside and have a talk with her in precalculus. Some situations, it is mandatory.

Moreover aside from the magnet classes, there are assignments in other classes that require collaboration. My daughter had a project with partners in history, English etc. It will happen at some point. I believe it prepares them for the real world. We must all learn to work with someone even the difficult folks as my kid is to learning firsthand.

I have a shy kid but she has no problem doing what she has to do to get that grade. It is part of life. Sometimes we must do the things that we don't want to do.

I agree it's a helpful real-world skill, but it doesn't translate well to the classroom because of a lack of direct supervision, which makes assigning accurate individual grades difficult.

This has not been an issue in magnet classes. They might do an experiment as a group, but each student does their own write up based on the same data and the grades are based on the write up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know if 9th and 10th grade classes have a lot of group work, particularly with the magnet classes? DS is fine with group work but generally prefers to work on his own if he has a choice. He's on the shy side and I think seeing how so many kids seem to know each other at information night this past week, he feels a bit overwhelmed and intimidated.

It is a great skill to learn. My 9th grader have had group work but she told me 2-5 kids tends not to and have an issue with it. There was an incident where she told me a girl didn't want to work in a group and the teacher had to pull her outside and have a talk with her in precalculus. Some situations, it is mandatory.

Moreover aside from the magnet classes, there are assignments in other classes that require collaboration. My daughter had a project with partners in history, English etc. It will happen at some point. I believe it prepares them for the real world. We must all learn to work with someone even the difficult folks as my kid is to learning firsthand.

I have a shy kid but she has no problem doing what she has to do to get that grade. It is part of life. Sometimes we must do the things that we don't want to do.

I agree it's a helpful real-world skill, but it doesn't translate well to the classroom because of a lack of direct supervision, which makes assigning accurate individual grades difficult.

MCPS policy does not allow grades for group work

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf

"Grades must be based on individual demonstration of skill and understanding."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lot so far in 9th. The group work so far has been where it’s optional and perfectly fine to do individually.

My 10th grader has often mentioned group or partner work but I don't know whether any of it has been mandatory or not.

Math - Encouraged regularly by some teachers, but really informal, to work through problem sets in class.
Research - In 9th lots of work in groups but it's a different teacher this year so may be different.
Science - Every three or four assignments was a group or partner project.
CS - Not really

There are a lot of kids coming who know each other from previous schools like TPMS or activities and your child will feel it in 9th especially at the beginning. But many of the friend groups will absorb new kids or break apart by 10th as the kids grow. It's not something that should cause anxiety but hopefully it's good to know going in.

This must be mostly happening in class. My 9th grader hasn’t had any big group projects this year that he’s worked on outside of school for homework, unlike at TPMS where he regularly had Zoom calls after school with other kids to coordinate their group projects.