roups will merely serve as a home. Depending on the activity the class is doing I will use ad-hoc groups and Formal learning groups. In the Formal learning groups, as well as in the ad-hoc and the base groups, I will employ two types of group activities the STAD system and the TGT system.The Student Team-Achievement System (STAD) is a five-part system with proven effectiveness in Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics and Science. The groups are set up heterogeneously and presented with new material. The next step is to have the learners practice the material within their group. It is the responsibility of the group to be sure all group members have received the information and have a clear understanding of it. Once the groups have had sufficient time to practice, the teacher gives the students individual quizzes. The quizzes are scored and the learners earn points for their group. The points earned by the group members are based on their level of improvement over their base score; their average score on the previous quizzes. The base score could also be established by giving a pretest over the new material. Either way of determining the base score is acceptable as long as the students know what to expect. The points the students earn for their group are tallied and then awards are given to the teams who achieved the greatest gains. Awards are also given to the individual students with the most improvements. All the teams receive some type of recognition so no student or team has their self esteem lowered. The final approach I will use in my classroom is the Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT) system. This is my personal favorite because of the element of competition that is a driving force for many students, like myself. The principle nature of TGT is the same as that of STAD but instead of receiving quizzes at the end of each week the students play in a quiz tournament. The tournament is kept fair by sending the high pe...
