I believe I have an especially savvy group of readers. I don’t think my readers require much in the way of classroom management advice. But it’s September and some of you are newbies — in a time when fashions sometimes cram all of us together into overcrowded lifeboats. So I thought I’d run a small stream of useful observations:

Larger class projects heavily favor the self- and grade-motivated. Sometimes these students effectively take over the whole project, directing struggling students to paste shiny stars or glitter on backboards, or write a simple section that the self- and grade-motivated student then almost entirely rewrites.

My own thoughts: If you can’t do a project mostly in class where you can watch group dynamics unfold, I’d avoid that project. I’d also create related assignments to ensure that weaker or less-motivated members can’t simply hand all the hard work to fellow student “Frankie”– who really, really wants that “A” and is perfectly willing to do ALL the work if that’s what the “A” demands. Frankie probably does not care if fellow group members learn the actual content the project teaches.

Eduhonesty observation: EVEN WITH STRONG SUPERVISION, group projects mostly favor the students who least require extra help and remedial education.