Lesson Plan: A lesson idea for establishing group work ground rules - Murder Hunt
(adapted from The Teacher’s Toolkit Paul Ginnis ISBN 18998 3676-4)
Year Lesson Objective
9 Speaking and listening
8. review the contributions they have made to recent discussions, recognising their strengths
and identifying areas for development;
Starter Introduction
 Move the class into  Explain to the class that a
their established murder has been committed and
groups. it is their responsibility to solve
 Using white boards, in the mystery.
pairs within the group,  The answers to these 6
Lesson 1 brainstorm ideas for questions have to be found
what the desired within the next fifteen minutes.
behaviours for group (See OHT 1)
work would be.  Explain the rules as outlined on
 Use ‘show me’ OHT and refer students back to
strategies to collate the desired behaviours for group
responses on OHT, work as outlined in the starter.
flipchart or class  Explain to them that they will be
whiteboard asked to outline what behaviours
they noted during this exercise in
the plenary – this is why they are
doing the exercise
 During the exercise the teacher
acts as timekeeper and
observes/records examples of
positive group behaviour. The
teacher must not intervene -
unless violence is about to be
committed! A time reminder
should be given half way
through.
Development
 Go through the answers very
quickly – explain to the class that
the object of the exercise is to
review productive group
behaviour.
 Ask students to reflect on the
experience and examine their
behaviours – as individuals
record their own and other
students’ helpful and unhelpful
behaviours using the frame
(group resource 2). The rule for
this is: name behaviours, don’t
name names!
 Students pool ideas within their
groups and work out their top 5
helpful behaviours. It is
important that this discussion
should focus on what should be
done from this point onwards not
on the past – what should we
have done? It is also crucial that
no-one feels criticised – it is
important to secure everyone’s
commitment to a few general
changes
Plenary
 Using OHT or flipchart,
groups feedback top three
productive behaviours.
These whole group rules
should be written large and
posted on the classroom wall
so they can be referred to in
subsequent lessons. They
could also be used as a
basis for individual target
setting.
 (The group behaviour
checklist can be used as a
‘top up’ review device during
subsequent lessons in the
un