Galina Anatolyevna Zuckerman - a leading specialist in the field of psychology, is a professor and doctor of psychological sciences. She devoted her life to studying the behavior of elementary school students, their ability to cooperate and agree to obtain a positive result in work. She investigated the problems of communication between children and teachers. I thought over the testing methods for schoolchildren and recommendations to teachers and parents based on their results.
In collaboration with well-known psychologists of our time, such as B. D. Elkonin and A. L. Wenger, she wrote a number of books on the methods of teaching reading, the development of educational independence, and criteria for assessing the quality of students' knowledge. One of the simplest and easiest ways to test children's skills to negotiate and work in pairs is the Zuckerman "Rukavichki" methodology, which will be discussed in our article. This is a fairly simple test that teachers use both in primary school age and in the kindergarten preparatory group. According to the test results, it becomes clear how the child knows how to negotiate with his comrades, how much he knows how to listen to the opinions of other children.
Research topic
During testing according to the "Rukavichki" methodology, the student’s behavior is studied during a simple task in tandem with a friend. In addition to communicative abilities, the teacher must test the ability to coordinate their actions, collaborate with another child, and agree on the procedure for performing work. They test the ability to listen to the opinion of a comrade, understand, plan and control actions, clearly express their thoughts, calmly conduct a discussion.
Work progress with students
To work according to the "Rukavichki" technique, children are seated at tables in pairs. They issue leaflets on which the contours of the mittens are depicted - left and right. Each child gets one drawing. The teacher also issues a set of colored pencils or wax crayons.
Children are told that both mittens need to be made completely identical, as if it were a real couple. To do this, you need to come up with a pattern, what colors each detail will be painted on. Everyone can offer their own version of gloves. First you need to think over and discuss what exactly will be drawn, and only then start working together.
The task of the teacher
The Rukavichki technique can be carried out by a school psychologist or teacher on their own. During the drawing and communication of children, the task of the researcher is to carefully monitor the work of the couple and make small notes.
Not only the couple’s drawings will be evaluated, but also how they communicate with each other. All children have different characters. Some calmly discuss the task, others are emotionally unbalanced, raise their voices, get angry, prove something to the partner. There are closed children who silently carry out the assignment, only occasionally exchanging a couple of words. All this should be recorded during the "Rukavichki" methodology for younger students.
Assessment criteria
There are several criteria by which an assessment will be made. It:
- Work productivity. This is primarily determined by the drawings of children, namely how similar both mittens are.
- Communication skills. How much the child knows how to communicate with peers, how he convinces a comrade, whether he knows how to negotiate, to justify his decisions. The behavior of children is monitored by a teacher. In order not to miss anything from the field of view, it is advisable to carry out the Rukavichki technique in small subgroups.
- The ability to control. Here you need to carefully watch how the child checks the actions of his partner. This is evident from how often the student looks at the drawing of another and compares his actions according to the image of the partner.
- Assisting a friend. This can be seen when observing the couple, having heard the tips and advice that children can give each other.
- The emotional state of students during work. This criterion has 3 types of children's behavior: 1 - they work with enthusiasm, they like the task, the children are funny; 2 - communicate with each other only in case of urgent need, express complete indifference to activity; 3 - swear, get angry, nervous, argue, take offense at each other.
High level
The "Rukavichki" technique of G. A. Zuckerman is evaluated by three levels. The first one is tall. Such an assessment is given to children who have painted the mittens in exactly the same way, while behaving calmly and orderly, communicated peacefully, did not raise their voices, coordinated their actions regarding the colors of the coloring and the type of patterns.
In the course of work, the children carefully watched and controlled the actions of their comrade, checked the correctness of the assignment. Helped each other with hints, gave the right pencil, etc.
Average level
Mittens are similar, but not complete. There are some errors and inaccuracies in the image. Children during work were inattentive, had little communication, did not coordinate their actions.
There are options when one did the work, and the other silently copied from him, and not very carefully. There was almost no communication, control was rare.
Low level
In this case, the result of the work does not meet the requirements of the teacher. The drawings are completely different. Children could not agree, because they did not listen to the opinion of a friend. Each insisted on his own, did not listen to his neighbor, did not coordinate his actions.
The result was not a pair of mittens, but two completely different units of products.
Technique "Color the mitts"
For preschool children of the preparatory group of kindergarten, you can also use this technique. This task in a playful way can be carried out at the end of the year when testing the preparation of the child for school. This test will help to identify not only the communicative abilities of the child, but also show his willingness to study at school.
When completing school assignments, the ability to argue their actions, notice dissimilarities, and redraw exactly as on a model is useful. All these qualities will be needed when performing lessons and school assignments in the test. Indeed, how often parents are faced with the fact that their child received a bad mark only because he incorrectly rewrote the condition of the problem or messed up the signs in the solution of the example.
The article describes in detail how to conduct and evaluate the results during testing according to the method of Galina Anatolyevna Zuckerman "Rukavichki".