Imagine a 6th grade chemistry classroom. The students have been assigned to conduct a laboratory experiment. Teams have a common agenda: to perform the experiment, measure results and report back learnings. Teams have formed; measurement standards have been set. As the work begins, the different team members are performing reinforcing tasks and communicating with each other, but as the lab experiment progresses we begin to see some teams fall apart. Groups of students are disagreeing on who needs to do what, where they can find supplies in the lab and when deadlines are. Frankly, the classroom is beginning to lose its ability to focus on the task at hand. As we look around the classroom, we begin to wonder, “Where is the teacher that is supposed to be planning, managing, and handling this group?”
