I’m not someone who does a lot of in-class group work, where “group work” is understood as clusters of 2-5 students in a class with at least 20. Most of them do such work outside of class, whether in a wiki, or on blogs, or some other electronic space. I have always mistrusted group work, both as a student and as a faculty member, because I always feel left out: Whatever’s going on in some other group is inherently more interesting. Plus, it’s hard to generate a sense of common intellectual work in small groups: For example, if you’re building toward a midterm or final, then the group work has to be fairly carefully designed in order to make sure it’s useful. You can ask groups to report out on their work, but in a 50 minute class, it’s hard to find time for both the task and the reporting.
A combination of technical solutions has helped me get over the hump a little bit, by introducing both easy accountability and transparency of the small group to the class as a whole. Here’s how it works:
- As I’ve posted before, all my classes are organized around a wikified class notes, so students already accustomed to documenting the work of the class. So, if we’re doing group work, I’ll simply ask someone from each group to post their results to the wiki.
- I used to have trouble following up on group work, in part because the groups are always ad hoc. I’d sometimes remember to scribble down who was in what group, but more usually I’d forget. Now, I take a picture of the class with my phone while they’re working. (Obviously, not for posting to Flickr or Facebook or anything. Just to follow-up about the work.
- Mobile- and smartphones make it easier to incorporate group work into the class, too. Groups can tweet their findings to a class account, for example. I also have an e-mail account to which students send in-class work, either for displaying on the multimedia station or for immediate transfer to the wiki. (Still can’t edit the wiki natively on the iPhone/iPod.) In classes with large numbers of iPods/iPhones I’ll frequently ask students to install free mindmap software in order to quickly represent some idea or chunk of text, and then export the results to the class e-mail account.
None of these are transformational–that is, they’re not the most powerful uses of mobile computing one could imagine. But they’re easy-to-implement, and yield legitimate payoffs in showing that group work is meaningful to the overall trajectory of the class.
So: How do you make small groups work for you? (Non-technological solutions welcome! Principled rejections of group work are, too!)
Image by flickr user Lisavanovitch / CC licensed
Comments
1. Billie - October 30, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thanks for this, Jason. I use group-work in classes all the time. Sometimes, they are for credit, sometimes not. The teaching writing lends itself to this type of constantly shifting group experience. I have assigned group annotated bibliographies in argument classes for quite some time. It's a challenging experience/assignment. Each person in each group has to annotated at least 20 sources-- each group will have 100 sources they must unify. (The assignment is slightly more complex, but that's for another day.)
Over the past few weeks, I assigned this again at my new institution. This time, however, students used GoogleDocs instead of a stand-alone word processing program and emailing documents back and forth to each other. The emailing back and forth placed undo /unfair pressure on usually one student to be the "leader," and the leader often took responsibility for making sure the entire document was done accurately. This time-- with the use of GoodgleDocs-- the annotations weren't any more profound (!), but the group work was easier. The students liked this type of group work, as it kept everyone in a group equally responsible for the group project. Each group invited me to join their document, so I could peek in and offer suggestions or answer questions. This access also allowed me to see who was contributing and who wasn't. The assignment was still challenging and the students grumbled about having to write so much, but they did enjoy working with GoogleDocs.
Next time, I will spend a little more time explaining the tools and how to use them. I assumed they had knowledge they didn't have. The use of an online tool changed the assignment in that I was also teaching the tool they were using to complete the work. The students eventually figured out how to navigate the program, but still. There was frustration. Frustration can be a good thing, though. :-)
2. Nels - October 30, 2009 at 01:32 pm
I used to distrust group work, too, but I've started doing a lot more. This semester, I do something every week or so, in groups of two, three, or four. What I've learned makes it work is having clearly written instructions that I show on a screen in class (luckily, all of our classrooms have smart podiums and screens). I've noticed that having clearly typed instructions in our keeps them on task. Otherwise, it looks like I just thought of something off the cuff since I couldn't think of anything better to do. And, like Billie, teaching writing makes it easier since everything we do is about generating ideas for their formal assignments. Out-of-class group projects are a different matter, but this is how I handle in-class group work.
3. Natalie Houston - October 30, 2009 at 05:22 pm
I use group work frequently in literature courses, though usually for only 5-15 minutes, depending on the task. Clearly explained group tasks and expected outcomes (whether written or presented to the class) are crucial. Sometimes it helps to ask each group to assign roles (recorder, presenter, etc). Also key, however, is that I assign students to groups that they stay with for about a month, at which point group membership rotates. Students get to know one another and thus feel more comfortable in the larger class discussion. Could say more but all of this is, however, extremely non-technological.
4. Stephanie - October 30, 2009 at 05:39 pm
Could you recommend mind mapping software? This is new to me, but it sounds fantastic! Is it worth paying for? Or are the free versions just as functional?
5. J. Radney - October 30, 2009 at 07:13 pm
In an advanced undergraduate philosophy of language class, I assigned three different sets of readings such that my groups of four students interacting together had each read different readings (okay, actually if you do the math, two students out of the four would have read duplicate readings, but that is a story for another day...). At the beginning of the course, I set out the major questions to be examined in the course: What is language? What is meaning? How does language relate to communication? How does language relate to dialect? etc. Students were then assigned in their groups to discuss what they found out about their assigned author's approach to the major questions. In a second interactive session (classes met weekly for 2.5 hours/week) groups of students who read the same author (designed such that groups were about 1/3 of class and numbered about 5-8 students) met together to decide how they should present their "author-of-the-week" to the rest of the class, using the major course questions as a guide. The final third of the class was spent in class presentations. Students absolutely hated all the work... but manyhave come back to tell me they learned more in that course than in any other philosophy course they ever took--some more than any other university course they took. As a result, I will continue to incorporate this kind of group work in courses.
6. Thomas - October 31, 2009 at 06:18 pm
Re mindmapping software, the free CMapTools is excellent, and very easy to learn.
7. William Patrick Wend - November 04, 2009 at 07:10 pm
I do similiar group work assignments to the ones Natalie does. Mine are normally 10 minutes or so and act as a refresher of that day's lecture or the previous few day's lectures. I found this especially helpful during the grammar portion of my semester in Comp I. I've been letting students stick with their friends/people they know for group work but next semester I might randomize it a bit more.
8. Derek - November 06, 2009 at 08:25 am
I think a key ingredient in group work is having a deliverable of some kind due at the end of the group time. If the students have to arrive at a consensus on some question, or prepare something to be shared with the whole class, or turn something in, they're more likely to stay focused on the task they're given.
One thing group work allows is the instructor to circulate among the students, giving the instructor time to talk with students in a more one-to-one fashion. (Okay, maybe one-to-three.) I use this opportunity to check in with the students who are struggling in the course and provide a little extra help. I'll also check in with the students who are really getting the material and throw them a few extra challenging questions.
9. William Patrick Wend - November 08, 2009 at 10:19 am
I've been using group work as a time to "check in," one on one, with students having trouble but also to offer positive reinforcement to my best students as well. Often I will quietly praise a recent paper or good assignment/contribution in class to students who I think need them.
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