Creating and Managing Student Groups
Pathway Overview
According to Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (1994) collaborative learning is a student participatory teaching style that focuses on groups of students working together to accomplish a common goal while at the same time maximizing their own and each other’s learning. While research has shown that having students work collaboratively in groups increases students’ higher order processing, problem solving, and social skills, as well as their attitudes towards learning, this strategy is still greatly underused. Students should be able to work collaboratively with others to analyze information, solve problems, communicate using academic language, take risks and try ideas, make judgments, and be innovative and creative. Consider these for a moment and think about why working collaboratively is at the forefront of these habits of mind.
Now, for students to gain the maximum benefits from working collaboratively, we must talk about what kind of activities students should be completing in collaborative groups. Students should engage in challenging tasks and activities that require them to productively struggle and utilize the collective thinking of all the group members. Collaborative group work is not giving students worksheets and having each person work alone and then simply compare answers with others. While completing this type of task does have its benefits for having students work to come to a consensus on answers, we are going to continue to focus on the deeper learning that is achieved through collaborative group work. In this module participants will learn to create activities that require students to work in groups in such a way as to deepen the learning experience, will learn how to create functioning student groups that will allow that collaborative work to take place, and learn methods for assessing student work resulting from working in a group.
Learning Objectives
Objective 1: Participants will be able to create functioning student groups.
Objective 2: Participants will be able to explain the student and teacher roles in group work.
Objective 3: Participants will be able to create activities that require students to work in groups in such a way as to deepen the learning experience.
Objective 4: Participants will be able to select and utilize instructional resources that are relevant to the student groups and promote diverse learning opportunities.
Objective 5: Participants will be able to assess student work resulting from working in a group.
Impact on Classroom Practice and Student Learning
As a result of completing this pathway, participants will be able to create groups in their classroom, create activities designed specifically for student group work, and create assessments for student group work.
