Group Work

Recently a teaching concept was brought to my attention that had never before been discussed or that I had never thought about. This was the concept of group work, however not just having students do group work but how as a teacher do you construct group work and make sure that everyone is participating. Usually when I am doing teaching in my methods courses I simply tell the students to get into groups around them, or they are already arranged in groups. When students are put into groups to work there are several problems that can occur. First of all one person usually dominates the group. This is usually a student that is more outgoing and comfortable being in charge, however if they end up doing all the work then the other person are not learning as much. These low status students outside of the group are usually ignored and are looked upon as though their opinions do not matter. From a teacher’s point of view sometimes these students may be viewed as being unmotivated and not wanting to try, however in reality they may be trying but their thoughts are being shot down by the dominate members of the group.
So what do you do? One idea that I thought about was making a Multiple Abilities chart. Each group member is good at something and it is good to highlight this. As a teacher it is good to convince students that every group member can bring something to the table and contribute and that one person doesn’t have all the abilities to contribute all. Also a teacher needs to make sure that the group work has a purpose and needs to pick worthwhile task for the students to work on. Setting guidelines for the group and assigning roles for the students before the group work beings are also great ideas to keep from one person taking over. I have also noticed in my science method classroom that my cooperating teacher makes a point to visit and talk to each group and each person within the group to help intrigue their ideas. He makes sure that they are engaged in the activity and are being included by facilitating questioning and highlighting their thoughts and opinions. This is sometime to think about when teaching. Unless a teacher takes the time to take care of the classroom culture, including group work activities, even the best lessons do not go well and can be unsuccessful.