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Groups

Research with groups suggests that students work best when they are made up of four or five members. Larger teams become unwieldy and difficult to coordinate while smaller teams usually lack the resources to do a thorough job. As you continue to build your course, keep these questions in mind:

  • What benefits can you students get out of group activities?
  • What strategies you can use to foster and motivate your students working as groups?

Benefits of Using Groups

It is believed that working in a group enables students to develop their group/team working skills which are often essential in the workplace today. The research results indicate that group working can often achieve more than an individual working alone.

The benefits of group working include:

  • To achieve an objective that an individual may not be able to do alone
  • To manage time and meet deadlines
  • To divide work up fairly, so it takes less time to achieve the objective than if an individual was working alone
  • To obtain the most from the experience, develop a range of skills, and increase knowledge
  • To motivate and encourage each other
  • To share ideas and develop problem solving skills
  • To satisfy 'social interaction' needs
  • To create collaborative learning environments in which working adults can share the practical knowledge that comes from life and work experiences.
  • To allow students to broaden and deepen the understanding of concepts explored in the classroom.
  • To serve as laboratories through which students develop into effective leaders and members of workplace teams.
  • To improve the quality of group projects and assignments.
  • To serve as vehicles for reflection, by which adult students make sense of and apply new knowledge.
  • To provide a sense of community and support that is invaluable in helping working adults cope with the challenge of balancing school with other life demands.

Promoting Group Activities

In her paper "Managing--and Motivating!--Distance Learning Group Activities," Links to an external site. Barbara Mills outlined some principles for fostering effective online learning with groups:

  • Ask yourself key questions about the proposed group activity.
  • Be certain that group activities further the course objectives.
  • Explain to students the nature and value of the proposed activities.
  • Be certain to give clear instructions.
  • Provide students with a sense of closure.
  • Keep the group size small.
  • Unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, aim for heterogeneous groups.
  • To ensure heterogeneity, form teacher formed teams.
  • Keep groups together long enough to establish positive working relationships.
  • Allow time for team building.
  • Encourage students to monitor, as you will, group processing.
  • Use Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) to determine student progress.
  • Encourage students to practice and reinforce positive social skills.
  • Structure activities to promote positive interdependence
  • Promote individual accountability.
  • Set up a clear, non-competitive, criterion-referenced grading scheme.
  • Anticipate problems and don't be afraid to seek constructive help.

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