GROUP WORK A HOW TO ENSURE EVERYBODYS PARTICIPATION

GROUP WORK A) HOW TO ENSURE EVERYBODY'S PARTICIPATION B) HOW TO FORM GROUPS

Content Why do group work? How to set up pair and group work General strategies Designing group work Allocation of roles and tasks Organizing learning groups Conflict Criticism How to deal with uncooperative students Evaluating group work Dividing into pairs, groups of three and groups of four or more

Why do group work? Group work encourages critical thinking by discussion. Information is retained for longer than it would be if working alone. Group work enhances and develops the ability to learn. Students learn best when they are actively involved in the process. Many subjects are mastered through dialogue and discussion Students who work in collaborative groups also appear more satisfied with their classes.

How to set up pair and group work Be sure to fully explain the procedure before splitting the class up. • The teacher should demonstrate the activity (with the help of a volunteer) or show some examples first. • Ask them to tell you what they have to do before they do it (in their mother tongue if need be) to check their understanding. • Have fill in activities ready for the quick finishers – but be sure that they have completed the task correctly first and haven’t just finished early because they misunderstood what they had to do. •

How to set up pair and group work Don’t forget to have feedback time after group work so that the children don’t feel that they have been wasting time. It’s important to share their work as a whole group although this doesn’t have to be systematic. Set a clear time limit. Control who works with who so children aren’t always being dominated or dominating others.

General strategies Carefully explain to your class how the groups will operate and how students will be graded. It is very important to tell students exactly what they should do. In addition to a welldefined task, every group needs to know how to start, when the task is done, and some guidance about the participation of members. Also explain how students will be graded.

General strategies • Give students the skills they need to succeed in groups. Many students have never worked in collaborative learning groups and may need practice in such skills as active and tolerant listening, helping one another in mastering content, giving and receiving constructive criticism, and managing disagreements. Discuss these skills with your students and model and reinforce them during class.

Designing group work Create group tasks that require interdependence. The students in a group must perceive that they "sink or swim" together, that each member is responsible to and dependent on all the others, and that one cannot succeed unless all in the group succeed. Strategies for promoting interdependence include specifying common rewards for the group, encouraging students to divide up the work, and formulating tasks that force students to reach a consensus (opinion which all students agree with).

Designing group work • Make the group work relevant. Students must perceive the group tasks as integral to the course objectives. It is believed that groups succeed best with tasks involving judgment, e. g. Each group prepares a report, and a representative from each group is selected to present the group's solution. The approaches used by the various groups are compared and discussed by the entire class.

Designing group work Assign group tasks that allow for a fair division of work. Try to structure the tasks so that each group member can make an equal contribution. All the members work together to include the individual contributions into the final report.

Allocation of roles and tasks Roles and tasks need to be allocated to members on the basis of strengths and weaknesses. The hardest part is to find a role that everyone is suited to. You will need to discuss as a group what the roles are.

Organizing learning groups Decide how the groups will be formed. Self-selected groups seem to work best in small classes. Still other teachers prefer to form the groups themselves. They form groups of better students and weaker ones to make sure that members of each group participate. Be conscious of group size. In general, groups of four or five members work best. Larger groups decrease each member's opportunity to participate actively. The less skillful the group members are, the smaller the groups should be. The shorter amount of time available is, the smaller the groups should be.

Organizing learning groups Keep groups together. When a group is not working well, avoid breaking it up, even if the group requests it. When you try to form new groups you can throw off successful groups processes. Beside that, members of the troubled group should learn to cope with its unproductive interactions. Help groups plan how to proceed. Ask each group to devise a plan of action: who will be doing what and when.

Conflict A certain degree of conflict is useful and is a sign that the group is functioning healthily. Too much conflict suggests communication problems which must be resolved. Conflict usually arises from unclear aims and objectives. To avoid this, set down the aims and objectives of the group for the whole project at all levels as early as possible.

Criticism • • • Criticism should be actively encouraged. When you criticise, raise and analyse the good points as well as the bad points. When raising negative points, formulate ways to build on them and move forward. Good criticism will help others to evaluate their own work more effectively. If you do not criticise well, you will not be seen as objective. Criticism should be neutral.

How to deal with uncooperative students Provide mechanisms for groups to deal with uncooperative members. Keep the groups of three students: it is hard to be a shirker (lazy, evasive student) in a small group. Make it clear that each group must find its own way to handle unproductive group behavior. Allow the groups, by majority vote, to dismiss a member who is not carrying a fair share. Students who are dropped from a group must persuade the group to reconsider, find acceptance in another group, or take a failing grade for the project.

How to deal with uncooperative students Some people recommends telling the class that after the group task is completed, each student will submit to the teacher an anonymous assessment of the participation of the other group members: who did extra work and who shirked work. If several people indicate that an individual did less than a fair share, that person could receive a lower grade than the rest of the group.

Evaluating group work • Ensure that individual student participates and that the groups know how their members are doing. (Ways to ensure that students know what is done in the group include giving spot quizzes to be completed individually and calling on individual students to present their group's progress. )

Evaluating group work • Give students an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of their group. Ask group members to discuss two questions: What action has each member taken that was helpful for the group? What action could each member take to make the group even better? (At the end of the project, ask students to complete a brief evaluation form on the effectiveness of the group and its members. )

Evaluating group work Decide how to grade members of the group. We can grade this way: Give all members of the group the same marks. Grade students individually. (This inevitably leads to competition within the group and thus subverts the benefits of group work. ) Grade the contribution of each student on the basis of individual test scores or the group's evaluation of each member's work.

Dividing into pairs 1. Compound words (cross – word) 2. Word parts (num – ber) 3. Idioms (an Achilles´ - heel) 4. Proverbs (A barking dog – never bites. ) 5. Question + Answer (How old are you? – I am 13. ) 6. Problem + Solution (car problem – car mechanic) 7. Object + Object (knife – fork) 8. Famous pairs (Shrek – Fiona) 9. Antonyms (good - bad) 10. Synonyms (grandfather – grandpa)

Dividing into groups of three 1. Synonyms (postpone – put off – delay) 2. Conversations/Dialogues (statement - reaction – statement, e. g. Can you help me, please? - Yes, what happened? – I have a problem with my car. ) 3. Line-up (cat – dog – mouse / teacher – cook – shop assistant)

Dividing into groups of four or more 1. Picture puzzle (parts of pictures to be matched) 2. Common denominator (run – jump – walk – go / write – draw – type – paint) 3. Line-up