Reading Response 3

Ch 1- Group Work As A Strategy For Classrooms

Designing group work entails small heterogeneous groups of students, each assigned a task with the ability to make choices in how they will complete the task, delegate responsibilities, and work within the group to accomplish the task. Designing group work is not grouping students by ability, one member of the group taking control over the whole task or the teacher having control of how students complete the task. My experience with group work at the college level, has been for the most part, successful. I think group work, properly designed around specific goals, is extremely beneficial to students learning, developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills and constructing knowledge. It’s a process in which students have to trust themselves and members within the group to accomplish a task.

Ch 2- Why Group work-
Group work when implemented properly, presents various learning opportunities for students to become active and engaged learners through interaction, investigation, and exploration. Many of these learning opportunities allow students to get a feel of how it is to be an adult and collaborate with members to carry out a task. Not only does heterogeneous learning groups provide students the opportunity to give constant informal feedback, it lets students construct and extend conceptual understanding of what it is being learned through group discussion and explanation. The social support and encouragement that comes out of group work when students are trained in cooperative learning techniques presents a “Win-Win” situation. We are social creatures, let’s utilize everyone’s knowledge, experience and expertise, and help students see that their peers are also valuable resources in learning.  

Ch 3- The Dilemma of Group-work
As a designer of group work, it is critical that I establish and teach students ground rules and skills needed for working in a group. I believe a teacher must be aware of each students strengths and weaknesses academically and socially. Perceptions based on status (societal, social, expert and academic) will be inescapable and will impact how students work and contribute within a group. Recently, I had a group assignment in which members automatically elected me as the group leader (probably because of my age- Lol!). I know it was not because of my competence as we have a bright and intelligent cohort, but I am perceived as organized and task-oriented. This did not bother me so much, but I felt to some extent that I had to carry the group. Too much pressure for one person =).  

In closing, referring back to a statement in the text, “Students can often address other students questions more effectively than the teacher” made me think and influenced the way I will teach my students. Everyone in the class is a valuable resource and an expert on some topic or another so let students teach and learn from one another.