Group Work

Group Work

Overview

Having students work in groups lets them practice the skills they are learning. Speaking in front of the whole class can be scary, and combined with the tension of speaking to the teacher, the situation can be downright terrifying to students. Breaking them up into groups not only develops social skills useful in the professional environment for which they are training, but gives them a chance to perform in a supportive environment before a test or even before having to do homework on the topic on their own. 

Clarifying Your Reasons for Group Work

As with all teaching approaches, it is important that you identify a clear purpose for using group work. How will group work help your students reach the course's learning outcomes (e.g., providing opportunities for students to practice applying concepts)? How is your approach to group work reinforcing skills that are important in your class, major, and discipline (e.g., collaboration, communication, leadership)? How does it meet your pedagogical goals (e.g., promoting students' active engagement, or reducing the time you spend lecturing)? Using group work for its own sake can lead to failure and frustration, so lead with your goals and design group work to help you reach them.

It is just as important to clarify these reasons for students, particularly because many of them have become skeptical of (poorly designed) group work over their educational careers. Research shows that being transparent about an assignment's purpose, tasks, and criteria for success leads to greater student learning, and that is very true for group activities. Be clear with your students how a group activity will help them meet learning outcomes and/or prepare them for professional work, and be ready to support them throughout the process to ensure they find it valuable. Keep coming back to those learning outcomes to reinforce the relevance of the group work.

Organizing the Groups

Keep in mind the following elements of group work when selecting the appropriate type of group work for your class.

  • Size: Two to six people in a group is ideal. The smaller the group, the more likely each student will be to contribute to the discussion. Groups of two or three students are sufficient for simple tasks for which consensus should be reached quickly. Groups of four to six are better for more complex tasks in which a greater number of ideas may improve the final results.
  • Selection: You should either assign students randomly to groups or select students so that each group has an equal distribution of talents. Do not let students choose their own teams, for they may team up with friends or form cliques that can get off topic. See this video on group formation (4:57) for an example of assigning students to groups based on previous experience/skills that will be useful for the groups' task.
  • Duration: Use the groups for a brief discussion in class or for all semester. Long-term groups work more substantively and less superficially.
  • Group rotation: Whether to retain groups or form new ones depends on your situation. If selecting groups with specific or diverse talents takes time, or if discussions will rely on group cohesion or trust, you might keep the groups the same for a while. Quick, ad hoc groups might be more random and change frequently. As with most teaching decisions, this comes back to your learning outcomes and what best helps you accomplish those.

To derive the greatest benefit from the group interaction, you should spend a few minutes clarifying the students’ roles, deliverables, and expectations for the group’s work. Provide these details on handouts, in Canvas, or on a shared Google doc, so students' first question in their groups isn't "What were we supposed to do?" For more complex group assignments, see our TILT page to make your group assignments more transparent for students. 

Designating Roles in Groups

Groups that are created for in-class activities can be easily organized around a four-person model based on roles (from the POGIL model). Each member of the group plays a specific role that supports the team’s collaborative effort. These roles include:

  • Coordinator or Facilitator: Keeps the group on task and on schedule, and ensures that everyone has an opportunity to participate and contribute.
  • Recorder: Keeps a record of the group's work—names and roles, key discussion points, and decisions for the deliverable or reporting out.
  • Spokesperson or Presenter: Presents the group’s ideas to the rest of the class, based on the Recorder's notes.
  • Reflector or Strategy Analyst: Guides the team to reach consensus and in longer-term teams makes suggestions for improving group processes.

See the POGIL roles page for handy cards that list roles and common tasks/questions for those people to ask in their groups.

Other roles are possible, like Encourager (promotes participation and heads off group-think and early idea critique), Prober (questions assumptions and ensures sufficient evidence) or Checker (double-checks the group's work before presenting). 

As you can see, assigning roles can play a key factor in group size—you need enough people in a group to fill the roles, and everyone has to have a meaningful role to play in the group. If the groups are going to be working together on a long-term project or multiple tasks, you may wish to modify these roles to emulate roles that one might encounter in your discipline. Ensure that the students rotate through these positions. Try to break a long project into at least as many tasks as there are people in each group and have the students rotate through the roles each time they start a new task. 

For more strategies on using group roles in class, see Washington University's page on Using Roles in Group Work.

Sharing Group Results

Students should share the results of their group with the class at large. This holds students accountable to show their work, acknowledges their efforts and ideas, and gives the instructor an opportunity to comment on conclusions. Having to show the other groups what they did can increase their motivation to produce higher level work. Options for sharing results include:

  • Short verbal reports from groups (although this risks repetition if the task is focused on one "right" answer)
  • Deliverables posted on whiteboards or large post-it notes along the classroom's walls, providing an opportunity for a "gallery walk" where students move around to view (and perhaps comment on with post-it notes) other groups' deliverables.
  • Online gallery walks using PowerPoint slides, short videos, or Padlet
  • Shared Google docs (or one for each group) where others can see both the groups' final deliverables and any additional notes or resources

Do not forget to debrief students about the lessons they might have learned from the group work. This can help them reflect on and lock in their learning, hone their collaboration skills, and give you feedback on the activity.

Resources

Ten Research-Based Steps for Effective Group Work. IDEA Paper #65
This short report provides excellent suggestions for managing effective group work in your class, including some we do not address above.

Team-Based Learning
Team-Based Learning is an advanced form of group work in which content coverage is pushed outside of the class, with students using precious in-class time to take quizzes to show they have mastered the content and then practice the application of critical disciplinary skills such as problem-solving and argumentation. For more information, go the TBL website, which has many videos, including ones on forming groups, the difference between groups and teams, and peer evaluation of team members. 

For help with designing, implementing, and assessing the effectiveness of your group assignments, contact the CITL.