Group work

[liv]

I'm on a mission to redeem group work in education. I expect this to be controversial among many of my friends. So if I'm right and lots of you have terrible memories / experiences of being made to do bad group work, I invite you to comment here and tell me what was bad about it. Do you think it's just awful, or are there problems that might be fixed? I believe strongly that while it can be dire, it can also be great, or perhaps I might phrase it as, there are things that look like group work superficially but are actually great.

Because I'm on a mission this may turn into a more formal research survey at some point, but in that case I'll pose the question in a formal context with ethics and everything. Right now I'm just trying to gather some opinions and not just rely on my own ideas. Plus I am eye-deep in paperwork and I could do with some distraction, so do rant away.

Comments

[monanotlisa]

I've found group work in a homogenous group fine and even fun -- homogenous with regard to enthusiasm and intellect, and perhaps there are other vectors I can think of. (These are obviously not commonly found in secondary or even tertiary education settings; I have had great results in grad school, though.)

[liv]

Mm. I think more advanced students are more self-selected and all want to learn and have a higher level of starting competence. But also, they're more mature and have more experience of life in general and of working sensibly with other people – it's hard to completely disentangle those factors, I think. More advanced students are easier to teach too, a lot of the time.

I have some ideas for how to make things work in mixed groups. Partly if the teaching is good and the task is actually meaningful and interesting, you're less likely to have students who are miserable and don't want to take part.