Group Learning
Sometimes I break students into small groups to outline and discuss certain concepts from the text. Then, we discuss the concepts as a class. One student in each group tends to dominate the feedback given to the rest of the class. How do I encourage the others to participate without putting them on the spot?
Jerry,
I do think the division of duties is key to helping the student groups be successful & to keeping all engaged.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I also like doing this exercise. By giving each student a different piece of their pie in the topic, it helped break up discussion into each student's areas.
Perhaps you can simply ask the other students, individually, different questions. That way you can add their experience/opinion to the discussion.
this sounds like a good effective way to group learning...
Try this, ask the rest of the group to ask questions of the 'dominating' student.
Set each group up with a 'leader"(dominator). Have each group collect a series of questions (on the subject the instructor chooses) that the leader will answer or discuss directly to the class.
When time comes for group presentations, each group member presents one question to the leader. The leader answers the question and explains the answer to the rest of the class.
I also like to divide up the tasks. Have 1 student read the activity, have the next answer the first question and so on until everyone has participated.
Lisa,
one little trick I learned on this is to allow each member of the group to only share 1 item that was discussed. They keep going around the group until they have exhausted their list, but each person only states 1 thing at a time.
Dr. Ryan Meers
