Grouping Students
I work at the Joint Special Operations University, I am not an instructor at this time but do attend many courses as a student and or extra hand. When we have courses that include international students, young students and older students, depending on how many of each catagory, they are broken up into groups to include one of each so to speak, in order to break them out of their shell in order to make them become one. Different ideas and I've been there's break down the protection sheild and gets them talking. It works well when you get them one on one. It truley works every time.
Krista,
I use your method when assigning learning groups in my classes for the reasons you state. It is important for students to learn how to work with others if they are going to be successful in the workplace. The more experience they have at it the better prepared they will be to participate as a team member.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I believe that it is important to pick groups for the students in the begining of a class. People tend to gravitate towards other who are similar to themselves (in terms of age, race, education, etc.). If students are allowed to choose their own groups, I have noticed they do not seek out a variety of backgrounds. Being able to create diverse groups when the class is new and people are open to meeting new classmates and are striving towards being accepted, they will be more open later on in the class to accepting a variety of backgrounds into their study groups/ project groups. Great topic!
DANIEL,
Thank you for these comments as they are good to know since many instructors have diverse student bodies that they are called upon to instruct. As you say by breaking the class down into smaller groups and getting them to work together everyone learns more about how to work with others as well as problem solve.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
