Student groups
Students always sit next to or near someone they know. Therefore I have them count off by #s to get them into a group with student they do not know and have to work with in order to accomplish a task. I find this effective because students are forced to interact with someone they may not have otherwise. in preparing our students for the workforce, they will have to work w/ individuals from diverse backgrounds. We are obligated to provide an educational enviornment, and communication and appropriate interaction skills may not be consistent for each student. They can learn from one another and learn how to respect one another as oppposed to just judging someone by their appearance.
my students love group learning. I have them draw numbers then after they have finished their assignments we will let the groups debate one another. The students seem to learn alot and interact with one another.
The "BUDDY" that a student sits by is sometimes the cause of the students failure.
I like to break the students up even combine classes with other instructor classes to show that you need to be able to work with many different types of people and you don't always get to pick a "buddy" to cling on too.
When assigning student groups, it is best to draw names or assign by using odd numbers. This way the students that usually sit next to each other are not in the same group. This will help with the students working with different people in their groups.
I think student groups help both weak and strong students to form bonds to get the task done.
