Challenges of Using Students Groups
Some of the challenges that I have seen are: the dislike of certain members of the group; some of the members thinking that their work is not needed, so they will put less effort into the group; lazy members that expect others to do their share of the work, and still expect to get full credit; and certain members that will do all of the work and submit the work when others have not put in their share. These are some of challenges that I have seen with group work.
What are some challenges of having students work in groups?
Communication among team members is always a challenge. Different working agendas and division of labor is also a problem. To alleviate this problem I ask the team to keep me posted on progress and let me know if they are having issues in accomplishing tasks.
Something that we found to be very effective at my school, was letting students develop group contracts. These Contracts made each member accountable for their actions.
I think the main problem is the fact that there will always be one group member that is forced to bear the brunt of the work. To avoid this, break down the assignment into parts. Assign each student a part in the project. Set up a rubric for each portion of the assignment and grade the student on his/her portion. This levels the playing field and prevents one student from being penalized for their unmotivated group mate.
I like to use a hand held timer to allow everyone a chance to talk - then if there is time left over to allow additional time.
I agree with Kevin Monti in that a huge obstacle is the equal division of labor among participants. In addition, I am an online facilator and have no prior knowledge of the students coming into class. They have a final project that is due in the last week of class. I have pre-assigned and had them chose groups in the past. Both have advantages and disadvantages but both have a common thread...there's always the one or two that do not carry their weight and cause frustration and sometimes chaos within the group dynamics.
at one point in time we had a some pretty sensitive,controversial topics come up and i decided to kinda just go with it and seperated people into groups and debate the pros and cons. I had a really good turn out and overall students were very satisfied with the exercise.
Student Groups are a great way for the students to develop or strengthen their skills in Active Listening, and giving/taking constructive criticism. These are skills that most students need to develop and group work is a suitable forum in which to hone them. The challence is to monitor the group initially to ensure the students are functioning as an effective group.
Usually, the biggest obstacle for having students working in groups is talking. But if you're clear on the objectives and make the lesson fun, that is a given! I try to take group activities to the next level and encourage critical thinking skills, to where they will have to solve problems as opposed to coming up with general responses for the outcomes.
Using groups in a classroom setting can present a few problems. One being those students who breeze by without actually participating or contributing to the group. The student is not learning the concept being presented if he or she do not participate in the exercises. It also brings down the moral of other group members, which can ultimately affect their grade. It's important for teachers to have a plan of action or grading rubric for each group. The rubric will outline what's expected so students are well aware in advance of how to earn an 'A'. The rubric can also assist students with delegating responsibilities within the group, which could prevent a lack of participation from other group members.
M. Allen
I have found that if not monitored closely sudents will start to discuss social issues such as facebook, twitter, etc.
Make sure the talker does not take over the group, and leave the rest of the group trying to bail out.
If the group gels you will have a powerful class of students that will excel.
I have found that the biggest challeng with student learning groups is equal division of labor among participants, especially when groups are selected randomly. To help determine contribution from all members, I have the students in work groups evlauate their peers' preformance, and use this information as a part of evaluation for each member in the group. I make this information avaiable as part of the grading rubric for group assignments.
The issue I seem to have most is the one out the entire group that simply refuses to participate. It upsets the dynamic of the group and encourages others to follow suite and not take the group seriously!
The challenge is making sure that the student groups are accomplishing the things you set the group up to complete on a student to student basis.
The challenges of using students groups is to be able to get the student to realize the importance of working with other students, besides their friend who they sit next to each day at class. When forming groups I try to pick students that are the opposite of each other. The reason for this is that they need to understand that class group are somewhat controlled; however in the real working world it is what it is. I stress to the students how important it is to work with other. It kind of like your Mom telling you to "play nice with others"
One challenge that I have recently experienced is that sometimes students do not like the role that has been assigned to them. They quickly tell you how disgruntled they are about their assignment and immediately beg for a reassignment. When other students in the groups witness this, they too request a particular role in contrast to what they have previously been assigned. As a result, nobody has their original role assignment and everybody seemed to just request what they wanted to do instead, countering the calculated placements by the instructor.
This phenomenon taught me that sometimes it is best to let the students pick what role they want to play because otherwise educators will spend wasted time bartering with students.
Some obvious challenges that come to mind in keeping groups together and on task are students that take a leave of absence, students that withdraw from the course, and students that get terminated from the course due to not meeting attendance and/or grade requirements. Other challenges are members in the group not feeling that certain individuals are "pulling their weight" or members not "gelling" together for reasons of diversity, cultural backgrounds, and etc.
One of the challenges of using student groups is that many students feel that there is usually one person who does not pull his/her weight. This forces the other members to have to do the work and they often feel resentful that all of the group members got the same grade. (Usually, I know which students have done the work, and which have not, so I do factor that in to the final grade.)
In addition, I require every student to write and hand in a one-page summary of how he/she thinks the group worked together. This allows each student an opportunity to "vent" and also allows me to consider the information in the final grading.
Group dynamics can be intimidating for some students, and it is the responsibility of the instructor to monitor the progress of the involvement of each student.
