Coaches
Young adult students, as are found at vocational schools, Gen Y if you will, seem to be buddied up already. But they may not have buddied up with the most helpful buddy.
Students missing the first day or strudents more at risk of failure may benifit more from being grouped with more successful "coaches".
It's OK to influence the formation of lab or project groups.
We do this at our campus. Students are often encouraged to work with other classmates and sometimes teamed up with different classmates. I have seen this create a greater classroom bond.
I think it is important to have students partner with people they usually would not partner with... i believe it helps the students learn how to work with different people and prepares them for those interactions in the workforce.
On my class I allowed my student to create their own group. Therefore, everyone knows each other and they can relies on each other. Communication will be effective among each other there is no gap between them. Sometimes the person not familiar to the person hold his thought or just elect to wait the majority decision and ride with it, which is not good practice, just simply because we want each opinion to be count equally among member of the group.
What if the person has better idea but he or she decide not to share his thought due from lack on knowledge what eh group will say or think about it. Her/His taught will be useless, because he will keep that him/herself. So far by allowing my student to create or choose his own group is working specially the type of group activities they do in class rood or lab.
I try to break up the groups a little too, usually after finding out what level thay are at practically. I will take the most ssenior students and make them group leaders, and asign to different groups varying levels of knowlege.
Alexander--
You make a great point about students already 'buddied-up', but not necessarily with the most productive person. Do you do anything to mix up the groups?
Susan
excellent Alex, i use a random lab group system that allows a mix of students. Having them pick there groups can be disaster waiting to happen, there grades may sufer because of friend ships and more fighting.
