Collaborative Group Techniques

'A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of the students are an integral part of the curriculum.'              

                                                    --  Peterson  --

Using collaborative groups can be very challenging.  The students must value the process of learning and understand that within the classroom environment they are responsible to each other and for each other as members of that learning community.  With that in mind, students must be accountable to the group, to be prepared and to share equally in the learning process.  Students should understand that collaborative groups are not an opportunity to socialize and most definitely not an opportunity to let others do all the work.  Each member of the group must pull their own weight in order for the success of everyone. 

Playing Teacher

Divide students into even groups of five or less. Give each student in a group a unique concept to learn. Then bring the group back together and let students teach each other what they have learned. Make sure that the entire group is learning about the same subject, just a different aspect of the subject. Test each group when the teaching session is completed within each group.

The Interview.

Divide students into groups with an even number of students in each group. Each member of a group chooses a partner. Have individuals interview their partner by asking them clarifying questions. Now let the partners switch roles. Lastly, let members of the entire group share their responses as a team.

Catch a Brainstorm.

Divide students into teams of 4 to 6, and appoint one student on each team to be the "secretary." Give each team a different question that can have many answers. Now give each team a chance to brainstorm answers to the question, with the "secretary" writing down the team's responses. Have the students work in a circle, each taking turns to give a response, instead of having all of the students shout out answers to the "secretary" at once.

Number Frenzy.

Divide students in groups of four. Label each student in a group as number 1, 2, 3, or 4. Ask the groups a common question. The group then works together to come up with the correct answer. Now you call out a number (between 1 and 4), and the person in a group that is assigned that number is to give you the answer to the question.

Group Grading.

After taking a test, divide your students into groups with an even number of people in each group. Let students trade their test papers, so they will be grading each other. Now give each group a few minutes to determine which answers are correct and to see which group members may have made mistakes. Allow the groups time to explain so that those members can see why their answer was wrong and what the correct answer should have been. Wrap up the groups and answer any dangling questions not addressed in the individual groups.

The Great Debate.

Cooperative learning can be used in any situation where you want students to debate the points of view of a concept being taught. For instance, when learning about the elections process, you can divide students into groups and have them hold a debate over what they would change about the elections process, what is working and not working with the current process, etc.

Listing Activity.

Divide students into groups of five or less. Ask each group to list words and/or phrases that describe what they are being taught, i.e., Energy, heat, potential, light, kinetic… Be sure that every response is written down that each individual gives. Have each group discuss their list and then come up with the words and/or phrases the entire group agrees on. Later each group can get up before the class and discuss why they chose the responses they did.

The One Minute Game.

Divide the class into teams of five or less. Have each group contemplate answers to these questions, giving them one minute to answer them:

What was the main thing you learned today?

Tell me two questions that you have remaining about this lesson.

What else would you like to know about this topic?

This is a great cooperative learning activity that helps students give you feedback about the lessons they learned.

Assigning Group Roles

Consider assigning each member of a group a role, so each member feels they are contributing to the group in a positive way. Roles could consist of:

Leader - The individual that makes sure everyone in the group has mastered the concepts being learned through the exercises.

Secretary - The person who records responses for the entire group.

Reporter - The person that speaks for the group when standing in front of the class.

Monitor - The person who keeps time for the group with timed assignments.

Manager - The person who fills in for any member of the group who is absent, and assists the leader of the group.

Roles can be switched within a group from time-to-time. Allow students to critique the performance of each member of the group.  This will hold them accountable to each other.  Read the critiques and provide feedback to let students know how their team members view there contributions.  

Ranking order.

Determine whom you will put into groups by using the following exercise.

1. Present your students with an issue that is pertinent to a lesson. Have the students rank this issue by how they feel about it with 1 being in strong agreement and 10 being in strong disagreement.

2. Place a rank-order line on your whiteboard and record the students' responses on the line.

3. Now form your groups by pulling out one person from each end of the ranking order, and then two people from the center of the line.

Aluminum Boats, Pennies and Archimedes

 Fact or Fiction?: Archimedes Coined the Term "Eureka!" in the Bath

  

A 10cm x 10cm piece of aluminum foil, 30cm x 1.9cm length of scotch tape and a handful of pennies, now figure out what makes a battleship float.

For five years now, I have utilized aluminum boat building as a means of having students discover he principles of buoyancy.  Students work collaboratively to create an aluminum foil boat that will float while supporting the greatest number of pennies without sinking.  Each students is given three 10cm x 10cm pieces of aluminum foil and three 30cm pieces of tape to design three boats.  Each boat will be placed in a tub of water.  Students will test the buoyancy of their design by adding pennies to the boat until the boat sinks.

Students collaborate to evaluate and critique each boat for the effectiveness as a penny cargo ship.  Typically students will work in lab groups of four or five members and will evaluate the buoyancy principles of as many as 15 different designs.  Students collect data on the mass of the boats, mass of the pennies, surface area of the boat and water displacement.  Utilizing this information they can work through what makes an object float and associate these concepts using Archimedes Principles.

Students experience research and design concepts in a very simple lab while applying the physics concepts for buoyancy that allow an air craft carrier or cruise ship to float.

Designing Games for the Three C's

One on the best projects I have found to incorporate all of the Three C's (Thinking Critically, Communicate Clearly and Work Collaboratively) is to have students work in groups to design a game to teach one of the topics we are learning.

I use this assignment primarily in my Anatomy and Environmental Science course, but it could be adapted for any subject.  In Anatomy I have students work in groups of three or four to create a game to teach the anatomy and physiology of the Digestive System from the mouth to the Anus and all of the organs and processes in between.  The Environmental Science students design games to teach a Cycle of Nature: water, carbon, nitrogen, food webs from various biomes.  I teach in a three block schedule of ninety five minunte classes.  I provide students with 30 minutes each day to work with their groups on their games.  Students typically have about three weeks to complete the games, about six class periods.   

Think Critically

Students are asked to design a game with specific rules and an ultimate goal of winning, while focusing on the development of a game that is a teaching and learning tool. Students need to understand the vocabulary, structures, inputs, processes and outcomes of the systems involved. The game must be fun to create a desire to play in order to create the repetition necessary for others to learn from the game play. Students must think critically about how to create a game that will be enjoyable so tha people will want to play it repetitively to increasethe effect of the game as a learning tool.  I encourage students to create games that have variations so that the game can be adapted for various levels of students as a means of introducing the subject, reinforcing learned material or in review for an exam.

Communicate Clearly

Students struggle with the creation of a clear and concise set of rules for their games. They need to communicate their vision for the game in directions and rules that must be prepared for an unknown audience. Most students have little difficulty in verbally explaining how to play a game, but ask them to write the rules and explanations out in a cohesive manner and this can be a cause for great angst for many students.

Working Collaboratively

Coming to a consensus on the game design, delegating responsibilities and producing a finished product demands nothing but a collaborative buy in from the members of the group. Then each student must trust that all aspects of the game come together on Game Day, board, cards, pieces and rules in class and on time.

Game day takes place in our dining hall.  Groups set up their own games and play them for 10 minutes to make sure  games are functional and everything is in place.  They then move about the room playing the other games and grading them.  Students grade the games based upon the effectiveness of the game itself, the effectiveness of the game as a learning tool, and the production quality of the game.  Once students begin playing other games, they are not allowed to return to their own game for any reason. I encourage students to play the games with members of the other groups to maintain perspective and avoid comparisons to only their own games. 

Students will play and score between four and six games during a one hour period.

During the debriefing at the end of the day, I am always amazed at how many students want to be given the opportunity to improve their own game after seeing what others have done and what they might have done to enhance their own.  That is when I see the real learning take place as students evaluate their own work against the work of the peers and demonstrate an honest desire to improve upon their end product.  I typically also see a more focused production quality of the work that is turned in following these projects in both courses.

The Three C’s

A quote from Alvin Toffler reads, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." 

The average individual in the United States will change careers three times and be employed in twelve different jobs before the age of forty.  How can today’s educator equip students with the skills necessary to succeed in a world where change seems to be the only constant?  How is it possible to train students for jobs that have not yet been imagined, to keep up with technology that has not yet been invented?

No longer can educators saddle themselves with the idea that competence in the 3 R’s (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic) will suffice as the guiding measure of academic and future success for the students entrusted to the educational system of today.  The classroom must therefore engage the students in processes that build upon the tools and skills that will allow them to learn, unlearn and relearn.

Therefore, the focus of secondary education should no longer be the 3 R’s but instead should be predicated on the 3 C’s, Critical Thinking, Clear Communication, and Collaboration.  It is these three skills that will provide a basis for success in a world where careers, technology, and socializing will be consistently changing with a rapidness that is exponential as opposed to the linear change that all generations witnessed prior to the first Apple One being placed in a classroom.

Critical thinking allows the individual to manage information. Information presented in a multitude of forms from a variety of media. Information that must be filtered and analyzed, authenticated and processed, and eventually must be synthesized in a form that will be useful to the individual. 

Communication provides the means by which the individual can present information. Information presented in a multitude of means through a variety of media. Information that must be clear and concise, effective and engaging, and eventually be presented in a way that is meaningful to the individual.

Collaboration engages the individual in the world they share through association. Association, that is created to benefit an organization and as a means to conduct business. Association that includes partnership and teamwork, leadership and assistance, and alliance that serves to benefit the whole.     

The educational process must engage the student in activities that provide for the honing of these three basic skills.  It is an injustice to today’s student for the educational process to be focused upon the solution rather than the process.  It is the obligation of the educator to provide curricular opportunities that engage students in the three C’s. 

Encourage students to travel outside their zones of comfort.  Don’t set the bar, for the bar may inadvertently be too low and discourage the expansion of ideas. Encourage mistakes for mistakes are windows to the possibilities of new processes. Devalue the answer and value the process.  For it is in the process, that these skills are built and where it is in finding the answer, that the process ends.                      

The 1940’s and 1950’s marked an educational era that necessitated the development of job skills. The majority of the population sought only to be job ready out of high school.  Careers were for the college bound. The choices were much simpler as high school graduation led to college to those who demonstrated the academic promise to prepare for a career or who had the family wealth to pursue college without such a focus. The second option was to take up a job in order to learn a trade.  While the third option was the military, where you could learn a trade and then pursue a job upon discharge.

The educational focus of the 60’s and 70’s found high schools preparing students for college in order to forge a career. The learning pedagogy involved skills necessary to succeed in a college setting.  Preparation for choosing a lifelong career path was the therefore the norm and the skills necessary were based upon getting to the next level on that path.

Today, however, it can no longer be assumed that the career of choice today will even be an option tomorrow.  The exponential growth of technology and the relative shrinking of the world through our connectivity and social media invariably makes it impossible to gauge the job skills that will be necessary in the future.

Therefore, the high school student of today must be equipped with the skills that will provide the ability to communicate ideas clearly and effectively, the ability to work independently or within a group dynamic and the ability to think both inside and outside the box. The three C’s must be the standards upon which the education provided to this generation of students is predicated.

Planting Mangoes

I found this story  many years ago.  I keep a copy over my desk as a reminder that I may never see nor experience the seeds of education I plant in the minds of my students each day, but I believe that what I do for them in my classroom is invaluable to their development into adults who think critically, communicate effectively and work collaboratively to make positive change in this world that we share.     

It was time for the monsoon rains to begin and a very old man was digging holes in his garden

“What are you doing?” his neighbor asked.

“Planting mango trees” was the reply.

“Do you expect to eat mangoes from those trees?”

 

“No, I won’t live long enough for that.  But others will. 

 It occurred to me the other day that all my life I have enjoyed mangoes planted by other people.  This is my way of showing them my gratitude.”