Friday, March 30, 2018

Group Work Inside the Classrooms


Group work might be one of the hardest task a teacher can ask her students to do, if the teacher is not aware of the way to start a group work inside the classroom. In this post I'd like to talk about my experience in group work and what helped me make it a successful one. According to me any lesson or activity can be taught in groups.My students usuallyunderstand better when I ask them to work in groups and this always reminds me of  Benjamin Franklin's quote "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn". students work better and give great results when they are involved in the work they are supposed to do. If you stand in front of them for decades and give them they same information, or you asked them to find it out through a group work, they'll perform better in their groups, they'll come to a better result and they'll understand more. Here are some steps to make the group work experience a successful and an enjoyable one:      
  • Assign each group members before coming to class and in this avoid best friends and worst enemies in the same group. 
  • Explain what you want your students to do before assigning your groups, so students won't waste time gossiping with their group members. 
  • Assign the role of each group member so students won't fight for their roles. You know better who should take each part/role according to their different abilities. Of course you wouldn't give a hard part for a low achiever.
  • keep track on their work while working, walk among them and ask for any questions and clarification.
  • Make sure every person in the group is working, and that they are not throwing their tasks on each others.
  • Provide your students with positive feedback and help them feel responsible. 
Group working is really tiring to be prepared and accomplished, but very beneficial for both the teacher and the students, because students understand better when they work.



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5 comments:

  1. Enchanted Tears March 30, 2018 at 9:11 AM

    I wish you were taking the Dynamics course with us last semester! we took a lesson about group work and cooperative learning. It was really beneficial, and it taught us the same things you said but in a more detailed way.

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  2. AlaaMarch 30, 2018 at 3:31 PM

    Students understand better when they work, yes it is a true statement and i try it in my class and it was great idea with a great result

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  3. UnknownApril 1, 2018 at 1:45 AM

    I am a math teacher and with my short experience i can said that groups work is more important than individual work but that can not apply to all exercises.

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  4. Omar SalamehApril 2, 2018 at 2:35 AM

    Cooperative learning is very effective if teachers know how to apply it. Beginners in teaching must start with easy structures of group work such as Think-Pair-Share because students need to get used to such kind of work at first. Then, teachers can go to higher structure levels such as Jigsaw. In terms of assessment of group work, teachers can assess students work individually or as a group or both.

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  5. UnknownApril 9, 2018 at 7:42 AM

    Not all group work are cooperative learning. Yes, cooperative learning is very effective only if teachers know how to apply it. I've observed more than one session with different teachers doing group work in a school last semester, but unfortunate, teachers were not applying any of those characteristics of cooperative learning that you have mentioned. The group work "they applied" did not differ from the individual work.

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