My journey with Bean continues and today's subject is group work. I won't list here the argument for (or against) group work or even discuss the numerous amount of strategies (you can refer to Engaging Ideas for that ;) ). Instead, as group work is already something I use, I will start from my own experience.
My most recent experience of Group work
Forming the groups.
Most of the time, the groups are formed by students sitting close to each others, sometimes more or less randomly assigned. "More or less" is because it happens that I still try to have groups of mixed competences.
I am actually not comfortable with assigning groups completely chosen by me. In a way I don't feel I have the competences or the insight for making groups that would work better than groups formed randomly or by affinity.
Concerning the size of the groups, it might depend of the activity. Usually, there are three to five students in the groups. For some group works, I even do not force the ones who are not comfortable to work in a group. Maybe I should, but I intend to discuss that later.
How do I assign group works?
I make students work in group in different ways.
Most of the time, the groups are formed by students sitting close to each others, sometimes more or less randomly assigned. "More or less" is because it happens that I still try to have groups of mixed competences.
I am actually not comfortable with assigning groups completely chosen by me. In a way I don't feel I have the competences or the insight for making groups that would work better than groups formed randomly or by affinity.
Concerning the size of the groups, it might depend of the activity. Usually, there are three to five students in the groups. For some group works, I even do not force the ones who are not comfortable to work in a group. Maybe I should, but I intend to discuss that later.
How do I assign group works?
I make students work in group in different ways.
- When working on exercises in class, I always encourage my students to discuss them with their "neighbours". This creates a positive emulation between the students and increases the understanding of the whole class.
- In Linear Algebra, I ask students multiple choice concept questions. Mainly for technical reasons, I don't use clickers or other polling systems. Still, they first have to make up their mind before discussing their choice with their neighbours. Then I round-up the whole class.
- Actually, I use group works mainly in my calculus classes. One of my main resources for group work is the Instructor Guide for Stewart's Early Transcendental Calculus. I assign some of them depending on the time I have. Those are usually one to two write-on pages that I copy and hand-out to students. Most of the time, we discuss the answers in class. I have never ask them to hand-out their work.
- I also use group for review games. Most of the time, it takes the form of J. Stewart's version of the hangman. Each student in the groups are assigned a number. We start with all students #1 going to the blackboard where I assign a problem. Everyone in the room tries to solve it. The people at the board cannot speak, but their teammates can work together, speaking quietly. The first person at the board who is done calls for the attention of the class and states his or her solution. Then each other team gets a chance to accept the answer, or challenge. As this is a hangman game, the team that wins (first to have their representative get it right, or first to challenge successfully) gets to guess a letter of the puzzle.