Group Work
Group
work is well known as a management tool that has also been widely used in other
fields, for example, business, education and law, to name three. Clearly define
the concept of group work and then in relation to one of the three fields
mentioned above, state why it is used and how. You have all been involved in
group work here at university; give your opinion on the pros and cons of it on
your learning.
Group work can be effectively used in many
settings: community groups, church groups, sport teams,
government organizations, recreation groups, etc. In the field of education, group work is becoming
more and more important. The word ‘group’ is used differently due to the
situation and the user. It is difficult to define a group, because a group may be a two-member family or a hundred-member
seminar. “Some authors simply state that a group is
“several persons, “or “a collection of individuals” doing things
co-opperatively” (Glanz, 1962, p.8). Those persons interact face-to-face and influence
each other. The concept of group work
is the grouping of students for the purpose of achieving
knowledge, skills and favorable behavior. Group work, as a useful tool in
patterning social interaction and learning climates, is studied in the area of
‘Group Research’, which “is
a major area of study in the social and behavioral science, particularly in the
fields of anthropology, sociology and various branches of psychology” (Simpson,
1992, p.1). Groups are usually organized for three
main reasons: to accomplish a task/ solve a problem, to change/develop the
group members, or to provide a learning-situation like
in a class. However, the classroom, from kindergarten to university seminar, is
the primary environment on which this assignment will focus on. The essay will
first state why and how group work is used in the field of education before
giving my opinion on the pros and cons of using group work in learning at
university. I have two positive opinions on using group work in my learning at
university, but also two negative opinions on the same topic.
There are six essential reasons why group work is used in
the field of education. Group work can be a very “effective teaching strategy” (Parsons, 1982, p.1), it saves time, facilitates
the learning process, supports the behavioural education. It is motivating, can
aid self-confidence and gives the teacher the opportunity to observe the
children and to give them more feedback. First, grouping a class “enables them to
[…] cover more ground in a short time” (Parsons, p.1) and work can be divided by the group members and
they can share their results, that process can be time-saving. Collaborative learning can also be
more effective than learning alone. Beside this information,
“Classroom research has shown that students
often learn better from each other than they do from a teacher.”
(Berkeley University of California, n.d., ¶ 2) and Gokhale (1995, ¶ 2) underlines the effectiveness by stating “According to Johnson and
Johnson (1986), there is persuasive evidence that cooperative teams
achieve at higher levels of thought and retain information longer than students
who work quietly as individuals.” Another reason is that group work teaches pupils to use appropriate social skills. It
helps them to develop “an
awareness of other’s interests and needs” (Jaques, 1984, p. 65), and Balkcom says to consider other people’s point
of view and to share information with them. Learning in a group also increases
the self-confidence and motivation of the pupils. (Balkcom, 1992, ¶ 2).
As an example, “low-achieving students can make
contributions to a group and experience success, and all students can increase
their understanding of ideas by explaining them to others (Featherstone, 1986)”
(Foyle, n.d., ¶ 6). Work phases can exculpate teachers from their most centre-stage role. He
or she is able to put
themselves in a different relationship to the pupils. Therefore, pupils get a
better understanding about the main aim of the teacher – to help the pupils to
reach the goals that school is expecting from them. Thus, pupils
might see the teacher in another, more positive perspective. Finally, group work gives “more opportunities for personal feedback. Because there are more
exchanges among students in small groups, your students receive more personal
feedback about their ideas and response” (Thirteen,
2004, ¶ 5). So, teachers base their decision towards group work on time, aspects of learning, social benefits, motivation,
psychological aspects and supporting aspects.
There are three main ways in which pupils are selected to
work in groups by themselves or by teachers. These are: using self- selection, random
assignment, or criterion- based selection. Groups in the
classroom are not spontaneously formed groups; they are mostly planned and
organized. They can be considered mainly as study
groups, because their main aim is to gain knowledge. Teachers tend to put the
pupils into groups, but the most long-term effective way to
set up groups in education is to let the pupils make their own decision. Pupils
will choose good friends to work with and pupils they can cope with. Now, one
could say the outcast will be left, but in a good classroom this should not be happen. Furthermore, this can prevent
interpersonal problems and the pupils cannot claim about the composition of
their group, because they have made their choice and not the teacher. If a
teacher forms a group by active effort, he can select the pupils in many
different ways. Bad teachers select them thoughtlessly and randomly according to group tables, names, numbers in
the teachers notebook, etc. Better teachers try to gain the best
composition for the groups by taking sex, age, nationality, intellectual
differences and personality into account. As Jaques (1984,
p.137) emphasized: “As a general rule a heterogeneous
mix of students in each group provides the best chemistry for interaction and
achievement of task”. The age of students plays a slightly subordinate role, but if very young and older children,
especially in small schools have to learn together, it depends on the aim. It
is good to mix the ages of the students if the younger ones can learn from the
older ones and not mix if the task only fits for a special age group. Today’s
classrooms, both in Germany and in New Zealand consist of pupils of different
nationalities. To integrate the pupils coming from a different country, it is
obviously a good idea to mix them up with the local children. Coming to
intellectual differences, it is “wise to mix the better progressed or more
quick-thinking students with those who are either behind with their work or
slower thinking” (Jaques, 1984, p. 139 Hopefully, the former will find themselves teaching the latter and suddenly a class does
not have to share only one teacher. The mix also motivates children to gain the
knowledge and abilities of the more progressed children. Additionally, Jaques (1984, p.139) mentioned, that “the quicker students learn the subject
matter better themselves and the slower ones are provided with the opportunity
to query misconceptions without embarrassment”. Beside all these criteria, the
personalities of the students, their likes and dislikes for other mates should
be considered. The teacher needs to sensitively watch out for emotional links
between the pupils. The sociometry of the group has an important influence on
the way the group functions. As Faulkner (2004, p.7) states “friendship pairs
[/groups] are more likely than other children to engage in transactive
dialogue, pose alternatives to and/or provide elaborations of their own and
each other’s ideas, agree with each other and resolve conflicts and
disagreements to reach a mutually acceptable solution.” A clique ‘in group’ for
example may destroy the whole group by not letting the others feel like equal
members. According to Jacques (1984, p.139) one procedure to get a balanced mix
in a class is the following:
Divide the total number of students
be the possible number of groups to estimate the rough size of each group.
Decide on criteria which might be
used to differentiate one student from another, e.g. sex, age, background,
expressed interest, exam results, nationality. Go through all the notes and
assign a code to each according to these criteria A, B, C, etc. Then starting
with Group 1, take one person from each of A, B, C, etc., until this group’s
complement is made up. Repeat this if the complement is more than the number of
qualities. Do the same for the other groups. Finally, check that each group has
a similar mix and adjust if not.
This kind of instruction shows, that
is not as easy to composite a good group. Beside all the criteria one can
consider, the teacher should not forget to act on behalf of the kids. No classroom
is a heterogeneous classroom. Therefore, it is important to consider different criteria to put the children into groups to their best.
The most positive impact that working in groups at Waikato University has had on my learning is the ability to learn from each other.
As an example, in my Maori Dance paper we worked
together in groups. One of our first tasks was to learn a Maori song, which was
difficult for me, because I do not know the Maori language. However, with the
help of my group members I managed to learn the song. A girl from the paper
sang it with me several times, which enabled me to remember the melody and the song
text. The traditional song we had to sing was not available as a record, which
meant the group work-setting was essential for me to learn the song. In the
second assignment, we were asked to do find a group topic, which should
influence our final performance. And in a group of three members, one half
Maori half Pakeha, a Pakeha and me, a Pakeha from overseas, it was initially not
as easy, as cited in the last paragraph, but our group discussions were very motivating
and we all ended up contributing very good material for our group work. Listening to the others ideas
helped me to see things in another perspective.
I can fully support the statement of a student in the opinion collection of
Middlecamp (1997, ¶ 8) who states that
“One of the biggest advantages of working in a group is
having other people's ideas pooled together. Each member of the group has
something unique that he/she can contribute.” Even
though I had poor English skills, I could contribute to our group and even
teach them things, because I have other strengths than they have. Working in
groups gave me the opportunity to learn from my group members as well as to teach
them.
Another positive
aspect of working in a group with a collaborative climate of trust is that it
makes a positive contribution to my mental health and disposition, which are
important to reach high goals. If the bond of trust, with honesty, openness, consistency
and respect exist between the group members, it gives them the basis for
successful group work (Larson, 1989, p.85). I think that self-selected groups
have, from the beginning, more trust potential. Everybody would like to be in a
group with people he/she gets along with. I have made the experience, that if I
can trust my team members and I am aware of their skills, my own contribution
gains quality and I am motivated to give the best I can. In the Maori dance
paper, I spent a lot of time with my final group members, which made it easy to
get to know them and to develop a trustful relationship. The result of the
trust was that I felt that the group work flowed better; I did not have to
worry about the others, because I was sure that they would contribute their best. As Glanz (1962, p.81) mentions: “group
development and productivity are dependent upon the individual relationships of
the members of the group.” I made exactly the same experience; a good climate
was a significant condition to be successful.
However, in my opinion, there have been negative aspects on my learning
from group work, and one of those negative aspects is the time-management
problem. In all groups at the university at Waikato it was difficult to find
times to meet which suited all our needs. Especially, if the group was very
big, like for example my ‘Academic Oral Presentation’ paper which had six
members, it took us a long time to find a suitable meeting time. Two factors
play an important role, firstly as previously mentioned, the size of the group
and second the flexibility of the people. Sometimes the circumstances are not
very ideal and group cannot come together to discuss. Instead of a short meeting,
they have to write emails or to call each other which is time consuming and not
very effective. Here at Waikato University, I am pretty lucky to live near the
campus, but in Germany I have to travel an hour and a half to get to the Uni. This
makes it difficult to meet with others and I hate to
travel 3 hours for a thirty minute group meeting. Some students have similar
problems. One of them wrote in a forum: “I hate 'em too. I'm
a non-traditional student that lives over an hour from campus and co-coordinating
my schedule with those on campus people who are 30 years younger than I was
frustrating for all of us”(Snopes, 2005, ¶ 16). Another problem is that “Students often have very
different timetables it is often difficult to arrange a suitable time for all
in order to discuss / work on coursework together”
(Cass Business School, 2006, p.2). This underlines, that finding a suitable
meeting time is difficult for many groups.
Finally, another negative aspect of learning
in groups is dealing with unskilled group members, like second language speakers,
in a group discussion. If group members have a lack of certain basic skills,
such as expressing their thoughts well, a group has difficulties to work well
together. During the time I have experienced group work at Waikato University,
I, as a second language student, initially caused such problems, because I was
not able communicate my ideas
properly. I noticed that some members got impatient with me, but luckily I never
felt ignored. One student wrote (Middlecamp, 1997, ¶ 36) “I think other students may get
frustrated with the foreign students' inability to speak English well and
sometimes ignore their comments and ideas.” The student also
states, that due to the
language problem, second language speakers “tend to be much quieter and do not participate as
much, [which] can lead
to frustration with other group members” (Middlecamp,
1997, ¶ 41), this aggravation of the other group members can cause
disaffirmation towards the second language speaker. Therefore, second language
speakers state, that “They
did not compromise with my language problem. I felt desperate” (Middlecamp,
1997, ¶ 38). To avoid the frustration on both sides, the native speaker should be prepared for possible
problems, and the second language speaker should understand, that is not only
difficult for her/him and try to help as much as possible. Perhaps, they will
be soon in the same position overseas and will be glad to have group members
which have the patience to deal with their language problems.
In conclusion,
this assignment has first shown why and how it is important to use group work
in the field of education. The following paragraphs have shown the positive and
negative aspects of group work, due to my experience at the Waikato University.
I have exposed the most positive impact group work had on my learning and the importance
of a climate of trust, before I wrote about the negative impacts, like the
problem of time managing and the difficulties which occur in groups if a second
language speaker is involved. As it is for me, group work has more advantages
than disadvantages. In my opinion, before a group assignment, everybody worries
about the same problems, like: are my group members as assiduous, as studious
and as good as I am? Can I achieve a good quality work with them? Can I cope
with them? And so on. Therefore, it seems selfish not to try to be successful
in a group. I think students at university should have enough opportunities to
work in groups, because if the framework is set thoughtfully by the teachers/lectures
individuals can learn more effectively and achieve higher results in a group.
References
Balkcom, S. (1992). Cooperative learning. Retrieved June 5, 2006,
from http://www.proteacher.com/cgi-bin/outsidesite.cgi?id=4360&external=http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html&original=http://www.proteacher.com/020014.shtml&title=Cooperative%20Learning
Berkley University. (n.d.). Group work in discussion sections. Retrieved June 6, 2006, from Teaching& Resource
Centre Web site: http://gsi.berkeley.edu/resources/discussion/groupwork.html
Cass
Business
School. (2006). BSc Business
Studies. Retrieved June 3, 2006, from http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/ugnotices/files/sslc/BUS_SSLC_Mins_Nov_03.pdf
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