A Teacher’s Worst Nightmare: Group Work

        

            I sit in on classes of five different teachers and I have discovered that three of them refuse to ever do any group work and the other two are very sceptical of its effectiveness.  The teachers’ responses were very similar:  the students are too immature, they can’t conduct valid conversations without direction, nothing gets done, and it is difficult to monitor, to name a few.

            One class I observed used a technique similar to some in Gallangher’s text which requires giving students specific roles within their group.  This helped them stay on task, but did not promote valid discussion as the students were too focussed on getting their own assigned tasks done.  With the other group work I witnessed, the students were put in groups of three and were required to go over the grammar questions from the day before and finalize their answers as a group.  This helped with clarification and allowed the students to work out the problem spots on their own.  It worked really well for the students who were just on the edge of getting the concepts, but of course there were students who did not contribute to the discussion and simply copied down the correct answers. 

            The thought of group work has been troubling me since I started observing in the schools.  I sought out my mentor teachers, but like I said, they could not share any helpful tips or recall instances when it worked really well for the whole class.  Gallangher’s chapter was extremely helpful in breaking down my apprehensions regarding group work once I start teaching. When I was thinking about group work, I first thought they should be able to carry out conversations in a group – I could not determine why or the nature of the problem.  I was thinking “man that’s what University is about” and then I realized that we are all highly educated and mature people and that we, at some point in our lives, developed the ability to carry out meaningful discussions. Gallangher gave various examples of how to get students to develop the skills needed to be a valuable group member.   At first the students will need a great deal of guidance, but eventually the teacher will be able to step back and watch the students develop their own meaning of the text and become articulate students.  What a thought!