Technology Integration Program

Tips on How to Manage Collaborative Group Work in the Classroom

By Cristiana Assumpção
Institute for Learning Technologies
Columbia University
October 1999 (updated July 2003)

Sometimes working with students in group activities can be a daunting experience, especially in the first years of teaching. It seems that it’s hard enough to manage all the different tasks in the classroom without having to try to control what each student is doing.

Here are some things that I have learned throughout the years that have helped me work with groups of students, even in classrooms as large as 50 students! If the activity is well planned, it will give you less work, not more. The preparation takes longer, but then you can enjoy the experience with your students, sharing in their enthusiasm.

Planning:

This is the most crucial step. Keep in mind the following steps:

1. ·        Write out and make clear your goals and objectives. Make sure students understand where they are going and why. It helps to have them know your expectations in a way that they can understand.

2. ·        Write out the procedure, very clearly, so students will know exactly what to do. The procedure should explain the task and what each student’s role will be.

3. ·        Make a list of products that students can choose from to present their results. The product should reflect the kind of skills being taught, and the result of the whole group’s effort. But students should be made individually accountable, so that if one of them doesn’t collaborate and “pull his weight” in the group, the whole group won’t be hurt as badly. That student should take the consequences of his choice to not participate. The group result should reflect everyone’s efforts though, or else you haven’t reached the goal of teaching collaboration.

4. ·        Assessment: design a rubric for each type of product, so the students have clear guidelines as to what is expected of them. They should be self-evaluating their efforts, as much as the teacher.

5. ·        Set a day for presenting their results. One good presentation strategy is to give students who are presenting specific guidelines as to what they should do when presenting: loudness, clarity, use of visual aids to help other students understand ideas. Ask students to prepare small quizzes related to their presentation, which will be handed out at the end of the presentation. It should be an open note quiz, to encourage listeners to pay attention and take notes, knowing that they will be tested on it in the end. It keeps the audience attentive. Count the quiz grades as part of their normal grades. Have the presenting group members correct and grade, to make them responsible for their teaching. The quiz also serves as a way of the group showing that they really understood what they were teaching, being able to pick out the main points (critical thinking). Evaluate the groups on the quality of their quizzes as well.

6. ·        Make sure all these steps are written out very clearly and in detail, and that the students read and understand. Give specific deadlines. Break up the task into mini-tasks. This will help students pace themselves. Make a table with a timeline, where students can go on checking each step as they accomplish it.

7. ·        Have groups working on different topics, related to the same subject. It is a very good way of saving time in teaching a large unit, and students will be in charge of not only learning their own topic, but also teaching it to others.

8. ·        Prepare a final open-notes test on all topics for all the groups, so they can demonstrate individual learning also. This will give you two evaluation tools: the group project and individual learning. That way you can help those students who didn’t understand one or more of the topics. Use this as a reference to review the topics, emphasizing the parts that you feel are important but were not mentioned, and the topics that left more doubts, were not fully understood, either because they were too hard, or because the group didn’t do a good job at presenting or researching it.

 Implementing:

Once you have all the details planned, and a clear timeline for you to follow, implementation will be easier.  

1. ·        The first day, you introduce the topic; hand out the activity (which can be also put on the web, or in Hyperstudio or PowerPoint). It’s a good idea to publish the activity and all the steps on the web or in the local network, so that students can always refer to it, even if they forget their papers. Assign groups and roles, and make sure everyone understands every aspect and all the requirements. This will be more of an organizational meeting.

2. ·        The second day, start working. Help get students into their roles, and make sure everyone knows what they are doing. Have students write out a plan of what they intend to do to accomplish their tasks, the resources they plan to use, and hand that in to you as a commitment on their part. That will make them accountable for their parts (see student contract sample).

3. ·        Third day, continue work. Make sure your classroom has the necessary resources for students to follow their plans.

4. ·        Depending on the size of the project, allow them more class time to work on it. Some of the work will have to be done independently though, due to shortage in time during class.

5. ·        Organize presentation schedules and have the materials children will need to present (VCR, overhead projector, computer…).

6. ·        Limit presentation times to 20-30 minutes, so that all students have a fair chance to present their work. Usually students will want more time, and prepare a lot of materials. Just collect what they don’t have time to present. This will help them pick out the key points (skill to analyze and synthesize). The quizzes should help them focus what they choose to teach, because they know they have to prepare their classmates.

7. ·        After all have presented and projects have been collected, grade and display their work so other can see the fruits of their efforts. Have a final class discussion on what they learned, both in content and skills.

8. ·        Remember: practice makes perfect. The more projects they do, the better they will get at it.

9. ·        Don’t assume that they will automatically collaborate. That is a skill that needs to be taught. Individual accountability is important to show that the group depends on each one. Your role as a teacher will be to facilitate and model good collaboration, while they are working in groups. Give them ideas; encourage them to go beyond the surface, to be creative. Ask questions to get them thinking about different perspectives. You will spend your class time interacting with them, not lecturing them. And you will be amazed at how much content can be covered in a shorter amount of time!

Assessment

 You will end up with several tools to assess them: 

1. ·        Rubrics (self and teacher assessment)

2. ·        Projects (group grade – have specific requirements to be met minimally)

3. ·        Quizzes and Test (measure of individual learning of content)

4. ·        Informal observation

5. ·        One idea is to have kids start building their portfolios, collecting all the different projects they develop.

Conclusions

This type of activity not only helps teach content in a more active way for the learner, as well as simulates the type of work situations where the students are like real scientists, or historians, or researchers. They will be prepared to face the professional world by having acquired research, communication and collaboration skills.  

Technology lends itself to this type of learning. It helps organize, manage and publish student work. Through the use of computers the kids can integrate different media, communicate with each other and specialists, and get the latest information on the topics. 

Even though the classroom may sound noisy and out of control, as you walk through the different groups, you will hear productive and on target conversations, with students discussing their different work strategies and exchanging opinions about how something should be done.  

It’s not always easy to deal with a bustling classroom, but teaching kids what is acceptable is not very difficult. Have specific rules and guidelines on what is good collaboration, what the limits are, and be consistent in implementing the rules. You will notice your students becoming more and more independent, and your task becoming easier. They become co-participants in their learning process, sharing in the tasks that you traditionally would have to do alone.  

Some good examples of this type of group activity are Webquests. They are activities designed to have students work in groups, sharing the task that would be too big for any one individual. Take a look at some models to help you get ideas for what you can do.  

Here is an example of an online unit that I created for my students in Brazil.

http://cris.edutech.org.br/interactivity/biotech.htm

Online Resources

Some sample templates you can use: 

• Group Activity Rubric (teaches students how to work in groups).

• Presentation Rubric (teaches students how to present their work).

• Oral Presentation Rubric.

• Work contract for students (to help them organize their time and plan the steps they need to take to complete the project – practices accountability for the students and helps the teacher manage all the groups).

More assessment resources:

• Designing Rubrics http://eiffel.ilt.columbia.edu/cluster_teachers/instr_materials/rubrics.ppt

• Mars Millennium Project – Sample Rubrics: http://www.projectpioneer.com/mars/what/evaluation.htm

• Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Rubrics: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html

• Extensive list of rubrics for teachers: http://www.odyssey.on.ca/~elaine.coxon/rubrics.htm

• Rubistar (allows you to generate rubrics based on ready-made criteria): http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

• Google list of Rubrics pages: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rubrics