Collaborative Learning Tutorial

There are many ways to set-up groups…here are some items to think about…

Decide how the groups will be formed. Some teachers preferrandomly assigning students to groups to maximize their heterogeneity: a mix of males and females, verbal and quiet students, high achieving & low achieving. Some teachers let students choose with whom they want to work, although this runs the risk that groups will socialize too much and that students will self-segregate. A middle ground, is to ask students to express a preference, if they wish, then make the assignments yourself. You could, for example, ask students to write down the names of three students with whom they would most like to work.

Be conscious of group size. In general, groups of three or four members work best. Larger groups decrease each member’s opportunity to participate actively. The less advance the group members, the smaller the groups should be. The shorter amount of time available, the smaller the groups should be.

Keep groups together. When a group is not working well, avoid breaking it up, even if the group requests it. The addition of the floundering group’s members to ongoing groups may throw off their group process, and the bailed-out troubled group does not learn to cope with its unproductive interactions.

Help groups plan how to proceed. Ask each group to devise a plan of action: who will be doing what and when. Review the groups’ written plans or meet with each group to discuss its plan.

Provide mechanisms for groups to deal with uncooperative members.

Now that you’ve had an introduction to collaborative learning and some strategies of how it can be used to enhance your lessons, it’s time to explore examples. The next series of screens are specific examples using collaborative learning and technology integration.