Designing Groupwork

           Designing Groupwork by Elizabeth Cohen thoroughly discusses how properly designed group work can be a powerful tool for teaching all students. Specifically, in the first 6 chapters, Cohen describes the importance of group work and how teachers can begin to plan and prepare students for worthwhile group work in the classroom. She first raises the question of why groupwork? From the reading, I found one of the most important points is for students to collaborate with one another on conceptual tasks in order to assist them in understanding and applying ideas. Students have shown that putting concepts into words and explaining to a peer is helpful for concept attainment. Another strong point of why to use group work is essential is because its importance later in life. Students will need to learn how to cooperate in all different size groups with all different types of people in any setting.

Cohen goes into some of the dilemmas of group work and why teachers tend to shy away from it. However, she provides multiple examples and quick fixes that may help these common problems during group work. For example, she encourages smaller groups of 3 or 4 to make sure everyone is involved in conversation.  Cohen continues to suggest the need for teachers to better understand student expectations and the self-fulfilling prophecy so they are able to know how and why it operates in order to control it.  

            In the chapter called Preparing Student for Cooperation, Cohen explains that students do no automatically understand and are successful in working in groups. Students need time and practice to be able to develop good social and collaborative skills. Teachers must create a new norm within the classroom in order for student to engage in cooperative learning productively. Not only do students need to learn required behaviors for productive group work, but they also need to know in which behaviors are best for which situations. For instance, in learning stations students need be able to ask questions, listen, help others, and explain how and why, where as in a discussion group students will need to ask for the opinions of others, reflect on what has been sad, give reasons, and allow everyone to contribute to the conversation. These behaviors are obviously not created overnight. Cohen puts a specific importance on student building and practicing these skills over and over.

            The next step after preparing students to participate in group work is to begin to plan how you would like to implement group work in the classroom according to your objective. Cohen explains two different types of objectives: routine and conceptual. Cooperative learning, most likely to be seen in current classrooms, take place within the routine objective where students are recalling facts, applying an algorithm in mathematics, or in other words solving problems with a clear right answer. On the other hand, group work centered on conceptual objectives promotes higher order thinking skills. These activities include asking the students to gauge in a dialogue, where no one person is right or wrong and students contribute but also must listen to others. Cohen also offers the advice of group as well as individual accountability when it comes to group work. This involves both the group having same goal, while individual students must all participate because they have individual responsibilities, such as an individual product. Lastly, Cohen goes through a step-by-step process of what a teacher should think about when planning group work. This includes planning an orientation, having written instructions, composing groups, classroom ecology of groups, planning a wrap up, and an evaluation. Cohen also emphasizes the need for specific roles in a group setting in order to keep all students participating.

            There were multiple concepts that stood out to me throughout this book. First of all, on the very first page of reading, John Goodlad writes in the forward that research has revealed that in a 150 minute class the teacher out talked all of the students, allowing the student to speak out or talk a collective 8 minutes the entire period! This was astonishing but, then again, it was also slightly expected. That research is almost reason in itself to promote group work. Other research given in the book showed that students who “took the time to explain, step-by-step, how to solve a problem, was the student who gained the most from the small group experience” (10). I completely agree with this statement. It seems as though putting concepts into words towards another peer is extremely helpful for conceptual understanding. Also, students who struggle to grasp concepts can hear explanations from peers. I feel this is one, if not the, most important goal in mathematics, to gain conceptual knowledge of mathematics. If this is what group work creates then it should be used constantly.

            When reading the section about preparing students, a question that was brought in my mind was the idea of creating this norm in the classroom. Although I completely agree with changing the norms inside the classroom to create a more group-friendly, community environment, I still struggle to see the path to which I can create the right environment inside my own classroom. I do understand students’ need to be taught how to actively engage in productive cooperative learning. I suppose this question or wondering will not be completely answered until I can put these tips into action in my own classroom. In relation to these first 6 chapters, I feel the information as a whole stood out to me. I have always looked to attempt group work, but always seem to be missing something or not confident in the common dilemmas that may happen. This book set out specific answers and guidance to questions and uncertainty I had with group activities.

            In relation to the unit my group and I have collaborated with to create a unit for High Tech High (HTH), I can see many characteristics this book makes working successfully inside the classroom. First and foremost, the classroom norms are very well set and students work very well and productive together. There is also a visible difference from observing the same math class in the fall from observing the class now in the spring. We have planned for multiple opportunities for small group work for students to gain conceptual knowledge and it has been very productive. Our unit objective includes students understanding about fractals, sequences, how they are created, and other wonderings. For being such an abstract topic, I feel because students are able to collaborate to answer questions and have dialogue about the content they are able to better understand it. Also, in planning the unit and specific lessons, as a group we have thought about all of the aspects of group work. For instance, the orientation of the objective, the written instructions, and the roles students may have or need within the group. Overall, from collaborating with our teacher at HTH, watching him implement group work in his classroom and reading this book, I have a better understanding of what it takes to make group work successful.