This isn’t the first time the term “group work” has emerged in the education community. In all likelihood you have experimented with it in your teaching practicum, you probably default to it when you don’t have time to prepare a lecture, and perhaps you allow it to occur to reward your students for their diligent independent work time. If you have had any early experiences like mine, you have doubted the benefits of collaborative work and rarely used it if you plan on getting anything accomplished in the curriculum. So what exactly is the buzz about? What is the purpose of group work? If you are a skeptic let me share a few benefits that group work might bring to your classroom.

 5 Benefits to Group Work

1)      Participation and Interaction

This may shock you but not everyone is hanging off every word you say in your lecture, copying every word you write, or following every powerpoint slide you flash on the projector. Additionally, not every student is eager to raise their hand to answer every question posed. Has it occurred to you that the students who raise their hand may not, in fact, be the only ones with the solutions? In his book, “Still Failing at Fairness”, David Sadker concluded that boys were more likely to aggressively shout out answers as they raise their hands, while girls were more likely to raise their hands and patiently wait. In many cases, this leads to a diminished female participation, especially given particular demographics in the classroom.  While many teachers claim that hand-raising is their way to increase student participation, this is simply not the case. A 2009 study (Dixon, 2009) evaluated the impact in classroom discussion when hand-raising was discouraged in a mathematics class. The benefits included student-centered dialogue, increased participation, more reflective explanations and justification of mathematical ideas.

In place of hand-raising was group discussion. This non-traditional alternative allows students to participate in a less-threatening atmosphere where peer judgement is less substantial. More than that, it allows them to discuss course content without the teacher evaluating what they say. Much of the anxiety that students endure is the result of an establish hierarchy, where the teacher is viewed as the expert and anything less than factual knowledge is feared to be scrutinized.

2)      Building Community and Social Climate

It always bothered me how much students avoided one another in my classroom. I understood it but it still bothered me. In a season of life where you are identified by the group you are a part of, it is no wonder cliques exist in the classroom. Limited socialization with the greater school body is the foundation of indifference and disrespect, and we continue to propagate it in our classroom by allowing students to interact with a select few. We excuse it by making ‘seating plans’ but the reality is that even among adults, camaraderie does not develop in the absence of a common goal. By assigning tasks and outlining the discussion, we allow our students to interact with peers that they would otherwise avoid. They may even begin to find themselves defending the opinions and solutions of a student they once bullied. By frequently randomizing groups on a daily basis, we denounce anonymity and promote unity amongst the student body.

3)      Mobilizing Knowledge

Undoubtedly, you have handed out an assignment at the beginning of class and issued a ‘work block’ for students to complete it. How do you feel at the end of that block? Exhausted? If you are like me, it’s because you just spend an hour running from student to student, answering question after question. After spending 5 minutes with one student explaining how to solve a question, another student approaches you with the same question. Frustrated you pull the students back together and begin another lecture much to the dismay of your students who were promised a work block. ‘Work block’ is often is the block where you work the most. Does it have to be this way?

Picture for a moment that same assignment given to small groups to work on. Instead of coming to you, they first ask one another. Certainly each one of them has something to offer. You subtly walk around the classroom, eavesdropping on conversation and offering guidance when discussion has deteriorated. Suddenly, a group has a solution and you are eagerly called over so that they may present their findings. Nodding in agreement you send one of the students to a group who is still struggling. From there you address a second group who is still having a difficult time getting started and you suggest that they send a ‘spy’ to your leading group, forcing them to eloquently explain solution to the spy.  After the spy has gathered information he returns to the group as the ‘expert’ and offers his interpretation of the solution.

This is how knowledge is mobilized. What was the teacher’s role it in all? Not a bearer of knowledge, simply a group coordinator. Students take note. No longer do they see the teacher as the answer key; they value the benefits of community and embrace the opportunities to consult a peer.

4)      Deep and Enduring Understanding

Working in groups not only mobilizes knowledge but it also develops understanding rooted deeper than most lectures can attain. In the situation described above, one of the key elements of mobilizing information is that the student must become the teacher. In effect, the students are more determined to understand the content and to clearly reflect their understanding to both their peers and themselves. Psychologists have coined this as the “protégé effect” and studies have shown greater achievement in students who participate in this practice. As students organize their knowledge, they improve their recall and identify gaps in their own thinking.

Vygotsky said it best, “The one who does the talking does the learning”.

5)      Raises the Standards

There are many obvious reasons that working in a group produces a better quality work. For one, a group means that more relevant information is available to the group as a whole as well as bringing a greater diversity in viewpoints to the discussion. This means that a greater percentage of various interest groups will have input into a decision that affects them. A group also means more minds to create ideas, making it more likely that group members will recognize a good idea and that someone will remember it while also recognizing a bad idea and move towards correcting it.

Barkley, E., et al. (2005). Collaborative Learning Techniques. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dixon, Juli K., Lisa A. Egendoerfer, and Taylar Clements. “Do They Really Need to Raise Their Hands? Challenging a Traditional Social Norm in a Second Grade Mathematics Classroom.” Teaching and Teacher Education (2009): n. pag. Print.

Sadker, David Miller, Myra Sadker, Karen R. Zittleman, and Myra Sadker. Still failing at Fairness: How Gender Bias Cheats Girls and Boys in School and What We Can Do about It. New York: Scribner, 2009. Print.