- Start small. Don't expect students to successfully manage complex, long-term group projects right away. Begin with a simple 5 minute paired activity and build up from there. Celebrate small successes.
- Model group work skills extensively. Think aloud as you demonstrate taking turns, active listening, asking clarifying questions, etc. Make your thinking explicit.
- Look for opportunities to reinforce social-emotional skills like regulating emotions, inclusion, patience, and kindness during group work. Name and praise these behaviors.
- Check in with each group frequently using classwide reward system. Simple proximity and scanning for on-task behavior is powerful.
- Use group contracts or charters to set ground rules, tasks, and goals. Post them during activities to provide accountability. Have groups create them together.
- If a group is struggling, have them stop and problem-solve using a protocol: What's the issue? Brainstorm solutions. Choose one. Test it out.
- Debrief regularly about group work strengths and areas for improvement. Ask students to share what helps their group collaborate well.
- Use peer assessments and self-assessments focused on the process of working together, not just the end product. Hold students accountable.
- For students who struggle, assign supportive roles like materials manager or praiser to build confidence and investment in the group process.
- Foster friendships and connections between students through community building activities to increase comfort and motivation during group work.
The bottom line is don't force complex group work until students have the prerequisite social, emotional, and collaborative skills. Validate their need for guidance and explicitly teach and reinforce expectations. It takes time but pays off!
Small group instruction can be an effective teaching method in many contexts, allowing for more individualized attention and support for students. However, implementing small group work in large classrooms comes with some significant challenges. One major obstacle is that students often lack the cooperative learning skills needed to work productively and independently in small groups, especially when they are accustomed to one-on-one teacher instruction.
What is Small Group Instruction?
Small group instruction refers to the practice of dividing the whole class into smaller groups, often with 3-6 students per group, and having them work together with minimal teacher guidance. The teacher rotates between groups to check in, monitor progress, reteach concepts, and provide assistance as needed.
Small groups allow for more individualized instruction as the teacher can tailor guidance, questions, and feedback to the specific needs of each group. Students also have more opportunities to ask questions, discuss concepts with peers, and collaborate on learning tasks.
Benefits of Small Group Instruction
Research shows small group instruction can provide many benefits when implemented effectively, including:
- Increased student participation and engagement - more opportunities for discussion, asking questions, and hands-on learning activities.
- Immediate teacher feedback and guidance - the teacher can circulate to clarify misconceptions right away.
- Building teamwork and collaborative skills - students learn to work together respectfully.
- Developing stronger communication skills - students must explain their thinking, respectfully argue, listen to others.
- Increased self-efficacy and confidence - students gain confidence in their own abilities through peer learning.
- Differentiated instruction - the teacher can tailor instruction and questions to learning needs.
- Improved classroom management - fewer behavior issues when students are engaged.
Why Small Group Work Breaks Down Without Cooperative Learning Skills
However, in order for small group work to be successful, students need to have strong cooperative learning skills. They need to be able to work collaboratively and independently in their groups with minimal teacher direction. When students lack these skills and are used to one-on-one support, implementing small groups can backfire, resulting in multiple classroom management and instructional challenges.
Off-Task Behavior
One of the most common issues is increased off-task behavior and socializing. Without clear roles, expectations, and self-management skills, students may see small group time as unstructured social time. They may chat about non-academic topics, goof around, or use time ineffectively without the teacher redirecting them. This wastes valuable instructional time.
Over-Reliance on the Teacher
Some students become overly reliant on the teacher for help when working in small groups. They may raise their hand for minor questions or issues rather than relying on their group members, not knowing how to share knowledge collaboratively. This defeats the purpose of peer-assisted learning in small groups.
Lack of Participation
Other students may opt out from participating or hide their lack of understanding. Without confidence in their skills or comfort asking peers for help, struggling students may disengage, do nothing, and avoid drawing attention to gaps in their knowledge. This allows them to go under the radar.
Unbalanced Groups
Groups may be unbalanced if there are wide gaps in academic abilities and social skills. The most advanced students may take over and do all the work while lower-skilled students do not participate. Or students may end up socializing rather than learning. Unbalanced groups make differentiation and peer learning difficult.
Conflict Management Problems
Interpersonal problems and conflicts can arise when students lack conflict management skills. Small groups require negotiating ideas, taking turns, and managing disagreements respectfully. Students untrained in these skills may resort to insults, exclusion, physical aggression, or involving the teacher in minor disputes.
Inability to Work Independently
Some students have a reliance on teacher direction and have difficulty managing their time, following directions, getting organized, or staying focused without constant oversight. Expecting these students to work independently or student-led groups results in off-task behavior and wasted time.
Why Students Struggle With Cooperative Learning
Most students intuitively understand how to work independently on individual assignments. However, cooperative learning in small groups requires a different and more complex skill set. When students have primarily experienced teacher-directed whole class or individual instruction, they may lack opportunities to build collaborative skills. Reasons students struggle include:
No Prior Instruction: Students may not have been taught how to work in groups collaboratively. Skills like sharing ideas, task breakdown, time management, role assignment, conflict resolution, listening, and consensus building require direct instruction for many students.
No Class Norms: The classroom may lack small group norms, routines, and expectations to provide a framework and accountability for students during independent work time. This leads to goofing off and lack of focus.
No Self-Regulation Skills: Students may lack self-regulation skills needed to stay on-task without teacher oversight, like self-talk, goal-setting, focusing strategies, and ignoring distractions. Immature executive functioning makes independent work challenging.
Fixed Mindset: Some students have a fixed mindset that they can only learn from the teacher directly, not peers. This make them unlikely to value collaborative learning.
Social Skill Deficits: Students with underdeveloped social skills may struggle with turn-taking, listening, compromise, or picking up on social cues from peers, impacting group dynamics.
No Intrinsic Motivation: Many students lack motivation to fully apply themselves during group work unless it is teacher-directed or they are accountable for a grade. They require external motivators.
Afraid to Ask Peers for Help: Students accustomed to teacher help may not know how to ask peers for assistance and be uncomfortable with peer collaboration.
Perfectionist Tendencies: Students who demand perfection from themselves have difficulty delegating, sharing control, or trusting peers’ contributions. They prefer to work individually.
Competitive Mindset: Students used to academic competition may have trouble shifting to a cooperative mindset and sharing credit for work accomplished as a team.
Special Learning Needs: Students with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, anxiety disorders, or behavior issues may find group work overstimulating, stressful, or unstructured.
Transitioning to Small Group Instruction
Given these obstacles, teachers cannot immediately expect students to be able to work productively in small cooperative groups without sufficient scaffolding. Best practices for transitioning to small group instruction include:
1. Teach cooperative learning skills directly through modeling, discussing, and roleplaying. Cover communication, collaboration, time management, conflict resolution, accountability, and more.
2. Establish clear small group roles (e.g. facilitator, note-taker, reporter) and expectations, posting them as anchor charts and actively reinforcing them.
3. Begin with highly-structured small group activities with assigned tasks and short work periods, then gradually increase complexity and length.
4. Post active listening and collaborative speaking expectation charts. Teach students cues like eye contact and paraphrasing.
5. Use team-building activities and icebreakers to foster cohesion and inclusion before academic small groups.
6. Reflect after activities: What went well? What could improve? How did you add value? This builds metacognition.
7. Use peer and self-assessments to increase accountability. Make students reflect on their participation and teamwork skills.
8. Explicitly teach conflict resolution techniques like active listening, compromise, and ‘I statements’. Have students role play.
9. Group students strategically according to ability levels, language needs, IEP goals, behavior issues, etc. Reassign groups regularly.
10. Implement classroom rewards or accountability systems connected to whole group behavior during small group work times to motivate cooperation.
11. Monitor groups closely at first, using proximity, redirection, praise, points, etc. to reinforce expectations. Slowly release responsibility.
12. Model constructive feedback and critique of group work to set expectations for reasoning, specificity, and tone.
Implementing small group learning structures like stations, literature circles, project groups, and more are powerful strategies - but require direct instruction in cooperation, self-management, and collaborative skills. Moving away from teacher dependence is a process requiring patience, explicit teaching, classroom culture-building, and plenty of guided practice. With sufficient support, students can gain confidence in learning collaboratively and reap the many benefits of peer-assisted small group learning structures. The payoff of increased engagement, self-direction, and teamwork skills is well worth the investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you!