Pedagogy

1
Master TeacherCertificate

• Pedagogy
• Part 20 Using Small Groups

A Teaching Technique and Strategy
Sandra T. CáceresInstructional
DesignerInstructional Technologies Innovation
Center San Antonio College 1300 San Pedro
Avenue San Antonio, TX 78212
2
Group Creation Guidelines

• This training session will cover the aspects of
  group creation, roles, and rules

3
Small Student Groups

• Small Group work is an important teaching
  technique
• Group work particularly socializes and unifies
  the distance students
• Group work helps students build knowledge and
  learn how to problem solve.

4
Guiding Group Learning Strategies

• Knowing how to guide student group projects
  without seeming to be coyly hiding the answer is
  a challenge.
• Knowing how to work with groups (as well as how
  to train groups how to work with each other) is
  not something in most faculty have expertise in
  doing. (Rhem,1998).

5
Up Front

• Mention your intent to assign each of the
  students to small groups on your web site, in the
  syllabus, or calendar of assignments.
• If you have access, review academic records of
  students registered for your class.
• Design a first day in the virtual classroom
  survey to learn details about your students.
• Have the students share at least 3 things about
  themselves to the rest of the students under
  Discussion About me. This should generate
  dialogue among the students.

6
Forming Groups

• Student Groups
• Reviewing the demographics of your students
  either from academic records or a survey will
  give you details that will help you categorize
  your class population.
• The more successful groups are those which have a
  mix of
• backgrounds, (culture, ethnicity, family, marital
  status)
• interest, (career goals, hobbies)
• age, and (young and old)
• education. (freshmen, sophomores, 3 year
  students)
• Therefore, within groups try to have some young,
  some older, some with good GPA, some with poor
  GPA
• Group member selections can be critical and
  adjustments may have to be made (merging weak
  with strong, allowing movement to another group)
  after a few weeks.
• Select a group leader or coordinator with the
  stipulation that the group can discuss and keep
  their leader or elect a new one.
• Up Front rules on participation and
  consequences should be clearly defined.
• Assigning within group roles can improve
  communication and performance.

7
Group Guidelines

• Group activities are more time consuming but
  usually enthuse the students.
• Prepare written guidelines to define performance
  expectations and premise for the assignments
  (course learning outcomes).
• Post a performance Rubric to define what you
  consider marginal, good and excellent
  performance, illustrating the points/grade for
  each level.
• Design some instructional interventions to guide
  the groups without dominating their interaction
  or giving them the answers to their problems.
• Instructors should suggest the group agree on
  consistent meeting times whether face-to-face,
  email, or chat rooms to ensure in depth of and
  timely preparation of group efforts.
• The instructor sets final and intermediate
  deadlines and require the groups to set
  additional deadlines per week or every two weeks.
  Deadlines are critical for successful progress
  within groups.
• Plan to give feedback on progress of each group
  following each deadline so that re-direction and
  corrections improve on group results.

8
Group Structure and Roles

• Listing examples of individual group work and
  offer a question and answer discussion in the
  virtual class.
• Assign initial roles for the group participants
  with the instructions that once within group they
  can vote to change roles if desired.
• Every group requires a leader or coordinator, a
  recorder/notetaker, and a timekeeper. Sometimes
  members will rotate roles or share roles. Pairs
  within groups can tackle components of the
  project but decisions on final inclusion of
  information and activities must be through
  consensus of the whole group. These roles do not
  preclude participation in all other
  responsibilities of the group.
• Determine if each group member has assumed a role
  and define some behaviors expected in their role
  if you suspect a lack of understanding.

9
Participation and Accountability

• Establish protocols and some rules of behavior
  within groups and across groups.
• One important rule is for members to write out
  any strong criticism before posting it or sending
  it to another member or to their group so that
  they can remove any emotional feelings and
  clearly focus on the facts of the issue they
  resent or dont agree with. This would also give
  them the opportunity to offer alternatives to the
  issue being criticized.
• Physical tasks can be shared (researching,
  writing, design features, etc.) but no one member
  can dominate the decisions or jump in and
  complete the work for all. No one member can
  ride along free of responsibility either.
• Require individual accountability. Stress that a
  member can be fired from the group for
  non-participation. This action must be voted on
  by the group and their consensus presented to the
  instructor for resolution.
• If you clarify that being fired results in an
  F, this could be a strong motivator for
  participation.
• Create an environment for continued and pertinent
  group discussion by providing guidelines and
  hints passed on through the group leader. This
  helps unify the group and gives the leader a
  stronger credibility.

10
Communication Without Conflict

• Offer communication guidance for avoiding
  conflicts due to poor soft skills among the group
  members. Stress that the facts and ideas should
  be evaluated and discussed, not the personalities
  of the group member offering an idea.
• The following list would help address the ideas
  and not the person. Guided Reciprocal Peer
  Questioning was created by Alison King (1993).
  She recommended the group members begin their
  questions to their group members

• "What is the main idea of...?
• "What if...?"How does...affect...?" "What is
  the meaning of...?""Why is...important?
• "What is a new example of...?""Explain why...."
  "Explain how...." "How does...relate to what
  I've learned before?"

• "What conclusions can I draw about...?"What is
  the difference between ... and ...?""How are ...
  and ... similar?""How would I use ... to
  ...?""What are the strengths and weaknesses
  of...?

11
Practice Run

• Before launching students into complex group
  assignments, you might consider a short simple
  project for practice.
• Practice group projects help strengthen their
  individual group roles before they commence with
  a more difficult project.
• Practice projects also help define the
  instructors role and how the groups can function
  on their own, making decisions and learning to
  carry out their plans in a collaborative
  environment.
• Practice projects can also give your groups a
  taste of success and motivate them more easily to
  proceed with more complex group assignments.
• The practice time is a good time to clarify what
  was wrong and right in their performances and
  summarizing your findings to the whole class.
• After the practice run, give another opportunity
  for questions and answers under a discussion
  topic such as Group Review

12
Assignment Frameworks

• Design the assignment to require interaction and
  input of all members to proceed. These types of
  tasks typically require students to use a broad
  range of intellectual skills including
  recognizing and defining concepts, making
  discriminations, and applying principles or
  procedural rules (Gagne, 1970).
• The expected performance that best fits the
  learning activity would logically improve the
  students success.
• Create an environment for continued and pertinent
  group discussion by providing suggestions and
  hints passed on through the group leader. This
  strengthens leadership and gives the leader a
  stronger credibility.
• Stay involved with the progress of group work
  providing prompt feedback using suggestions and
  open ended questions rather than providing
  solutions.
• Provide the groups suggestions for resourcing
  information about their subject and networking
  external contacts for information if necessary.

13
Dynamics/Analysis/Presentation

• Be prepared to promptly and fairly resolve
  conflicts.
• Provide the groups graphic models for effective
  analysis of problems (see the following 3 slides
  of analysis graphic models to share with the
  students)
• Not all groups have presentation skills so offer
  alternatives for presenting the final project

14
Problem/Solution Outline

• Comprehension Skills
• recall directly stated facts
• extrapolate/interpret
• evaluate information
• recognize schema
• recognize relationships
• create or invent
• solve problems
• make decisions

15
Multi-flow Map

• Comprehension Skills
• recall directly stated facts
• recognize sequence
• extrapolate/interpret
• evaluate information
• recognize schema
• recognize relationships
• solve problems
• make decisions

16
Compare/Contrast Map

• Comprehension Skills
• recall directly stated facts
• select facts to support main ideas
• extrapolate/interpret
• evaluate information
• define and use vocabulary
• recognize relationships

17
Student Self Assessment

• Develop a self-assessment form with broad
  categories of the assignment on which each member
  identifies their percentage of contribution to
  the development and implementation of the
  project.
• A comment section inviting critique of the
  process and what they would have preferred to do
  different given the chance to redo the project
  could provide insight into the group dynamics and
  skills developed during the process.
• Give points for this assignment or the student
  might decide it not necessary to report to you.

18
Evaluate Assignment

• Review your group assignment design to assure the
  course learning outcomes are
• congruent with the planned group work,
• confirm the content to be accomplished falls
  within time constraints,
• fits your comfort level of relinquished
  instructional intervention (to allow for student
  centered learning)
• or revise to meet learning goals and your
  instructional preferences.

19
Summarizing Projects

• Plan a summary of each groups work and tie in to
  the course subject. This should be a private
  message to group members.
• Recognize and note the correlation between the
  solutions and the learning outcomes.
• Note the high points for compliments and shore up
  the weaknessess of their solutions by describing
  alternative solutions or extensions of their
  current work.
• End with praise for their efforts and how their
  project relates to solving problems in the work
  world.
• Compare the works of the groups in general
  accenting the good in all. Save criticisms for
  personal messages.
• Again, summarize and praise the excellence, note
  the real life applications for the class as a
  whole.

20
Practicing Group Creations

• To help you get a feel for assigning your
  students to a group, there is an exercise for you
  to complete that will give you practice in
  assigning students to groups.

21
The Student List

• Open the Excel file entitled Enrolled.
• This is a list I made up. The student data is
  fictitious.
• You are to create five groups for your course
  recalling the recommended mix of student
  characteristics and demographics.
• There is a Word version of this file if you are
  not familiar with Excel.

22
Using Excel

• Excel will allow you to sort on various columns.
• Decide on a criteria, for example
• Highest GPA
• Least Number of Dependents or
• Oldest
• Click on View, select 50
• Now highlight the entire table.
• Press Data/Sort and select the letter of the
  column you prefer. Be sure to unclick no header
  row.
• Press OK, the table will sort and place the
  student data is a ranked order based on the
  criteria you picked.

23
Tips

• In a rotating manner, from group 1 5 begin
  placing the students into one of the groups.
• If you move down the column from the highest to
  the lowest you will fairly well have a balance
  based on that criteria and probably show a
  reasonable assortment of the other criteria
  across the groups.
• You may need to move some of the students around
  to improve the balance for age, background, GPA
  and dependents.
• Now select a leader for each group. How did you
  choose?

24
Assign Group Roles

• In your Excel sheet, assign one of the group
  roles listed below.
• Remember even though your are assigning initial
  roles for the group participants, instruct your
  class that once within group they can vote to
  change roles if desired.
• leader or coordinator,(you already assigned)
• a recorder/notetaker, and
• a timekeeper
• Depending on the project you might know of other
  roles required.

25
Experienced Caution

• Groups with high numbers of young and
  inexperienced students may require more support
  from the instructor.
• You might even have to modify your final group
  project if there are poor results with the
  mini-project.
• This means there will be a requirement of more
  frequent instructor intervention.
• There will also be a requirement of more specific
  feedback to develop effect group activities.

26
In Review

• As stated earlier, group activities require a
  little more preparation to
• Cover the essence of the course content through
  group work
• Develop effective and unified student groups
• Accomplish a min-project to prepare the students
  for the complex group project.
• Generate effective guidelines, rubrics of
  performance and support information that will
  help your students plan but stay focused on the
  learning outcomes of the course.
• Anticipate your role in the group project and
  adjust your techniques and assignment details to
  produce successful group outcomes.
• Stay involved with the progress of group work
  providing prompt feedback using suggestions and
  open ended questions rather than providing
  solutions. This helps prevent group members
  wandering off the subject and becoming involved
  with minutia that is not relevant.Initiate
  effective feedback without giving the answers.
• Moderate the group discussions and summarize the
  relationship to the course learning outcomes.

27
Rubric Example
28
Part 20

• This ends part 20 training session.

29
Bibliography

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