SMALL GROUP LEARNING
Small groups are usually 4 students, sometimes split into twos for work in pairs.
Types of small groups:
We will use different kinds of small groups depending on the type of learning or project. |
“The ability of all students to learn to work cooperatively with others is the keystone to building and maintaining stable marriages, families, careers, and friendship. Being able to perform technical skills… are valuable but of little use if the person cannot apply those skills in cooperative interaction with other people. (Johnson & Johnson, 1994 in “An Overview of Cooperative Learning”)
Benefits of group Learning:
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True cooperative learning:
See more about group bonuses and accommodations for less fluent students. |
Students will be trained how to function well for group learning. Find out about behavior expectations during group activities. Learn more about rules and consequences. For specific interactive group activities and games, see interactivestudentgames.weebly.com |
Some ways in which small groups will learn:
· Numbered Heads Together Ask students to number off in their teams from one to four. Announce a question and a time limit. Students put their heads together to come up with an answer, making sure each student knows the answer. Call a number and ask all students with that number to stand and answer the question. This promotes learning much better than whole-class questions that one student answers..
· Team Jigsaw Assign each team a topic to investigate. Each student completes his or her part of the assignment and then teaches the others to put together a team product. Groups are re-shuffled so that one from every original group is in each of the new groups. Each person teaches the rest of their new group what they learned in their original group. This type of involved learning increases retention of knowledge much longer than simply hearing similar things from a teacher. |
· Writing Circles For writing assignments that are more formal, students write a rough draft. Group Step 1: read your writing to your group to get feedback about content. Revise your work. Group Step 2: show your writing to your group for feedback about grammar issues, such as spelling, sentence structure, word choice, etc. Revise your work. Turn in assignment. Revise according to teacher feedback. Publish your work (hang papers in school hall, send the letter to someone, share with the whole class…). Having classmates edit it before the teacher sees it improves writing skills quickly. Too many errors make it hard to comprehend, and classmates' confusion helps the writer understand where the mistakes are. Having to identify errors or places where wording choices could be improved in classmates' work helps students learn how to edit their own writing better.
· Round Robin Present a category for discussion. Have students take turns going around the group and naming items that fit the category.
· Roundtable Present a category. Have students take turns writing one word at a time. · Concentric Circles and Parallel Lines Students form two concentric circles or two lines facing each other. You ask a question and students discuss the answer with the student facing them. After one minute, the outside circle or one line moves to the right so that students have new partners. Then pose a second question for them to discuss. Great for review and to check understanding. |
The most important resource for some of these group ideas was the cooperative learning article at http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/content/cooperative/
For more interactive group activities for students, see
http://interactivestudentgames.weebly.com/learning--review-games.html
For more interactive group activities for students, see
http://interactivestudentgames.weebly.com/learning--review-games.html
Image URLs
Top Image, photo: http://stpaulmiddleschool.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/spanish-small-group-work/
Jigsaw Image: http://sv2.jice.org/jenesys/2010/08/lets-talk-together.htm
3rd Image, photo: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs073/1100934529474/archive/1102056525547.html
Bottom round table Image: https://ctools.umich.edu/access/content/user/angelaas/Public%20Portfolio%20Files/clipart_of_15186_sm_2.jpg
Top Image, photo: http://stpaulmiddleschool.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/spanish-small-group-work/
Jigsaw Image: http://sv2.jice.org/jenesys/2010/08/lets-talk-together.htm
3rd Image, photo: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs073/1100934529474/archive/1102056525547.html
Bottom round table Image: https://ctools.umich.edu/access/content/user/angelaas/Public%20Portfolio%20Files/clipart_of_15186_sm_2.jpg