A Step-by-Step Guide to Teaching Students to Work in Groups

Lots of teachers are making use of collaborative learning.  It has many advantages: it is great for developing communication and team work; it can help to personalise learning and it can help to create an authentic, work-like environment.  And OK, let's admit it, it can be a lot less stressful than lecturing!

However, putting learners into groups and giving them problems to solve should not be treated as the automatic approach to teaching.  It can be a slow way of learning - if teachers have to repeat their teaching to group after group.  It can be dull for learners to be stuck in the 'wrong' group - indeed it can sometimes be a barrier to learning.

Teachers need to facilitate the learning in groups and this means showing learners how to work together.  One aspect of this is showing them how they can give constructive feedback to one another.

I recommend that you take a look at this recent article in Edutopia which gives some great tips on feedback. 

Cheyanne Freitas describes how she models the kind of feedback that she wants her learners to give, how she gives credit to group work in assessment and how she recognises and rewards good student to student feedback.

OK - so it is one more thing to teach - but then, as she shows, once you have taught your students to feedback well - then they can take more responsibility for individual feedback - something that there is never enough time for...