Discussion groups are great for several reasons. To highlight just a few, discussion groups help get students interacting with each other. This promotes a shared learning experience that builds bonds between students. Another way it benefits students is by giving them the opportunity to do something with the information they are learning. This hands-on approach helps them internalize the content, thus enabling them to remember and retrieve the information for a much longer length of time that lectures alone can achieve. Since these are results we hope to see in our students’ learning experience, let’s look at how to use discussion groups, and use them effectively!
Effective use of discussion groups starts at the planning stage. First we need to decide what we want from the discussion group. What do we want students to understand about the material, what do we want them to do with the material during the discussion and what do we want them to produce with the material. This last decision is crucial to keeping students on task during the discussion time. If they know they have to give something to the teacher or present something to the class, they make sure it gets done. I learned this lesson when I put my students into groups so they could discuss recent movies they had seen. I thought this would be an interesting enough topic to keep them on task, but as I monitored the groups I heard a lot of talking about dinner plans, weekend plans and the like. I refocused them by telling the groups that each group had to choose their favorite movie and share it with the class. That solved the problem of off-topic conversations. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but there needs to be some kind of accountability for the time they spend in their groups.
It’s not always enough to give them an end product to produce. They may still wander off topic, or worse, one or two students take over completing the assignment while the rest stare around the room, the picture of boredom. So another strategy for discussion groups is to assign each member of the group a specific role in the group or assignment. There can only be as many members of a group as there are roles. I got my earliest experiences managing group work as an undergraduate teaching assistant for a general education science course. During their lab time students worked in groups of four to complete problems from the chapters they learned that week. Their end product was their completed assignment turned in at the end of class. The roles for the group were as follows: leader, facilitator, recorder, and checker. This comes from a cooperative model of learning. The leader starts the task and keeps the students moving through it. This person also finalizes decisions for the group if they are not unanimous. The facilitator, also called the moderator, keeps the group on task and ensures that everyone is participating. The recorder is the scribe for the group, writing down the answers to problems or taking notes on the discussion. The checker makes sure the answer is correct and complete and that what the recorder writes represents what the group decided. This is one model, but it can be adapted for any number of people in a group up to four and the roles changed to fit the specific purpose of the discussion group. In my experience, it is paramount to assign at the very least a scribe if you want anything turned in at the end of the discussion. I have had many groups talk for ten minutes and then not remember a word they said when it was time to answer a question or present to the class.
The final way to ensure a successful experience for your students is to start the discussion group with clear instructions. These instructions should be clearly explained and provided in visual form so students can check their progress during their discussion. One class I was focusing on listening comprehension for my students so I explained their task and checked their understanding of their assignment. All seemed well until about five minutes into the discussion time. Hands went up all over the room and they were all asking me what to do next. Even though they understood it when I explained it, they needed the visual reminder to guide them through the task. Break the task down into manageable steps, present those steps with explanation and examples as necessary and then provide a visual reminder of the steps.
Let’s recap: Discussion groups need planning in order to be effective in the classroom. First, plan what the students will produce at the end of their discussion, e.g. answers to problems, a presentation for the class. Next, decide the roles each student will have in the group. Make sure there is real work for each role so that all students participate. And finally, present clear focused instructions that will guide students through the task and then provide the instructions in a visual form. Following these three steps will lead toward a successful discussion group experience for you and your students.
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