Collaborative Learning or Shared Ignorance?

Why group works might not work and what to do about it?

First, I want to confess that “group work” and “group discussion” are huge parts of my teaching. Without them, I would not know how to drive my classes.

I teach Managerial Communications to MBA students who are adults and most of them are working professionals. They usually have enough required “prior knowledge and relevant experience” to have a meaningful discussion on the issues of communication in organizations. That is why I can safely plan for group work and discussions to engage them in the class.

It is also a major staple in all the teachers’ professional development workshops that we organize. For us, group work (aka Collaborative learning) is an extremely useful and effective pedagogical tool.

HOWEVER

There are many ways teachers might make group work ineffective and unproductive, wasting valuable learning time and energy.

I have also made such mistakes in my formative days as a novice teacher.

Reasons why group work fails:

1. Group work is a potent ground for “shared ignorance” and “misconceptions” especially when the students have little or irrelevant prior knowledge, skill, and content depth.

   Here’s the most usual scenario in group work. Higher attainers end up doing the major part of the work because they already have enough prior knowledge. And lower attainers end up doing little and learning nothing.

   Without the teacher’s meaningful planning and intervention, the students might end up not learning anything at all.

   This is where the popular belief of “letting students construct their own knowledge” falls flat on the ground. Because they end up re-confirming their own misconceptions and personal biases.

   Students even create distractions for themselves, although unknowingly.

   More chatter, less work. More activity, less thinking. More chaos, less learning.

2. Another big reason is Social Loafing. In many cases, only a few students end up doing the major part of the work while others simply hang around. Unless everyone is super motivated about the task, they will try to skip the “thinking” responsibility to the others.

   As a result, when it comes to doing and presenting their learnings individually, many struggle. (This used to be one of the major issues in my early classes.)

3. And finally, most of the group works are done just for the sake of doing group work - because - it’s one of the easiest ways to create a “fun” and “happy” learning environment. In many classes I have observed, I see that the group work has nothing to do with the learning objective and final outcome.

   When I ask teachers to explain their logic behind such group work, their responses have a similar theme: to promote social learning or to promote collaboration.

   But when I ask them whether the group work aligns with the learning objective and expected outcomes, most often they don't have a clear answer.

   Sure, every class doesn’t have to have a specific learning objective. Sometimes irrelevant and random activities can also inject joy and motivation for learning. But, far too often teachers waste valuable learning time for the sake of joy and motivation.

What can you do about it?

So, next time if you plan to conduct a group discussion or group work in your class, here are a few ways you can make them effective, efficient, and engaging.

1. Make sure you start with an individual activity so that they can build good enough conceptual / domain knowledge.

2. Check for their understanding - to assess any misconception or incomplete ideas - before you involve them in group discussions.

3. Set up rules for engagement or norms for group work. How to bounce ideas from one another. How to add, build, and challenge each other. How to agree or disagree. And, how to be accountable so that everyone stays on the task at hand.

4. State the objective of the group work, time duration, expected outcome, and evaluation criteria.

5. Teach them how to take notes, listen actively, avoid interrupting or hijacking, and not distract others.

6. And, finally, when the time comes for presentation, tell them explicitly that you will ask questions to any member of the group, and they will have to respond, explain or elaborate. This way, you can keep them alert and accountable.

I’m sure you have also come across the challenges of making group work meaningful. I hope this post is helpful for you. What else have you faced? How have you tried to minimize or eliminate these issues? Please share.

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