Leveraging group dynamics, is a lot like coaching. One of the most fun aspects of coaching is to leverage off of the combined effort of the team, to take it farther than any one individual could have gone on their own.
So it is no wonder that the beginning of chapter 6 starts with a group activity revolving around physical activity and team involvement.
As a part time youth coach, my preconceptions in this section were to ask such questions as:
- How large is the parent group?
- What size, or sizes make sense in sub groups, based on what is to be accomplished?
- How should groups be divided? Ability, expertise, interest, to facilitate interaction, or manage control, etc?
- Will the subgroups compete, or be required to intermingle and share results in a collaborative fashion during summary?
One of my pre-reading questions was: how does group dynamics in a classroom differ from group dynamics on a basketball court, or athletic field, or in the pool?
The first observation was in the typical size of a classroom is 20-30 students, and hence a reasonable size for groups is 4-5.
What I liked as some of the tricks to support individual and group accountability were:
- to have expert teams report back to home teams (jigsaw method),
- and having random members compete for answering content questions (numbered heads together).
The section that got my star of importance was the principle of cooperative learning that asserts that low achieving students perform best in heterogeneous groups.
The section on paired reading brings out some interesting points
that should be linked to the section on dividing into groups - specifically the concern that the tutee's self worth may suffer.
This is a particularly difficult issue on a youth basketball court where there is a wide range in skill level.
On the basketball court, I have modified my style over the years from having the most effective team, to just plain team involvement. The typical four (or five) passes before shooting, or everyone touches the ball before a shot goes up works well on the court, and may translate, somehow into the classroom.
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Having a simple (and secure) outlet pass back to a coach takes the self doubt away from the less experienced player, and goes a long way to healthy group dynamics and group success. Similar dynamics should be incorporated into any group learning activity in the classroom, when the group dynamics are created to help the less proficient student.
Some of my post chapter realizations, or points to remember and/or reflect on include:
- Differences between whole group and working in pairs
- Issues with sequential reading, and that it is often used for class control instead of learning
- That good reading can be modeled via read alongs
- Coopertive planning is at the heart of group investigation
