Making Small Groups Centers for Real Learning

January 28, 2003
Presenter: Ken Jones

The goal of this session is to provide a reminder on the key ingredients for effective small groups, and explain so my exciting techniques for structuring small group assignments so that they can promote higher levels of thinking in all disciplines.

Let me start by reminding you of some reasons for using small groups. 

Research shows it enhances learning
Opportunity for real student centered conversations
Students must own information and use it
Verbalizing enhances understanding
Can learn from each other
Practice consensus building, active listening, etc
Fosters idea of independent learning (not teacher centered)
Quiet ones get chance to test ideas
Spurs class preparation, accountability
 Adds to illusion of variety

Now, I’d like you to form into groups of no more than four, and do the following.   Imagine that you have a colleague who has become convinced that there might be some benefits in small groups, but has never used them.  S/he asks you for advice on how to proceed.  You don’t want to be intimidating, so you decide to limit your suggestions to the three most important points.  What are they?  What three things should your colleague do in order to be successful with small groups?

Discussion

Ok, let’s see how our results compare with what the research findings show.

One key to success with small groups is careful planning before you ever enter the classroom.   There are at least five areas to think about.

First, we need a meaningful question delivered in advance so the students can think about it while doing the reading.  By a meaningful question, I mean one that is capable of generating conversation, centered on key issue for the day, linked to a key concept/idea/theme of course, and has perceived value because it is connected to an upcoming paper or test.

Second, we need to make sure that we provide the appropriate material for the students to read in preparation for class.  This must be at the appropriate level and of sufficient depth to sustain a good conversation.

Third, we must create effective groups.  Small groups work best if they are chosen by faculty (rather than allowing friends to group together).  More importantly, the research shows that they are more productive because the students feel more accountable and more comfortable if they are stable.  I find that creating three or four sets of small groups over the semester provides the best mix of change and stability.  Four people per group is usually optimum.

Fourth, we need to educate our students on the necessary skills and behaviors for successful small group discussion.  We should not assume that they know this and/or that their vision is the same as ours.  If you are willing to devote the time, this educational process is best done by having the class create its own criteria, and by short processing moments later in the semester.  Assigned roles in small groups also help.

Finally, we need to make it clear that the groups will be held accountable and that evaluation of small group contributions will matter.  Just making it clear that this will be done provides a large impetus, as do forms requiring peer feedback. 

Once you are in class, there are six key areas to keep in mind. 

First, rather than asking them to “discuss,” make sure that you provide a concrete task to accomplish (“what are the three most important causes,” or “why doesn’t x happen without y”)  

Second, get involved.  Move from group to group, physically join the group (don’t hover), listen, raise questions.  You can answer questions, but don’t let them make you the focus of the conversation.  Two to three minutes per group is plenty.

Third, you need to control the process.  Keep the time spent in small group relatively short.  Goal is to get them engaged in thinking about the issue and to do what they can to find a solution; in other words, you are beginning the process rather than seeking completion.  Don’t allow some groups to be finished for a long time while others are still going.  If a group finishes very quickly, ask them a zinger question that challenges their initial conclusion and move to new group.  If you feel the process has gone on long enough, as soon as first group is done, announce that everyone has two minutes to wrap up conclusions.

Fourth, stress accountability and the need to stay on task by requiring some form of reporting from most or all of the groups at the end of the small group portion.  This can be a brief oral summary of the group’s conclusions, a similar posting on the board, a written group summary, or a group test.  Insist that you can call on anyone in the group for the report and/or clarification so that everyone is pushed to participate and learn.

Fifth, use what has been developed in small group to deepen the thinking and understanding in a large group conversation.  This can be done by pushing groups to defend their conclusions, pitting groups against each other, and prodding for more careful reading and/or better thinking.  The faculty member can also step in directly to resolve misconceptions that appear in the small group responses.  Finally, you can add new complexity by adding new information in a very brief mini-lecture (2-4 minutes), and then pushing the groups to explain how that new perspective revises their earlier conclusions. 

Finally, at the end of any discussion, we need to summarize the key points of the conversation.  This serves as a clarification and a reminder of what they need to carry away from the class.

I tend to use small groups as fairly brief introductions to whatever I want to do that day, but you also can make them much more elaborate.

One way of doing this is by having the small groups take a very short multiple choice test collectively (3-5 questions focused on the key things you want them to understand that day).  This works particularly well in the sciences where you want to see if they have grasped key concepts.  Once they are finished with the test, quickly check to see how they did.  Test the depth of their knowledge by asking them why the distractors were wrong on the questions they got right.  Once you know what they know and where they are confused, you can focus your teaching for the rest of the hour on the places where they are having difficulty.

A second more complex approach is the jigsaw.  This is especially helpful if you want to get kids talking to each other and working together.  Each group should contain people who have done different readings and/or possess different information (depending on situation, this works best if you have 3-5 different bits).  The task for each group is to share information in order to arrive at the final result.  The best assignments can’t be completed well unless everyone in the group shares fully.  This works well for exploring different viewpoints and for role playing exercises.

If you are really clever, you can structure small group conversations that really push students to progressively deepen their thinking about a subject, rather than just chatting for a few minutes.  The key is creating a challenging, well structured assignment.

I know that each of you can come up with really cool ideas in your own areas, but let me give you one example.  This is for teaching basic concepts from physics, and is drawn from Donald Finkel’s Teaching With Your Mouth Shut.   Finkel does what he calls the “Canary Problem,” in which he first poses the question “a canary is standing on the bottom of a very large sealed bottle that is placed on a scale.  The bird takes off and flies around the inside of the bottle.  What happens to the reading of the scale?  Explain.” 

Finkel asks students to write down their sense of what happens, hoping to draw on their intuitions and/or prior knowledge about weight, gravity, and other physical forces.  He argues that this approach engages them in a new way because it is a different problem in new context rather than simply regurgitating a theorem.

Once the students have written down their individual thoughts, Finkel moves them to small groups.  Here they have to clarify their thoughts and sort out their ideas, and even if they are uncertain, being in a group creates motivation to try.  One in the group may have right answer and be able to explain it to others, but even if the group doesn’t come up with the answer, the differing views provoke thought and may move the group to a new insight that no one had before.                          

Finkel’s next step is to provide another question that will provide guidance in solving the problem without telling them the answer, usually similar question but changed in critical ways that pushes them to test the hypothesis/guess they employed initially and to develop new ones.

This goes on through multiple stages with questions that highlight key things you want them to think about.  Finkel’s last question (#5) is as follows: 

(a) In the canary problem in 1, suppose that the bottle is replaced by a cage that is mostly glass,
    smallgroups.htm but with very thin spaces between the glass bars?  What happens?

 b) Suppose it is replaced by an ordinary wire cage?

(c) Suppose the bird is hovering over the scale and is not enclosed at all?

(d) What if the bird simply flies over the scale?

In short, Finkel’s approach is to ask a sequence of carefully crafted questions where each one forces the student to focus on key aspects, gradually moving to discover a theory that can cover all the examples. 

Finkel (and others) argue that this kind of small group work in a structured learning environment really promotes learning because students create the knowledge themselves rather than receiving it.  Since they have discovered the theorem or central concept rather than just being told, then they are much more likely to retain it.

Key Sources
Donald Finkel, Teaching With Your Mouth Shut
Barbara Davis, Tools for Teaching
Walker/Angelo article in New Directions Fall 98