8 Design: Group work

The answer to engagement in many classrooms is often using group work. Group work, in principle, sounds like an excellent idea. Students learn to work together, they get to practice working in a professional-style environment. It possibly lightens the grading load on the faculty member while resulting in the production of something the individual students could not accomplish on their own in that time.

Group work is amazing when done right, but when done wrong, it can be one of the worst experiences people have – A Student

In practice… there are a few pitfalls, and, in discussions with my students, there was no teaching approach that led to more frustration and more disenchantment with the learning process.

Choosing groups

We came out with two schools of thought on the choosing of groups.