OER4Schools/Taster materials UNISA/Same vs. different tasks group work
Forming questions for group work
Prepare labels (G1, G2 and G3) for group work in advance and place them on tables before this activity.
Stand in a queue. Each person says a number from ‘1’ to ‘3’ at their turn. So, the first person says ‘1’, second says ‘2’ and third says ‘3’. then fourth says ‘1’, fifth says ‘2’ and sixth says ‘3’ and so on. Everybody who said ‘1’ should form group one (G1). Similarly, everybody who said ‘2’ and ‘3’ should form group two (G2) and group three (G3) respectively.Sit on the tables marked with your group number. In the classroom this is an effective way of randomly allocating pupils to groups and it avoids friendship or ability groupings.
Allow 15-20 minutes for group activity. Indicate the time left 5 minutes before the allotted time.
[Group Activity] Formulate open-ended questions that can be assigned to groups during a forthcoming group work activity in your classroom. Each group (G1, G2 and G3) should formulate at least one same-task group work question and one different-tasks group work question. You can devise more questions if there is time.
Visit each group at least once during the activity. Remind group members to:
- Encourage participation/suggestions from all members.
- Accept suggestions only if they agree, otherwise ask questions.
- Negotiate the topic, scope and language of the questions that they are forming.
- Keep an eye on the time.
Allot a number (1, 2, 3... number of members) for each group member. Keep it a secret from your facilitator i.e. do not tell who has which number to your facilitator. All group members should know this information. For young children, assign them a number so they don’t waste time deciding which number to be.
Whole Group (11 min). After the activity, the facilitator calls out a number (1 to number of members). For example, if maximum number of group members is 4; facilitator can say any number from 1 to 4. The group member with this number will present the questions on behalf of the group. Similar procedure is followed for groups G2 and G3.
This procedure means no-one knows in advance who will have to present, so everyone gets involved in case it is them!
Discuss:
- How well did your group work together? Did everyone participate equally? How would you rate your group work on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is most effective)? Why? [Use the ideas in the Powerpoint presentation as criteria for judging effectiveness]
- Choose one or more questions that you could use in your class this week
- Are there any aspects of group work that you foresee as potential problems? How will you solve them?
