More on Williams and Group Work

When the term ‘group work” rears its Janus-faced head, I think in particular of two friends that have two differing opinions on the subject.

Renee hates group work. ‘I don’t like feeling like I’m having to do all of the work,” she’ll say, and that can be problematic given our relationship. We met during a campus co-hort and it is the nature of that work to collaborate and discuss items as a group. She becomes the eye-rolling dissident that digs in her heels when the facilitator starts counting us off into small group to brainstorm a solution to a campus problem. She feels like she’s always the someone that ‘takes the lead,” and the rest just sort of follow along. She becomes frustrated, and exasperatedly tells me that she’s ‘had it!” I try to offer her advice, and make sure that I am at least doing my share, because I know how much this pisses her off! I like Renee;  I’d like to think that we work well together, and I’d like to keep it that way!

Sharon on the other hand, loves group work. She assigns her classes into groups by the second or third week,  and those are the groups for the semester. She has the choice to redistribute or rearrange a group if it is not performing, but she says that group work keeps the students focused, on task, and engaged. She also loves that the students become so genuinely comfortable with one another that they are more likely to contribute in class and share their perspective without the fear of being “right.”

I guess I share this with you, because after reading Williams, it seems clear that group work can be highly beneficial, but it does have its drawbacks. For instance, is what Sharon does a good consequence for groups that are not working well together? Does this sort of action help students, who like Renee, feel pressure to perform, yet feel stifled by the group dynamic?  Is working in a group a good tool to utilize with students that are reluctant to talk otherwise? Perhaps I am being a little too much like Jekyll and Hyde here, but like Renee , I find group work to be a chat fest, of burgeoning thought.  I believe they make for a messy classroom environment . . . I’d like to sit in a quiet room and toil away, but like Sharon, I  ‘d have to say that ultimately though, it is in those ‘messy moments’  where some of the most fruitful teaching takes place.