Hello Jennifer and List,
Let me also ask for the wisdom of the group about an alternative method
that I am tempted to try this year.
In the past, I've used heterogeneous, instructor-chosen groups. Group
work in the class session that I introduce these groups, usually a couple
of weeks into the semester, goes notably better than previous sessions
with randomly-created groups. I mix skill levels, paying attention
gender, race and ethnicity (so that women or minorities are not isolated)
and to the odd or disruptive students, or other special needs such
as English-language learners.
That's how I've formed groups for the last twenty years. This spring, I
was confronted by a colleague who suggested that I try in-class group
formation based on the procedure described below. She maintains that
students know who was the "smarty" and who was the
"dummy" put in groups formed by the instructor, and don't like
it. She pointed out that this alternative method helps students
identify good behavior in groups and, in her experience, it leads to
well-functioning groups.
The alternative works as follows: first, students identify qualities
desired for group members (typically the list will include: shows up on
time; always comes prepared; has a sense of humor; listens to others
etc.) Students are then asked to rank themselves (privately) on these
attributes. Groups are then formed by choosing an attribute, and asking
students who ranked this highly to raise their hands. Counting off one,
two... etc. put those students in group one, two,...etc. Then go on to
the second attribute, ask again for students who ranked themselves
highly, count off for group number. Proceed until all students have been
distributed to the desired number of groups.
Has anyone had experience with this alternative method?
Thanks,
Mark
At 10:10 AM 8/29/2010, Jennifer Imazeki wrote:
Hi all,
How important do you think it is to do the creation of teams in
class?
I'm asking because I was planning to create teams in class by having
students line up according to different characteristics and then
counting off. However, I want to make sure that both 'good' and
'bad'
students are distributed across teams and I'm not sure how to do
that
without identifying the less-good students (in my mind, I am
defining
'good' and 'bad' students by how well they did in the lower-division
prereq classes, which are important preparation for this particular
course). On the first day, I am having them fill out a short survey
that I will use to gauge how to create the teams and I *could* just
create the teams myself and walk in the second day and tell the
students which team they are on. Does anyone think this would be a
terrible thing to do?
thanks,
Jennifer
Mark H. Maier
Department of Economics
Glendale Community College
Glendale, CA 91208
[log in to unmask]
818-240-1000 Ext. 5468
FAX 818-549-9436