Study groups can be used for any activity in which conversational learning is appropriate. You may already have a well-established set of group activities as a part of your curriculum, with a range of functions. These may include exploring new concepts, practicing complex skills, preparing students to do homework, or reviewing for an upcoming test. Here are some specific possibilities through the various phases of the learning sequence.
Introduction
Even if you are introducing new material by means of a lecture, students will need time to work through the ideas afterward, preferably in conversation. Giving students discussion prompts or specific tasks (to summarize or apply the new material, for example) will cause them to engage and work through the ideas in a more active way.
Exploration/Practice
Once students have been exposed to new concepts, they can reinforce these ideas by exploring them in groups. Practicing new skills together allows students to teach and learn from each other. Group exploration and practice can also be useful in preparing individual students to work with the new material on their own.
For example, if a student in an algebra class practices a new problem-solving skill in a study group, he has the opportunity to make mistakes and ask questions of other students. This will boost his success and help isolate any difficulties he is having with the new material. As a result, any problem sets the student does as homework will be much more likely to be useful.
Reviewing individual student work
Student work, especially homework, is often a solitary exercise with a solitary outcome: producing something on paper that gets handed in to the teacher, most likely for a grade. If student work serves a social purpose, however, this changes not only the outcome but the motivation to do the work.
In particular, if a student does the work to prepare for a discussion with his study group, it creates a social obligation. For once, peer pressure can serve the purpose of learning. When a student anticipates being able to socialize as he goes over his work, he is more motivated to complete it.
Preparing for a study group discussion helps students develop their metacognitive skills. To participate fully, they must 1) understand what aspects of the material they know well enough teach to others, and 2) be clear and specific about what they don’t know so they can ask useful questions. It places the responsibility of steering the conversation squarely on the shoulders of students who might otherwise have stayed silent or, worse, might not even have been aware of what they didn’t yet understand.
Metacognition is crucial to learning. Even after students have grown more adept at identifying the specific difficulties they are having with the homework, the process of isolating those difficulties is richer and more sophisticated when done as a social function. It’s difficult for someone who doesn’t understand a concept to identify the exact source of the misunderstanding, but that source can often be revealed in conversation. Just talking about it with others increases the likelihood of seeing the problem more clearly.
These conversations also solidify a sense of belonging and common purpose. Students generally think about “the good of the group” in extracurricular activities, like sports or clubs, rather than academic work. Combining this compassionate trait with academic activities makes learning more meaningful and emotionally satisfying.
Open Work Time
Group work can help students to manage open work time effectively. This is true when the class is working on the same thing at the same time, each group moving at a different rate and with a different level of comprehension. It is also true when students are helping each other with various different activities. Group work during open work time can often be effective with ad hoc groups, rather than permanent study groups.
Review
The uses of study groups for reviewing material are as widely varied as your imagination allows. Any review process can be converted into a format that allows for conversation.
Assessment
While tests are often completed by individual students, other forms of assessments, such as presentations, projects, and portfolios of work can be accomplished by groups of students. Even test-like assessments can be taken by individuals in a small group, then graded and discussed within the whole group.
Remediation
The shame many students feel when they do badly on a test or other assessment is one of the central impediments to learning. They want to bury the evidence in the bottom of their backpacks or lockers as quickly as possible. Of course, this makes it difficult for them to learn from their mistakes. Finding the courage to admit failure in front of others is vital. It allows students to replace shame with a more realistic and healthier posture towards making mistakes and learning from them.
If a study group is well-balanced, its members will typically have a range of scores on any given test. Peer teaching and learning can then take place. If a significant percentage of a class did poorly on a test, providing answer keys can help serve the same purpose.
Reviewing tests in study groups is the backbone of formative assessments. The give and take, the teaching and learning around mistakes are essential to learning from those mistakes. This is discussed in depth in the chapter “Making Tests Meaningful”.