Student buy-in is a prerequisite to successful study groups. Explicitly discussing the functions of study groups helps students understand the advantages this way of learning has over whole-group activities. Students need to see study groups as an authentic alternative to traditional teacher-directed classrooms. Frequent discussions will convince some students, but for others there is no substitute for direct experience.
Having patience and finding a nonjudgmental posture are challenging but essential. When some students don’t buy into the ideas you are proposing, as inevitably happens at the start, it is critical for you to remember that they are only doing school as they understand it. Years of experience have taught them a number of academically bad habits and a distorted sense of the purpose of school. It is your job to provide them with a more authentic and meaningful alternative.
Reaching a critical mass of students who buy into the idea of independent study groups requires perseverance and patience and many conversations. They will not all come to believe in it immediately. So first and foremost, don’t blame them for struggling to accept this approach.
Here are some of the messages students should hear and discuss as part of preparing to be in groups:
We have a common purpose and we can only achieve it by working together
One of the great challenges in convincing students of the importance and usefulness of study groups is overcoming biases they bring into the room from past experiences. Successful students may fear that study groups will “dumb down” the course, and that having to work with slower students will adversely affect their grade point average. Less successful students may resist opening up to study groups because they are afraid of having their struggles exposed—it is harder to hide their failures in a small group than in the whole-class setting.
The good news is that there is one solution to all those biases—the creation of a unified classroom culture dedicated to self-directed learning for everyone in the room. The idea that such a simple, authentic purpose for school exists appeals to students of all levels of success. It is, in fact, what can bring them all together.
Conversational learning is an important tool
Group discussions reveal multiple perspectives on any topic and expose a richer, more multifaceted view than when a students learn alone. If they are exposed to more complexity, their learning tends to be deeper and more resilient.
When a student articulates what he knows, he is engaging the material differently than if he is thinking or reading about it. Organizing his thoughts to explain a new idea to someone else builds a more solid and robust understanding of it. If he can’t explain a concept or a skill to someone else, he probably doesn’t know it as well as he thinks. Saying what he understands out loud is also good practice for expressing it on a test or other assessment.
Honing a student’s metacognitive skill of knowing how well he really understands the material is an important part of the learning process. After reading about a new idea, for instance, he may feel he has mastered it, but until he talks about it with others, he may not know what he doesn’t know.
Being an effective group member is a skill that needs practice
For a group to function well, its members need to be prepared for conversations. This may entail, for instance, completing a homework assignment before the group discusses it. But preparation doesn’t necessarily mean mastering the homework—it means a student does as much as possible independently and pays close attention to what he doesn’t understand. If he is struggling with a new skill, then knowing specifically what he hasn’t mastered allows him to ask good questions and direct the conversation in a way that is truly useful to him.
Another skill that requires practice is paying attention to and considering the good of the group. Through practice, students learn to be more altruistic. They can develop a more healthy attitude towards collaboration.
Discussing what a high-functioning group looks like with students is useful, but role modeling by using techniques like the fish bowl can also be a powerful tool. In this technique, you sit down with a group and pretend that you are the group leader, with the rest of the class sitting around your group observing. Displaying the process of going over homework in this way can jump-start the process in other groups. No method is foolproof, however, and every group has to find its own way towards becoming effective.
The art of appropriate socializing
Part of conversational learning is conversation, and some socializing is essential to the building of trust within a group, as discussed in the chapter “Creating the Classroom Culture”. Forming the social glue of a group is essential its healthy functioning and requires an investment in time for students to get to know each other. Furthermore, the emotional context of learning together deepens the experience of learning and makes it more meaningful.
Teach leadership skills
Study group leaders will be better at their jobs if they (and the whole class) are taught what successful leadership looks like. It is important for all students, but particularly study group leaders, to learn how to work together, to pay attention as the discussion drifts off-task, and to gently bring the group back to the topic at hand without being abrasive about it. These skills need practice and possibly some role-modeling. Similarly, dealing with excessive sidebar conversations or addressing group members who don’t participate or hold up their end of communal work are delicate and often difficult tasks for students. Learning to manage such situations is an important life skill.
The problem of academic selfishness
For a struggling student, the idea that conversational learning will be useful and worthwhile is not a hard sell. The student who has already mastered the material, however, also needs a reason to participate. Students who are successful at school are often used to completing work on their own and quickly moving on. The thought of slowing down to help other students may seem an imposition and an impediment to their success. They may well ask, “What’s in it for me? Why should I help anyone else?”
Here are some ways to talk to students who ask those questions:
Having someone ask you questions challenges your understanding in ways you are unlikely to do by yourself. It is good training in becoming aware of the depth of your comprehension in an ever more subtle way. It helps you learn to be more metacognitive, more aware of what you know and what you don’t know.
One of the best ways of learning is to teach. You can role model this by telling your students that no matter how long you have been teaching, you still learn about your subject because of your work with them. (As long as this is true, by the way, you are in much less danger of becoming bored — or boring — in your work.)
This approach to education requires a kind of active participation by your students that isn’t necessary in a traditional teacher-directed classroom. If you are going to dismantle the bell curve and replace doing school with self-directed learning, there have to be many teachers in the room. No matter how effective you are, in a classroom with more than, say, ten students, there just isn’t enough of you to go around.
Altruism feels good. Knowing that you are helping other people be successful is its own reward.
Learning compassion and caring about the good of the group are attributes that are very important in life—and you can practice them right here in this room.
