Encouraging Students to Learn from Each Other

When student interaction takes place in well-designed in-class group work, students can learn a great deal from each other.  Many students, however, do not know how to effectively work together in groups, have misconceptions or fears about  learning from their peers, or prefer to work alone.  It is therefore important to have a compelling reason for students to work together, to plan the goal for student interaction, and devise and vary group activities.

Getting Started

Preparation

• Outline the knowledge and skills you ideally want students to teach and learn from each other
• Consider an optimal group size and composition that will help facilitate the student interaction
• Establish guidelines for how students will communicate with each other, listen, and maintain mutual respect
• Plan for how the group will share what they have learned from each other in the class

Ways of organizing groups

• In a buzz group, small discussion groups are given a specific task, such as generating ideas, solving a problem, or establishing a viewpoint on a topic
• In ke ts’ao, the emphasis of the discussion groups is for every member of the group to say something and for the group to reach consensus on an idea, policy, procedure, etc.
• In jigsaw projects, each member of a roup is asked to complete some discrete part of an assignment so the pieces can be joined together to form a finished project
• In think-pair-share, students are given time to think about a response to an issue, then turn to their neighbor and share their thoughts, and finally share what they have learned with the larger group

Activities for group interactions

• Present a common misconception to the class. Ask students in groups to discuss whether or not the idea is a misconception and have them present their reasoning
• Describe a contemporary social problem that is relevant to the course content and ask students to develop and defend possible solutions
• Assign different groups to learn about different aspects of a larger topic and teach the material to each other

Also on this site

• Using Small Groups
• Developing Student Presentation Skills by Hugh Gallagher, Tufts University
•  Peer-to-Peer Learning by Mary Viola, Tufts University

Technologies to Consider

• Wikis
• Collaborative Editing and Annotation-Media Markup
• Trunk – Tufts Online Learning Environment
• Web Conferencing and Meeting Tools

Additional Resources

• Turning Student Groups into Effective Teams (26pg)
• Keys to Using Learning Groups Effectively (6pg)
• Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams (article, 10pg)
• Setting Ground Rules for Students Working in Groups (1pg)
• Working Group Self Assessment Form (1pg)
• Lessons from the Best and Worst Student Team Experiences: How a Teacher can make the Difference (pdf) (Accessible through Tufts libraries )
• Cooperative Learning Groups at the College Level: Differential Effects on High, Average and Low Performers (pdf) (Accessible through Tufts libraries)