Effectiveness of Group Work In Promoting Student Learning Summary

Effectiveness of Group Work In Promoting Student Learning
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Effectiveness of Group Work in Promoting Student Learning
Introduction
In most contemporary educational curriculums, more focus is made on how well students can gain full knowledge without solely depending on what the teacher or an educator gives in class. With the significant changes and shifts in how the teaching and learning in education are changing, more active and involving approaches have been incorporated in the curriculums to make students gain more from their teachers and peers (Hammar-Chiriac 2014, p.176). In this light, group work is a common way that active and peer-to-peer learning is achieved in different schools worldwide.
While examining active learning in modern education systems, it is essential to note that it involves various broad perspectives of events, such as outdoor activities and collaborative learning or small study groups (Gillies & Khan 2009, p.56). Although some of the students may find it hard to work in groups, proper planning and the design in which the study groups are set up will make the students who study in the group work to realize the best outcomes during evaluation because research suggests that students learn best when they participate in active learning.
While choosing the topic on the 'effectiveness of group work in promoting student learning,' there were motivations that lead to this topic's choice. Students who participate in active learning, for example, group work and outdoor activities, have a higher probability of getting better grades and a wider understanding of topics because there is an interaction between them and other peers. With better rates, there comes the satisfaction of academic achievements that makes the school and learning environment interesting for the learners (Hammar-Chiriac 2014, p.156). Consequently, through group work, for active learning to bear maximum positive effects on the learners, there must be a comprehensive layout and planning to realize the desired outcome.
The essence of structure and planning in the group work to realize effective results in promoting student learning was a significant motive for the topic's choice. For example, suppose the group members who are to work together do not receive proper instructions on what they should do and the subsequent outcome that is expected from them. In that case, there is a higher probability that they would have a dreaded and repulsive feeling that is sometimes referred to as group hate – a sense of finding it hard to work with other in-group to achieve a specific learning outcome.
Consequently, group work to promote student learning is pegged on the fundamental principle that students remember better what they discuss with other peers. For example, if a comparison is made by evaluating the retention space in classes and those in group discussions, a conclusion would be made that students will remember more from their group work discussion more than they will remember what the teachers in class give them. For example, Hammar-Chiriac (2014) argues that active learning is essentially a better way of keeping retention in class. This paper will examine the effectiveness of group work in promoting student learning while reflecting on my personal experience of conducting physics group experiment learning in middle school in China.
Critical literature review
Hammar-Chiriac (2014, p.28) argues that Group work to enhance student learning in schools has been used in all education systems stemming from compulsory education to higher education levels. Additionally, group work to promote student learning in schools usually takes two collaborative learning and cooperative learning approaches. The two methods of group work in schools are made to provide an incentive to education. For example, it is believed that students who participate in group works are more likely to gain some knowledge because people of the same peer tend to understand themselves better.
Additionally, with different students involved in group discussions, they create a pool of ideas with additional information they would share with their group members. More research has been done with different countries trying to implement policies that aim to improve academic quality and final achievements. Some are proposed all in the realm of student participation (Hammar-Chiriac 2014). The exciting fact suggests that most of the research has already been carried out points at the positive effects of academic and learning outcome evaluation due to students' cooperation and interactions through group studies. It is, therefore, enough to say that different educational stakeholders pointing to the positive impacts that are realized as a result of group work through research, cooperation, and interaction influences problem solving and learning outcome in groups.
According to Hammar-Chiriac (2014), both approaches to group work are collaborative learning and cooperative learning. In this sense, collaborative learning is the educational approach that utilizes groups to promote learning through working together. In contrast, cooperative learning divides a classroom of students into smaller groups to discover new concepts together and help each other learn. These produce consistent benefits, and these befits are not pegged on age or academic levels and curriculum. Gillies and Boyle (2011) add to Hammar-Chiriac arguments that the main reasons why the benefits that are realized through group works are consistent regardless of the curriculum, age, or level of education are because group work involves different students who will share ideas, make inquiries, clarify on their differences and subsequently build on the new understanding of concepts as agreed by the group members.
In the event of students succeeding in building on new accounts, there is a spirit of motivation that is realized among the students because at individual levels, they could not have achieved some of the events that they do while working in groups (Gillies & Khan, 2009). In this light, group works are essential in academic achievements. They also play a significant role in building students' interpersonal skills that help the student develop their social aspects of life.
While working in groups, students may decide to work on groups as an objective or means of achieving tasks that they had unsolved. More often, group works have had a positive perception from all the stakeholders in the education realm. In this light, most of the students who participate in group works have a very high probability of learning and retaining as much information as possible because group work develops a new understanding of concepts. The group works as a means or objective, specifically narrows down to acquiring knowledge (HammarChiriac 2014, p.287). The knowledge that is obtained can either be group knowledge or academic knowledge. In this regard, group knowledge is what the students acquire as they learn how to work in groups. Theoretical knowledge is that which students receive through the development of a new understanding of concepts and ideas.
Consequently, while considering the academic knowledge that is realized as a result of group work as objectives or means, fellowship, affiliation is also of great significance. For example, weighting group work in group knowledge and academic knowledge can serve as a pedagogical model and a prerequisite for promoting student learning (Hammar-Chiriac 2014, p.78). For full potential that the group work holds to be realized, those that are tasked with the implementation of group work should see to it that the purpose through which the group work has been forged is clearly stated and implemented, for example, whether there will be a group work to achieve individual academic knowledge or group knowledge.
According to Gillies and Khan (2009, p.19), group work may function to achieve the individual academic or group knowledge considering the collaborative learning abilities or as a means that accounts for the academic achievements in schools. In this light, when the group work has been implemented for students to serve an objective purpose, then the primary function, which implemented it, was to develop the students' group work abilities, for example, improving interpersonal skills and social training. On the other hand, if the group world is implemented with the sole reason of achieving academic knowledge, then the group will apply both the collaborative and cooperative approaches that would see to it that students acquire knowledge in their group work (Gillies & Khan 2009, p.27). It is, therefore, correct to deduce that group work plays a more significant role in the acquisition of knowledge, and it subsequently contributes to the stimulation of learning. The contribution of group work in the inspiration of education and as a contributor to the acquisition of knowledge leads to improved academic performance in schools.
There are different definitions of the learning environments, but group works can be considered active learning environments from a realistic perspective. In this case, groups are a learning environment as students and the educators use study groups to achieve both the objective outcome and the means outcome (Brandler & Roma 2015, p.14). For example, when an educator is conducting tutorial groups based on problem-solving, both the objective and the means are realized simultaneously. Therefore, using group work to achieve both the objective outcomes and as a means is fundamentally essential. The two approaches complement each other as they serve as both incentives for learning and emphasize different aspects of knowledge acquisition within a learning environment.
According to Blatchford et al. (2003, p.155), the fact that group work is defined as students working together as a team or in a group do not align to a specific activity, but group work is, in fact, a myriad of different activities that are subjected to various specific conditions. In this light, depending on the activity carried out at every particular time, group work will be subjected to different characteristics. For example, group work will have various modes and features during specific shifts, and the method at every specific will entirely be different from a group work's entire lifespan characteristic. Therefore, it is enough to say that certain working modes would prove to work better at specific parts of the assigned group work during a group work entire lifespan. In contrast, other operating modes will not work better at particular aspects of the assigned group work (Volet & Mansfield 2006, p.167). During the group work implementation, clear and astute instructions should be given to the group members while highlighting different working modes employed at any given part of the group works' lifespan. In this regard, those working in a group should differentiate between how the work will be done in the group, whether the result would be done in a group or working as a group.
For practical group work promoting student learning, two approaches are usually given to discuss cooperation in the students' groups. The two primary ways are either working as a group or working in a group. It is also important to note that working as a group or working in a group is classified as active participation in learning with specific group work roots in promoting student teaching (Gillies & Khan 2009, p.20). If learners are seated together in a group, but every one of them is doing individual work on separate parts of the group assignment, it is referred to as working in a group. Working in a group as one way of group work promoting student learning is expected in the education setting. Additionally, a group takes the collaborative perspective, while working as a group takes the cooperative aspects of group work in schools.
Even during working in groups, cooperation between students is possible. There is no limitation to sharing ideas and clarifying one's point on a given stand on topic or prompt. During working in a group, cooperation is usually possible but limited. It is not aimed at finishing the task that is every student will complete an individual task before they put together all their point for scrutiny. The final products and answers to the assignment from which the students were expected to achieve are arrived at when the individual students put together their solutions and ideas so that their peers will discuss the said topic (Cohen & Lotan 2014, p.88). While cooperation that is witnessed as students work in groups is not mandatory, the benefits result from social facilitation that enhances the motivation effect that the presence of other students, as they work in groups, has over individual students' academic performance during final evaluations.
Consequently, working as a group during group work to promote student learning has direct effects because of collaboration between students or the group members. Although some scholars find working in a group to be holding significant comparable characteristics just as working as a group, the second primary approach that is working as a group, is usually referred to as meaningful or the real group work (Moldaschl & Weber 1998, p.380). Working as a group is primarily characterized by its idea that students heavily benefit from learning and acquiring group members' skills and ideas and work on these skills and ideas to realize a common benefit- that is, solving a common misery through which the group was created. Additionally, working as a group involves collaboration and cooperation that results in every member of the growth.
Active participation by every group member is pegged to a common interest in arriving at common answers to the students' tasks. Working as a group yields joint outcomes, and it is subsequently characterized by the utilization of individual members' competence and ideas and a collaborative effort in problem-solving (Webb 2009, p.70). Additionally, working as a group is the most suitable way to promote problem solving and reflection to find solutions to its tasks. With different students involved in group discussions, they create a pool of ideas with additional information they would share with their group members. More research has been done with different countries trying to implement policies that aim to improve academic quality and final achievements. Some are proposed all in the realm of student participation.
Both the approaches to group work, which involve working as a group and working in groups, can be helpful in the group works lifespan; for example, some parts of the group work might apply to work as a group approach while other aspects may apply the working in a group approach (Webb 2009, p.77). The students doing the group work will side with solely depends on how the group was created.
Hammar-Chiriac (2014, p.167) asserts that there are experiences that have been brought forth by learners that describe low-quality and high-quality group work in schools and learning environments. These experiences of low and high-quality group work are dependent on the participants' age brackets through which these experiences were found. Participants in the ages brackets of 13-16 described high-quality group work to incorporate collaboration and cooperation to finish the task that the teachers have assigned genuinely. Additionally, high-quality group work should also be free from free-riders, and the learning through which the group work seeks to achieve must be ...