As adults, no doubt we’ve had many opportunities to work in groups ourselves. Perhaps it’s collaborative planning with colleagues or our own experiences as a student. Some were probably successful. Others have left us frustrated and thinking, I could have just done this myself.
As a teacher, I’ve even considered not even attempting group work because I knew I would spend the entire class period trying to make sure everyone was contributing or that some people weren’t taking over. Many times it wasn’t worth the effort because kids just couldn’t handle group work.
This is until I learned that there is a dangerous myth surrounding group work that says, “put students in a group, and they’ll work together.” The reality is that group work necessitates thoughtful structures and planning in order to work well.
