Around midterms, instructors tend to see student engagement plummet. Over the past few semesters, I’ve written about encouraging peer-to-peer engagement as well as a few tricks for getting your students talking. Today, I’m going to highlight two instructors who facilitate innovative and successful group work during class time.
Sarah Fischer (PhD Candidate, Associate Instructor, Lieber Memorial Teaching Award recipient), is no stranger to assigning group work. She often has students work in small groups to engage with digital tools or different writing genres, requiring a deliverable by the end of class, which she grades on a completion basis. Fischer says, “Students typically feel pretty proud of their work when it involves some kind of aesthetic design and are often eager to share with the class! I find that when students know they will have the opportunity to share, and know that their peers will see their work, it puts productive pressure on them to submit their best work.”
While most of Fischer’s courses have had enrollments of 15-23 students, she has also had the opportunity to test her group work skills in a larger setting. A newly premiered version of ENG-W171: Projects in Digital Literacy and Composition boasts 96 students, and Fischer took this opportunity to encourage students to engage in friendly competition:
One thing that I learned from the mentor professor leading the course (Justin Hodgson) was that when you have a big group, students will thrive when there is a competition with a prize at stake. Our in-class activities asked students (in small groups of 5-6) to submit deliverables. We’d then view those deliverables as a class, and everyone, with a show of hands, would vote on the best (often the most innovative) work. The winning group would receive some merch/swag provided by UITS/Adobe. I still see some of my former students carrying around those notebooks and water bottles. I have also found that offering the prize of “dropping your lowest grade” also works quite well, though of course there are limitations here, and students cannot drop anything worth more than 5 points.
Israel Herrera-Cárdenas (Teaching Professor of Spanish, Outreach Coordinator, Faculty Advisor) advocates for group work to allow all students to have a voice in his classroom. He tells his students, “Being shy is not a disadvantage,” and constructs multiple routes for students to engage in one course period—full class discussion, small group work, and written responses. Small group work, Herrera-Cárdenas says, helps take the peer pressure off and allows more reserved students a chance to participate. He often assigns groups based off student interests, which he derives from their responses in class and on submitted assignments. Students are more willing to talk to one another when they have something in common. Herrera-Cárdenas calls these groups his “mini familias” and set a few ground rules: students do not interrupt one another (“Our intention is to hear”) and should focus on connecting with one another through the language—an act of listening both students and instructors can take notes on.
Whether it’s assigning creative in-class work or building mini familias, small group work is a proven way to encourage peer-to-peer engagement and deepen learning. For more ideas, check out our Group Work webpage, or schedule a consultation by emailing citl@indiana.edu.
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