Group think

There are three little words that educators should remember when designing lessons based on interactive instruction: "dynamic," "active" and "meaningful." According to advice from John Lee, author of "Visualizing Elementary Social Studies Methods," programs that attempt to engage students using interactive instruction should be all of those things and more.

Keeping students actively involved is not as easy as it sounds, but making sure they are engaged with other students is one way. Collaboration, on the other hand, leads to meaningful learning, if it promotes the idea of students working together on something that they can relate to in their daily lives. To make a lesson dynamic, however, requires a skilled hand. Teachers must design lessons with flexibility in mind, organizing materials in such a way as to build energy and create intellectually vigorous activities with shifting concerns.

For the novice teacher, these are treacherous waters. There are a world of considerations to ponder while designing such lessons, not the least of which is how do we group our students. Many of us have already written lesson plans that make a point of including group work in classroom activities. It stands to reason, however, that few of us have put much thought into exactly how we group our students. Do we split them up into groups of four? What exactly will they be doing in their groups? How should they divide the work? Will they present their findings to the class? Should each group be homogeneous or heterogeneous? Perhaps partnering up students in pairs would be a better idea?

All of this comes down to knowing our students, their abilities and what they know already about the subject they'll be studying. Just as it's important for educators to be flexible when it comes to creating dynamic interactive instruction, we should be just as malleable, and perhaps even experimental, when it comes to splitting students up into groups. As Chapter 9 of Lee's book reveals, there are many considerations to address before implementing interactive instruction approaches. Just the act of being willing to try different means of grouping students, I believe, will create the kind of dynamic learning environment teachers want. Shaking things up on occasion can keep students from getting complacent. The idea I find very interesting is that of jigsaw grouping, where teachers have each group complete one activity and then change the composition of each group before moving on to the next task. What better way to keep students on their toes than to change the game on occasion.