Advantages to group work within the classroom
An essential aspect of your studies is the opportunity to work within a group. Working within a group is one of the most powerful methods of learning and is highly effective. Here are some benefits of using group work within the lesson and just how important it can be in a student’s education.
Firstly, the students get a variety of perspectives.
Working in a group allows everyone to present their perspective to others, and this has a positive impact on each student’s learning. Think of it like this: A student does not only hear the perspectives of others, but they also have to compare, contrast, and combine each other’s perspectives into their own. By doing this, it may show flaws in their own ideas, or perhaps cause them to change. A perspective simply cannot be changed, but it can definitely be sharpened. Team members are there to develop a shared understanding where the whole, finalised understanding is sharp and dynamic.
They learn to deal with a range of different personalities.
One member may be an introverted learner and another may be a chatty extrovert. This imbalance of personalities can lead to personality clashes, which isn’t necessarily a negative, as it enables students to establish a valuable skill of managing different types of people. This is a long-lasting skill the students will take on, all the way to the workplace, where cohesion relies on personality managing. By competing with personality clashes and becoming successful in their group objective, it helps your student to become a much better people person.
It enhances communication skills.
To successfully function, students need to be able to clearly communicate. Communication does not only involve the talking side of things but also listening. Both talking and listening within a group are the main skills needed to become successful, and so regularly using group working in sessions will naturally improve a student’s communication skills. This is done in many ways. Firstly, it is important for students to express their own ideas. Maybe they feel discouraged to in front of the entire class. Therefore, encouraging them to input their perspectives in a smaller group will build their confidence to do so in a larger group. An effective communicator will also listen carefully to others. In terms of the group succeeding in their aims, listening to others will facilitate that. Subsequently, the students will learn this and apply it to other aspects of their life. These two ways of improving communication are essential for the student’s later stages of education and in the workplace.
Finally, it ameliorates leadership within the students.
There is no doubt in leadership being one of the most valuable skills a student can possess. A group needs a leader, and the students can establish stronger leadership skills when managing a smaller group. The leadership of a large group can sound scary and discouraging to a student. However, confidence towards leading a large group roots back to leading the smaller ones. Furthermore, it not only develops individual leadership levels, but results in group cohesion levels increasing and success rate being higher. If the group has a structure with a leader, it allows group roles to be discussed easily. Therefore, students can learn this relationship between good leadership skills and group cohesion, and apply it to every chance they get later on in life.
These four benefits of group working allow the students to structure their own group sessions that are effective and successful. In the most important years of a student’s life that they’ll remember, teaching them key skills like this allow them to have a bright future ahead of them.