How to teach students to work in small groups cooperatively?

Question

I teach 5th grade math and use cooperative learning groups a lot in my classroom. A parent asked me if I teach students how to work in groups appropriately. I don't! My response to him was that I do not teach a formal lesson about it, however they work in small groups from kindergarten on and have had a lot of exposure to it. I would like to teach a lesson at the beginning of the year about HOW to work in these groups...any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

why? adult workplaces have enough of these small groups forming on their own and companies spend big bucks to try and get these social walls torn down.  

Answer 2

You can't assume that kids know how to work together and get along in a group, so you do need to teach this skill even though you think they should already know it.  It will probably take more than one day, but putting out the effort at the beginning means less hassle throughout the year.

You can create different roles for each group member, then teach students what each one should do.  For example, the time keeper would make sure that the group finishes on time; the secretary would record the notes or final product, etc.

You can also directly teach the kids basic rules for getting along with others.  Start out by asking them what they like/dislike about working in groups, or the pros and cons.  Write them on the board, or give the kids sticky notes to write on and put up on the board.

Then take the negatives and talk about how to overcome each one.  You'll probably get answers such as "one person does all the work" so have the kids figure out how they can have a check in place for that.  Another one is "people don't listen to my ideas." Talk about listening and respecting each other and have the kids role play different scenarios.

In fact, you can even break them into groups, give them a scenario to model as to how a group works (can do both good and bad, depending on time and kids) and have them act it out for the class, talking about what they did well, and what could have been better.

The kids can also make their own set of class group work rules, which can be posted in the room.

Teaching kids to work together usually takes more than one day, and may require reminders and tweaking throughout the year.  

Harvey Daniels has written some terrific books about getting kids to work together in literature circles.  The same princples apply to working in any cooperative group.

Answer 3

I work with younger kids and they mostly work in small groups.

I've done a fishbowl where I put a group of kids in the middle and have them model what group work should look like.

I give them norms of group work - which was actually the same norms that are used at our staff meetings. We go over each norm so they understand it then I post them at every table as a reminder. I'll list later below. I do go over at the beginning of the year what each norm looks like and we model it a lot not just in class meetings but at random parts of the day.

I also stop every 15 minutes of group work and ask random people.."How are you being a helpful group member". Perhaps at another time I would create a group chart that lists qualities of a good group member.

Norms of Collaborative Work:

Pausing / Allowing for Think Time

Paraphrasing.."So what I hear is".. Great because it clarifies

Probing.. "can you tell me a little bit more about....

Paying attention to self and others: Make sure everyone has a chance to talk. Minimize your own air time

Presuming positive intentions - this is the hardest even for adults

Answer 4

I teach a lesson at the beginning of the year when I ask, "what does it look like when a group works well together?" and I write the answers on the board. If something important is missing, I'll ask, "What happens if someone is shy, does that mean they don't have ideas?  What should happen?" or "How would you feel if someone was bossy all of the time? What should the group do?"...etc...hopefully, we work out all of the scenarios. I end up with 3-5 "group work rules" that are like: Listen to other ideas, respect different opinions, let everyone have a turn, etc...which I put on a large piece of paper and leave up by the door.

I also assign "jobs" and I tell the kids they will be taking turns with the different jobs. (I sit them in groups of 4 and the one facing the window is the "getter" one day, "reporter" the next....so it rotates around the group. And I tell them that they get a grade on how well their learning group works together and I have them self-grade their own group anonymously (in case I missed something), and I share continuing "issues" with students who need help knowing how to work well in a group.

Hope this helps, but I am interested in this question for other ideas because I sometimes find some groups more challenging to work with in groups than others.

Answer 5

I think 5th grade kids aren't prone to listening to advice on how to work together. You could talk to them about the importance of it and how to deal with different situations (like having a team mate who doesn't want to work), but they'll likely tune you out. I would think that some sort of exercise that promotes cooperation with incentive like candy for the best would work, like singing a song for as long as possible, where every person is only allowed one word (in small groups). It's not math related though. Sorry I can't be of more help!