Redesigning a Group Learning Experience

Motivation

“Our current system does not reward creativity or cater to the diversity of skills and abilities… What it does reward are formulaic learners” (Adornetto, 2009).

This statement in a letter from a Year 12 student appeared in all major newspapers in Australia in 2009 and reflected growing concern about schools training students to jump through hoops for high stakes public examinations. Enlightened educators are advising schools to move away from content delivery and focus more on creative capacity building (McWilliam, 2008). Last year, in response to these issues, in my role as Mentor of Learning & Teaching at Shore School, I introduced a five day Futures-Focused Four Minute Film Festival into the Year 10 program. Shore School is in Sydney, Australia and has approximately 200 Year 10 students.

This paper will seek to address three guiding questions. Firstly, how would the design of the film festival program be more likely to engage the students within the context of their group? Secondly, what strategies would positively influence group direction and performance, and finally, as the designer of the activity, how could I ensure that all groups were learning? These guiding questions will be considered through three lenses. Cohen (1994), the key lense, focuses on the specific characteristics of cooperative learning groups that successfully lead to various desired outcomes; Lotan (2003) emphasizes that group learning tasks need to be carefully constructed and worthy of a group effort; and Gersick (1990) suggests that team tasks involve generating a creative product, group collaboration, product consistency with task requirements, and completion of the task by a deadline. These three lenses will inform the analysis of the redesign of this group learning experience.

Context

The basic concept was that in small groups all Year 10 students would be responsible for producing a high quality short digital story that focused on a challenge for the future. The aim was to provide a significant ‘hands-on’ interdisciplinary culminating task to the Year 10 school year. Supplementary aims included: identifying how students might have a positive impact in society in the future, encouraging empathy, raising consciousness of some significant challenges, and developing independence. The task was group-worthy (Lotan, 2003), open-ended, interdependent (Cohen, 1994), and students were examining authentic problems and “real life uncertainties” (Lotan, p. 72).

Students were placed in groups of between four and six students and they settled on a wide range of topics such as: animal cruelty, global warming, gambling addiction, Alzheimers, obesity, homelessness, the rise of Asia, poverty, racism, pornography, bullying, and skin cancer. The tightly structured first day involved extensive preparation and group planning time, and was followed by three loosely structured days for film production where attendance at school was voluntary. Students were encouraged to be creative and they had considerable choice. On the fifth and final day, all 38 films were screened in a film festival open to the community and a series of prizes were awarded for the best films.
The vast majority of students were highly engaged, they appreciated the opportunities to build teamwork, develop their leadership, work creatively, and they had fun. They revelled in the trust, independence, respect, responsibility that had been extended. One student commented at the end of the week that, “We had a lot of freedom. Nothing felt like we had to do it, more like we wanted to” (Paterson, 2010, p. 3.). Despite these successes about twenty students failed to engage with the task and while almost all of the films were of good quality, some students reported carrying more of the load within their group. The collective commitment therefore had been variable. I believe that these issues could be addressed through a redesign of the group learning experience.

Redesign Principles & Analysis

Cohen (1994) recognizes that there are different types of possible outcomes that can be achieved in cooperative learning, and the film festival aims to achieve three of these outcomes: conceptual learning, equality of interactions among group members, and prosocial behaviors among group members. Particularly relevant are Cohen’s claims that training group members to work as a team prior to group engagement and delegating authority can improve group interactions and increase productivity. While it is difficult to get the balance right between structuring procedures without micromanaging and allowing groups to determine their own procedures, the nature of the group instruction and training prior to the activity is vitally important. Cohen proposes that students can be trained to co-operate in three main ways: through team-building activities, through providing and receiving feedback on cooperative behaviour, and through reflecting on their group behaviour. Taking the time to engage in this preparation for group activities can result in significantly better group performances.

Cohen (1994) strongly recommends team-building activities prior to the group learning activity. Motivating members to work as a group is critical to their effectiveness. This also enables the groups to establish norms and routines for cooperation and working together. Making time on the first day of the film festival program for the groups to take part in a brief team-building activity would be sensible. This would need to be carefully structured as it would be pitched at sixteen year-old students who have much experience working in groups in the classroom, on the sporting field and in outdoor education activities. However it is likely that students would respond positively to a team-building activity that would increase motivation, interaction and group bonding. It would be advisable to seek professional assistance from outside the school to lead a team-building activity or consult the Drama staff for advice as they frequently use team-building activities in their curriculum.

Cohen (1994) suggests that groups should consider how they are relating and working together during the process of the activity and take time to reflect together on how they are progressing as a group. This reflection is most effective if it is targeted with respect to specific skills, as unfocused, general reflections are usually ineffectual. Specific skills that could be targeted might include: the sharing of ideas, focus on the task, listening, feedback to others, and equality of contributions. Teachers possess a tendency to allocate a group task and then stand back and watch the frenzied interactions of students as the deadline looms. Taking the time to encourage students to consider how they are relating to each other and reflect on how they might improve their ability to work together as a group is a great way to improve overall group performances.

Assigning students particular roles is another useful method of getting group members to take responsibility for taking active part in the group, although Cohen (1994) notes that roles do not always have a positive effect on group interaction. When labor is divided and each group member given a different role, the result can be counterproductive as each person can be influenced to work individually on their own task with little group interaction. However, roles can be established within groups that increase interaction, talk and co-operation.

Cohen cites Kagan (1992) who suggests that roles would be more effective if they were assigned specifically to different social skills. The purpose of the roles is to assist groups to function well together so that their performance improves. Superior interaction is fostered when groups have roles designed to encourage facilitation, co-operation, listening, sharing, and equalizing their contributions. Even just adopting a facilitator role increases talking and working together (Cohen, 1994). Providing this sort of structure maximizes group interaction, ensures that ideas are shared, and ensures that group discussions are productive.
Kagan’s roles appear designed for primary/elementary students and would need to be significantly adapted for use with Year 10 students. The exact nature of the roles would differ for Year 10 students and the students would need to understand that these sorts of roles are designed to improve their group’s performance. Clearly, the allocation of roles specifically designed to increase group communication and cooperation will improve a group’s ability to work together.

When we turn to Lotan’s (2003) lense, it shows the need for group-worthy tasks that require both interdependence and individual accountability. Assessing group productivity and individual learning is a real dilemma for the film festival. Positive interdependence and individual accountability are both necessary for effective group learning, and in its present form the film festival has insufficient individual accountability. Both Cohen (1994) and Lotan recommend requiring individual written reports after a group activity in order to ensure individual accountability and assess learning.

At the conclusion to the final day of the film festival last year, students were asked to hand in an individual process portfolio which contained daily prompts focusing them on the development of their film. These portfolios were regarded as rather pointless by the students. As an alternative to the portfolio, it would be prudent to require a brief one page written report from each student detailing what they specifically contributed to their group product and what they learned from the task. This report could be due at the same time as the film, 3pm on the fourth day and could be submitted online through the school portal. By requiring separate reports, individual accountability would be emphasized and the reports would provide an effective feedback loop regarding student learning.

Lotan (2003) also focuses on the importance of possessing clear evaluation criteria. Providing specific criteria for exemplary projects and how they will be evaluated improves the group performance. Clear evaluation criteria would significantly improve the group learning in the film festival. Some simple criteria for this task would be:
• Comprehensively explains a problem of the future
• Communicates a story effectively through well-structured narrative, images, sound, and text
• Supports the story with detailed, relevant and accurate information.

Giving students a framework to structure and assess their own digital story against enables the groups to know exactly what they are aiming for and how to judge their own progress. It would also be useful to show the top films from the previous year and have the students involved in producing those films speak to the students in the year below. Inviting them to present a workshop to the Year 10 students would also help make the process and requirements explicit. In addition to helping make the evaluation criteria explicit this would engender enthusiasm and motivation for the task as well as introducing an effective mechanism for peer tutoring from older students to younger students.

Finally, Gersick’s (1990) lense forces us to identify key timings within the group activity and especially to consider the role of the beginning and the midpoint as particularly effective times to influence group outcomes. The early phase of the activity is significant because the norms and frameworks established then guide the group’s progress. A transition then occurs at the midpoint of the activity, which encourages the group to reassess its strategy before proceeding to the deadline. As Gersick (1990) explains, “The quality of the group’s endings appears to depend significantly on the stances that groups take at those first and midpoint meetings” (p.111).

At the moment the film festival groups possess a great deal of latitude from the commencement of the activity until its conclusion. Requiring groups to report in to school at a time of their choosing on the middle day for a brief group reflection and progress check would have the added advantage of drawing in any students who were disengaging while they still had time to reconnect and contribute to the group project. Therefore Gersick’s focus on the beginning and the midpoint as effective times to influence group progress dovetails nicely with Cohen’s advocacy of initially training groups to work together and then taking time to reflect on their group progress and process during the course of the activity.

Conclusion

The film festival aims to provide a significant group learning experience and it promises to engender and display more interdependency within groups by following five relatively simple redesigns. A team-building component should be included early on, students should be exposed to explicit success criteria, a group reflection activity targeting specific cooperative skills should be conducted on the middle day, specific roles should be allocated to increase cooperative behaviour within groups, and an individual written report should be required from each student. The lenses of Cohen, Lotan and Gersick focus the redesign of the film festival so that it: more effectively engages the students within the context of their group, positively influences group direction and performance, and provides all groups with the best opportunity to learn. With this task redesign it is possible, even likely, that more students will experience significant personal growth during the course of the activity as it evolves into a transformative group learning experience.

Puzzles

While it is beyond the scope of this paper, I am interested in how teaching groups about concepts like constructive conflict, the role language plays in group learning, and help-seeking and giving behaviors might improve the abilities of the student groups to work together during this film festival. Also, given that the groups have so much time in this film festival when they are operating outside the direct supervision of a teacher, what sort of a role does informal and incidental learning play in the production of their film? If it is the case that eighty percent of an organization’s learning occurs in informal ways, and informal and incidental learning can be enhanced with appropriate interventions, then which interventions would work best to improve the nature of informal learning in this film festival?

References

Ardornetto, A., (2009, October 12). Surely there’s a better test. The Age. Retrieved from http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/surely-theres-a-better-test-20091009-gqkv.html
Cohen, E. (1994). Restructuring the classroom: Conditions for productive group work. Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 1-35.
Gersick, C. J. G. (1990). The students. In J. R. Hackman (Ed.), Groups that work (and those that don’t). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kagan, S. (1992). Cooperative Learning. San Juan Capistrano, CA: Resources for Teachers.
Lotan, R. A. (2003). Group-worthy tasks. Educational Leadership, (6), 72-75.
McWilliam, E. (2008) The Creative Workforce: How to launch young people into high flying futures. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Paterson, C. D. (2010, January). Futures-Focused Film Festival, Shore Reports, 3.

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