Making Group Work

A really on-target reply from JM of Designed to Inspire to my rant on the lame application of "constructivist" approaches:

... hand in hand with your observation is the overused and abused "group collaboration" element found in all learning experiences (from pre-school through grad school). Now, I regognize that out in the real world we all need to work together to get things done, but then why don't we have a class in 1st grade on Team Work 101 (maybe even offer a few Team Work 200 level classes in college... heck, maybe even offer a PhD in it). But, does it make sense to embed these group lessons in every learning environment?

I sometimes wonder if "learning" of the subject matter (you know . . . the subject matter that is implied in the course title) ever occurs during some group work (busy work?) projects? Or is all that forced peer interaction just a crafty babysitting mechanism (an extended talk among yourselves gimmick)? Also, when we give our group buddy a 5 out of 5 at the end of the semester for "team work" (contributions made to the project), what do we think she "learned" about the subject matter during the process?

This feeds right into the discussions I'm having with the participants in my NYU classes this week on evaluation and assessment.

It's amazing how little is often done to really guide, assess and evaluate group work in actually practice.... one response I often hear from teachers when I ask about how they know what's being accomplished in group work is "I can tell if they're all on task." I have to be skeptical about this...

To me, this sounds just like the "I don't need a rubric; I know an A paper when I see one" approach. Lots of teachers say this, but when I ask them to actually specify and weight their evaluation criteria, they're often surprised by the results.

Then there's the whole "they're interacting, so they're obviously learning something" philosophy. Something, yes, but how do you know what exactly? There are ways to give a group ownership over discussions and activities while doing some evaluation and assessment, too. ... They just take a little planning, thought, and preparation.