Student Perspective on Cooperative Groups

Grace Hopper

My classroom is a melting pot of different flavors on the gifted spectrum. Because students self-select gifted enrichment in the middle school, and do not test into an enrichment track, there are varying degrees of giftedness and commitment walking through the door. Typically, my students are engaged in a variety of of their own research projects and have friends from all walks of life. These friends regularly follow their gifted buddies to our classroom from time to time. We openly welcome all to experience the room and meet the tribe. During one of the last days of the school year, a very interesting lunch discussion took place between some of the high academic, real-deal gifted, and lower-performing, self-proclaimed learning disabled students. They spoke with such passion about receiving some variation of an A on their final project. This was not the problem for them. Instead, they were all remarking on how hard they worked individually to achieve this grade when the rest of their group did not seemingly do much to contribute. I tried to act like a fly on the wall, because this is the kind of conversation that teaches us more than it teaches the kids. I overheard them say:

"Why do we always have to be the teacher in the group?"  - Key word is ALWAYS. When pressed about it, they agreed that they have no problem with being a leader from time to time. They simply want us to remember what it feels like to always be put in charge. Our highest performing kids typically never have a moment when they are not the role model, the high flyer, or the leader for a group. This typically occurs in all of their classrooms. Ask yourself honestly if you have ever thought about how many projects our top students are simultaneously completing? Could we handle that type of pressure? Their typical perfectionist streak will not allow them to achieve anything lower than their best. This leads to extremely unhealthy levels of stress for our kids. In an effort to always put a high flyer in each group, for each project, we unknowingly contribute to their compromised social-emotional wellbeing. 

"It isn't fair that we never get to work in a group with all of the top kids to see how much we really could do if they let us go!" Grouping is key to successful activities. We all learned this in our pedagogy classes, but there were failed connections between theory and practice. Somewhere along the way, we might have had a lesson on learning styles and multiple intelligence theory. After we all took a self-assessment, and maybe wrote out a reflection on how we can learn best, our classes quickly moved on to the next chapter. Thousands of under informed educators were set free in classrooms without a true understanding of how these can be powerful 

I had the honor of learning from Susan Baum at the week-long Confratute at UConn in 2014. She said the unthinkable in our session - allow the kids with similar strengths to work together, not all of the time, but some of the time. After completing our self-assessments, we grouped ourselves in the traditional sense. We had representation from all areas. We completed the task, but it was indeed a task. It took us a long time to plan, and even longer to determine roles. If college educated, teaching professionals have difficulty with this model, shouldn't we spend more time explaining it to our kids? This is not second nature for anyone. Later in the week we broke into groups based on our strengths. We were given permission to demonstrate our learning how we saw fit. It was as if the heavens opened up and tiny cherubs cheered us to cooperative group victory.  Afterall, if we truly consider our classrooms as hubs of talent development, it makes complete sense that our students be allowed to express their true talents with members of their tribe. While logistically this might not occur all of the time, consider ways in which you can make this type of an experience happen with greater frequency. 

"We learn from you better than we learn from the teacher, but don't do all of the work. We need you to tell us what to do!" The most enlightening comment for everyone in the room came from a student who is not in the enrichment program, but who often showed up at the student stress project this year with her teacher. She stated to the group, "lower students learn better from you and not the teachers" because "teachers talk above us".  She told them that it's not that the other students don't want to do the work, but rather they don't know how to navigate the system. "We don't know what to do. We need your help!" The other students thought about this statement and then looked to me. They had no response. How could they? They are NOT the teachers. They do not know how to scaffold or assign roles. They are only 12 and 13 years old. We often expect our little ones to enter our classrooms knowing how to run their own groups. This is simply not the case. We must model group expectations. Show them how to develop roles and responsibilities among group members based on talents and skillsets so that they are all appropriately challenged. Without such direction from us, we further reinforce negative self-concepts and create greater division within our classrooms. When we promote more effective classroom grouping, we allow all of our students to flourish and honor all of the learners in our care.

How often did I do this to my students in my former, more traditional teaching role, only because it was the way it had always been done? Am I still doing this to kids? How can I switch it up to make our groupings more personalized, more appropriate, more thoughtful? How can I make sure I am not operating on autopilot so that I can reach all of my students?

What if we stepped back for a moment and considered the possibilities brought up by my students? Chances are, these students are in your room as well.