(Kurita)Hello, everyone. (Students)Hello. (Kurita)This is “Interactive Teaching” WEEK 2, “Active Learning methods”. We are going to do group work for this session. Today’s group work topic is “What would you do if...?”. The objectives of this group work are to think of and propose preventive measures and countermeasures against troubles occurring in group work. Group work tends to be carried out in the setting of active learning, and there are often troublesome cases. Let’s think about the solution together. I handed each of you this worksheet. It can be downloaded from the website. It says “When you have troubles in group work". Suppose that this is a group work on the solution to the falling birthrate in Japan. Groups are made of six students. There are two troublesome cases here. One is the case of students doing their own stuff and not getting involved in the discussion at all. The other is the case of a single student dominating the discussion and of others being unable to speak out. The proposal made by this group will probably be the idea of this dominating student. If only a single student has a voice, then their group work might not be a discussion. You might encounter these cases when you have your own classes at a university. The group work topic itself might have something to do with the countermeasures, but today, do not change this topic. You can change the number of the members for each group. These are the conditions. Now, I’d like to explain the procedure. I’d like to ask this group to work on the first case of students doing their own stuff, and I’d like to ask this group to work on the second case of a student dominating the discussion. For each case, think about the measures separately in two ways. Think about preventive measures, or things you can do before doing group work, and think about countermeasures, or what you can do if the case actually occurs. You also have tags at hand, so think about them by yourself first. After taking time for thinking alone, share your ideas in your group, and then summarize them on a poster and make presentations later on. Do you have any questions about the procedure? Is everything fine? OK, I’d like to take about two minutes, so write down your ideas for preventive measures and countermeasures on the tags. Please start. If you’d like to paste your tags directly on the poster, write on them in neat and large letters. Or you can write directly on the poster. It’s up to your group. OK, then let’s move on to the discussion in groups. Please start. (Student)We are almost ready. OK. (Kurita)Please decide the person to deliver the presentation. (Student)Do I have to write? (Kurita)Yes, please. Summarize your ideas for preventive measures and countermeasures. OK, I’d like to have this group make a presentation first, so get ready. Put up the poster, and the presenter comes here. Explain what the problem is and then proceed to the preventive measures and then countermeasures within two minutes. Please start. (Student)Yes. We worked on the first case. We came up with both preventive measures and countermeasures, but some of them are applicable to both cases, so we put those ideas in the center. About the preventive measures, we thought that six are too many for a group. Each student will lack responsibility because of that, so we thought that the number of members for one group should be reduced. More importantly, the instructor should give all of the members an opportunity to deliver a presentation or speak out with a sense of responsibility. To do that, the jigsaw method could be applied, for example, or roles assigned to everyone, like a moderator or a timekeeper; these would lead to a design that enables everyone to commit to the activity. On the topic of the solution to the falling birthrate, we felt this is too ambiguous to discuss, so we also thought that clarifying what to talk about would make it easier for the students. Regarding this perspective, we thought that making a worksheet that shows the point for discussion would be a preventive measure. One of the countermeasures would be telling the students directly that you are going to call on them next to talk about the solution. It might be a quite strict measure, but it may be necessary to declare that not getting involved in the discussion will be checked and points deducted if so. Another measure would be the instructor becoming a facilitator to look around the tables and encourage students to speak out their ideas. Alternatively, TAs could be asked to support the activity of a particular group, or time limits could be assigned for each student to speak in a discussion. In other words, students would be told to speak up in a specific order. Common measures for prevention and countermeasures can apply the “Think-Pair-Share” method, especially in the step of designing the class or in the middle of the class. This method can help involve the students when they do not seem to be talking. Moreover, we thought explaining the significance of the topic, or why you have to work on this issue, has to do with increasing motivation, and is effective as both preventive measure and countermeasure. That’s all for our presentation. (Kurita)Thank you. Let me add some information on the point of taking off points from grades. If you include participation in group work into the description of evaluation on the syllabus, for example, you might prevent these cases. Evaluation is also an important point, and we are going to take up this issue in WEEK 6. Thank you for presenting so many ideas on preventive measures and countermeasures. Next is this group. Teramoto-san, are you the one to give us a presentation? (Student)We discussed the topic by classifying the measures into preventive measures and countermeasures. First, in designing groups, as the former group mentioned, we thought that groups of six should be modified into groups of three or four, and that forming groups in accordance with the knowledge level of students would be effective for a smooth discussion. For preventive measures, it would be effective to announce beforehand the appropriate behavior when participating in a discussion, like explaining to the students that listening to others is also a very important thing to do, or to distribute some kind of evaluation sheets to the students to evaluate one another regarding listening, speaking, and summarizing skills. Regarding the procedure of discussion, first, let them think by themselves and go on to “Think-Pair-Share.” Next, assign roles like moderator, note taker, and timekeeper. Then, have everyone speak out within a designated time, like within one minute for each student. These are the ideas we’ve come up with for preventive measures. As for countermeasures, we divided our ideas in accordance to the level of the instructor’s intervention needed. In the case of a particular student who is speaking too much, we came up with ideas of switching the group discussion into pair work, facilitating the discussion of that group by encouraging quiet students to speak out, and assigning the student in question to become a moderator to have others talk. It would be a measure with a strong intervention by the instructor, but the instructor could play the role of timekeeper and ask the students to take turns. As a last resort, to force your way through this problem, we’ve also come up with the ideas of dividing the group in question into new groups and exchanging the student in question with a student from another group. That’s all for our presentation. (Kurita)Thank you. So group A worked on the case of students doing their own stuff, and this group worked on the case of a student dominating the group work. Is there anything you noticed by listening to both presentations? How about you? (Student)Both cases are completely different, but the solutions for them seem to be quite similar in that they both try to create an environment or a structure that enables everyone to commit to the discussion. (Kurita)Yes. Thank you. I felt the same way while listening to the presentations. To manage appropriately the people who are less or over committed, it is important to design a class that enables everyone to have a sense of responsibility, and to take measures suited to the situation, like dividing the groups. You even thought of taking strong measures. There’s actually no particular design for all cases. Instead, there is a core design. This point is important. I’d like to wrap up this group work. When you assign group work, I would like you to recall these cases and then design a class from the perspective of setting up an environment that enables everyone to commit to the group work. That’s all for the group work. Thank you.
