Does group work turn children into productive, cooperative members of society, or provide the ideal venue for bullies? In new show posted at BAM Radio Network hosted by Rae Pica, Susan Engel, director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College, and Katharine Beals, author of Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World, debated whether collaborative learning is essential for a good education or potentially harmful to vulnerable children.
Engel argues that group work teaches children how to function in the real world, where meetings, collaborative projects and just generally dealing and working with others is at the core of what most of us do for a living. She argues for “creating situations where being kind to others is necessary to their success,” and that incorporating group work is an effective anti-bullying technique.
Beals, in contrast, worries that group work creates a safe space for bullies to act out against other children, particularly in classrooms where teachers aren’t trained to monitor for aggressive behavior and have their hands too full to keep an eye on what is happening in each small group. She suggests that the places where collaborative learning actually works well are in schools that have small class sizes or which are selective, making it a difficult model to replicate for most schools.
You can listen to the entire interview here.
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at 12:04 pm
Life is an opportunity for bullying! A well structured collaborative activity, teaching the skills of working in a group, teaching children how not to be bullied, and of course schools and teachers consistently supporting respect, tolerance, good and appropriate communication skills, make collaborative lessons a valuable tool in learning and preparing for all the bullies that lie ahead.
at 12:30 pm
Wow…it would be a dream to be able to limit class sizes, however, in the absence of that coming down the pike anytime soon…we still need collaborative work. Schools are one of the only places in the world that do not allow collaboration; how sad that some would dismiss group collaboration just because some students bully others. Will they not bully in a traditional classroom? Obviously they will…monitoring kiddos and having zero tolerance for bullying will tend to most instances.
Let’s not go back in time and take collaboration out of the classroom…students need to learn as early as possible that we all have to work together to move forward=)
at 12:47 pm
Although I do not condone the actions of bullies, isolating students from group work is as unhelpful and as damaging as throwing them to the dogs with no resources, which is what we would be doing if we deny students the opportunity to work with others and to learn to handle being bullied. We’ve all been victims of a bully in one way or another, and yet here we are, successful, working adults who probably don’t allow bullies to continue to oppress us. As a teacher, I want to do all I can to protect the students being bullied and to teach the bullies themselves proper ways to interact with students. We have to look at both sides of the issue – someone taught that bully how to be a bully, and part of our job is to get them to make a better choice. Isolating students is not the way to protect kids in the classroom. If a teacher suspects bullying, s/he can deal with that situation.
at 2:25 pm
Bullying doesn’t go away just because students graduate from school. As a teacher, I encountered administrators and fellow teachers who tried to bully me and throughout life people like them have been there. Nor am I alone. Many of us have encountered the bullying type. In the classroom we must properly supervise our students and try to protect them from the bullies, but we must also teach our students to withstand their onslaught. They just never go away….
at 2:40 pm
If group work creates a safe place for bullies to act out, then it also creates a safe space to help others learn appropriate ways to interact with bullies and, hopefully, break the cycle and help create more socially-desirable behavior. I vote for collaboration!
at 11:55 am
I absolutely agree that collaboration is essential. It is how the world works and school is the environment in which we all have to learn to do so. If collaboration is set up correctly, it will be more difficult for one student to bully another and there is strength in numbers. If a child is being bullied, there are others in the group to speak up and verify the instances. We cannot stop bullying. It takes place in hallways, restrooms, outside the school, on the playground, and in cyberspace. And as reflected above, it is not limited to school children alone. It is essential that we educate our children starting at a young age and continually, as parents and educators about treating each other respectfully and what the harmful effects of bullying are.
at 7:24 pm
I am a Second Grade teacher in a urban elementary school. I currently only have 18 students which I have to say is amazing and I feel very fortunate about. At the start of each school year I develop a sense of community within my classroom and try to make all of my very diverse students feel special. We spend days getting to know one another and their qualities, weeks developing a space where they feel safe, and months accepting one another for who they are. I make it known from day one what I expect from each of them academically and behaviorally. We make the classroom rules together so they take ownership of them. I also communicate with them, that there will be times that they work independently as well as in groups. Always, prior to assigning groups or at times allowing them to choose their own, I make sure to quickly go over my expectations of their interactions. I have to say focusing on all of the things mentioned above, has helped my students to develop friendships with one another and there hasn’t been much bullying.
I believe group work is important and crucial to learning socially from one another. As a teacher of such young individuals trying to keep them from being bullied is tough. I certainly don’t agree with it, but I do know that I won’t be able to protect them all of their lives because bullying will continue to happen through their educational years and even there after. I take the times when there might be a bullying occurrence in my classroom to teach them and not disregard it. I can’t stop it from always happening but I can continue to teach then how to deal with it and why it is wrong. I will continue to have my students collaborate with one another so they can learn to work with everyone.
at 10:44 pm
According to Elizabeth Cohen and the Johnson brothers, along with many others in the research community, collaboration is a key to developing cooperative skills that serve for a lifetime. However, it is essential that students be taught collaborative behaviors as content, and that collaborative tasks be well-planned. Cooperative small group learning is a valuable strategy, a tool in a teacher’s repertoire. It should be used in the right way at the right time.
at 12:48 pm
Children should be able to do collaborative activities together as a class without worrying about being bullied. For some children, school is the safest place to be. As a requirement, teachers should be taught how to go about bullying in the classroom. Its happening more and more as time flies so if teachers don’t get a grip on bullying, the collaborative activities will only be a chance to bully vulnerable children.
at 2:25 am
Collaborative learning is fine unless you have a child who is ‘different’ and the higher thinking, higher achieving teenage girls seek to isolate in order to make themselves look good then the teaching staff tell you it is better for your child to learn to manage their own bullying even though they don;t call it bullying (even after she has self harmed). The problem with collaboration is that pupils are allowed to choose their own groups and nobody wants the different child in thiers- try experiencing having a child with a difference before assuming the collaborative shoe fits all or at least sparing a moments though for how differentiation fits into collaboration.