One advantage of the group teaching method is that it

Table of Contents Show

Challenges of teaching in small classes
How can I address the challenges?
Further resources
What is Team Teaching Method?
Merits /Advantages of Team Teaching:
Demerits / disadvantages of team teaching
Suggestions for successful team teaching:
Benefits for students
Benefits for instructors

Group work or cooperative learning is a method of instruction that gets students to work together in groups. Employers value a person's ability to work cooperatively. Indeed, studies show that they value it more highly than the ability to work independently. This is because, in most contemporary workplaces, people work in teams, which are often cross-disciplinary and quite diverse (DETYA, 2000). The value, to students, of cooperative learning has long been well recognised.

This page discusses the use of group work as a fully-fledged teaching strategy that requires students to engage in learning activities within the same group over a period while working on a substantial task with a shared outcome (e.g. a report or a project).

Learning in small-group contexts enhances students' overall learning experiences in several ways. For example, it can:

address gaps in students' knowledge
allow students to discover and engage with a range of perspectives, ideas and backgrounds
assist students in clarifying their attitudes to and ideas about the subject matter, as they test their own ideas and attitudes against those of others
help students develop a sense of academic rigour and a willingness to share ideas
provide opportunities for students to receive feedback on their learning
encourage students towards self-directed and independent learning
help students develop skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, interpersonal relations, teamwork, team leadership and lifelong learning skills, which are all highly valued by employers.

Challenges of teaching in small classes

While challenges in small group teaching are not as obvious as in Large Classes, this context is not entirely problem free. The most common frustrations are:

the lack of diverse perspectives to draw on
the lack of opportunities to form groups and engage in other active and peer learning activities; this can lead to repetitive and dull learning and teaching experiences
the tendency to overuse teacher-centred strategies and turn small group teaching into mini-lectures
more attention being directed to the lecturer, who is expected to fill the gaps and keep the class moving.

How can I address the challenges?

Our 3-page printable resource discusses useful Ideas for Effective Small Group learning and teaching.

The Tutorials page discusses a range of Student-Centred active learning strategies you might integrate into your small classes.

While small group learning and teaching is commonly associated with tutorials and seminars, it may also include learning and teaching contexts such as Studio, practicals and Laboratory teaching.

The Teaching Small Groups page within the Diversity Toolkit section of this site gives you some ideas about making your smaller classes inclusive of, for example, international students and students with disabilities.

Further resources

Small Group Teaching by David Jaques, Oxford Brookes University

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Teaching Method ?. For an effective teaching a teacher has a crucial role in Teaching-Learning Process. He has to use different Method of teaching principles of teaching etc. All the teaching skills techniques that are to use in the classroom by a teacher is developed in Micro-Teaching Process. One of the methods is Team Teaching Method.

What is Team Teaching Method?

Team teaching is a new way of teaching approach where a group of expert teachers teach a particular topic in the same class… Continue reading,

Merits /Advantages of Team Teaching:

Some of the common merits or advantages of of Teach Teaching are given below-

1. The students are highly benefited because they get to interact with the expert teachers.

2. In team teaching, a team of teachers who are expert in their respective field interact with the students so that they give their best.

3. Such teaching provides more flexibility than traditional teaching.

4. The students get an opportunity to interact and share their problem with the expert teachers.

5. In this teaching develop feelings of co-operation between teacher and students and teacher and teacher as well.

6. The available resources are fully utilized in team teaching.

7. The evaluation of team teaching is very effective as the the team evaluate the performance of the students and the teacher can provide feedback to each other by evaluating their teaching.

8. It provides variety of ideas as a group of teacher work together.

9. Teach teaching also builds a community among teachers.

10. It also develops human relation which is very important for social adjustment.

Demerits / disadvantages of team teaching

1. Team teaching consumes more time and energy.

2. If the teachers do not co-operate among them then the teaching teaching may results as failure.

3. It May create confusion for some students if the team leader do not find appropriate teachers to teach a particular part of the topic.

4. IF one person or member deviates from team then it may not work successfully.

5. Some teacher may not accept this new techniques of teaching who are habituated in traditional teaching.

6. If all the members do not have required skills and subject knowledge then the team teaching may fail.

Suggestions for successful team teaching:

In team teaching the teachers should be friendly so that students can express their feelings freely.
All the members should plan together and co-operate each other to develop the teach work.
The teacher must demonstrate in dealing with the courses.
The teacher should create a learning environment and makes arrangement of all facilities.
Duration or time should be allowed according to the subject.
Teacher should attain each others classes in a cooperative manner.
Supervision is very important in teach teaching.
The teacher must be willing to adjust accordingly.

CONCLUSION

Thus all the members should work collaboratively for successful of teach teaching. A successful team teaching has benefited to the students as well as teacher. If the team work fails it may break the effectiveness of team work. We have discussed the Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Teaching Method.1

Lear More

“More hands make for lighter work.” “Two heads are better than one.” “The more the merrier.”

These adages speak to the potential groups have to be more productive, creative, and motivated than individuals on their own.

Benefits for students

Group projects can help students develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world (Caruso & Woolley, 2008; Mannix & Neale, 2005). Positive group experiences, moreover, have been shown to contribute to student learning, retention and overall college success (Astin, 1997; Tinto, 1998; National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006).

Properly structured, group projects can reinforce skills that are relevant to both group and individual work, including the ability to:

Break complex tasks into parts and steps
Plan and manage time
Refine understanding through discussion and explanation
Give and receive feedback on performance
Challenge assumptions
Develop stronger communication skills.

Group projects can also help students develop skills specific to collaborative efforts, allowing students to...

Tackle more complex problems than they could on their own.
Delegate roles and responsibilities.
Share diverse perspectives.
Pool knowledge and skills.
Hold one another (and be held) accountable.
Receive social support and encouragement to take risks.
Develop new approaches to resolving differences.
Establish a shared identity with other group members.
Find effective peers to emulate.
Develop their own voice and perspectives in relation to peers.

While the potential learning benefits of group work are significant, simply assigning group work is no guarantee that these goals will be achieved. In fact, group projects can – and often do – backfire badly when they are not designed, supervised, and assessed in a way that promotes meaningful teamwork and deep collaboration.

Benefits for instructors

Faculty can often assign more complex, authentic problems to groups of students than they could to individuals. Group work also introduces more unpredictability in teaching, since groups may approach tasks and solve problems in novel, interesting ways. This can be refreshing for instructors. Additionally, group assignments can be useful when there are a limited number of viable project topics to distribute among students. And they can reduce the number of final products instructors have to grade.

Whatever the benefits in terms of teaching, instructors should take care only to assign as group work tasks that truly fulfill the learning objectives of the course and lend themselves to collaboration. Instructors should also be aware that group projects can add work for faculty at different points in the semester and introduce its own grading complexities.

References

Astin, A. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Caruso, H.M., & Wooley, A.W. (2008). Harnessing the power of emergent interdependence to promote diverse team collaboration. Diversity and Groups. 11, 245-266.

Mannix, E., & Neale, M.A. (2005). What differences make a difference? The promise and reality of diverse teams in organizations. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 6(2), 31-55.

National Survey of Student Engagement Report. (2006). http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/docs/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report.pdf.

Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.