Essay

Section 1 – critical evaluation of literature Professional development in teaching is a lifelong activity and it might well require a lifetime to achieve even the most tertiary appreciation of the Qualified Teaching Standards (QTS) identified by the pertinent Quality Assurance Agencies advising and promoting on the best practice to maximize teaching effectiveness. As such I was presented with a host of professional development areas that I could gain competence and confidence in because I am still in my professional infancy. My teaching experience both prior to, and during my formal teacher training, had principally been demonstrating practical, lab-based teaching and over-seeing the pupils’ efforts to replicate the same. (Leat, D and Higgins, S, 1997) My other most frequently utilised technique had been the traditional, teacher-led instruction and explanation of theory, facts and expectations in the various science disciplines and topics covered in the National Curriculum. As a student in secondary school, and again while at University, I had occasion to undertake group-work; again this was usually in practical classes where space and physical resources are at a premium and must be shared between individuals. But I recognised an interesting phenomenon in my groups; we all adopted roles and alternately recognised our own, and each other’s, skills such that it was obvious on successive tasks and over time in modules, which group member would take the lead on specific areas of work and who would focus on the other aspects. It was hugely satisfying to share the responsibility and effort required on our practical work, and I often wondered if other, more mundane and less proactive, i.e. teacher-led instructional techniques, might similarly benefit from some form of collaborative or group-based learning procedure as a supplement or adjunct to the teacher-directed style. While I was acquiring my initial training, I began to inwardly feel less able to even contemplate group-work style teaching, because I worried about the possibility of poor achievement, failing to manage the class setting and behaviour properly, and not actually doing any form of effective instruction thereby disadvantaging the pupils. I considered avoiding the issue of group work, but I was heartened by my enjoyment as a student myself with group work, and I needed to have another tool in my repertoire, to improve my range of teaching techniques. Thus, I selected the following QTS standards during placement two for my personal professional development; these included Q 10 ‘..knowledge and understanding of a range of teaching and learning strategies...’,Q 22 ‘..designing effective learning sequences within lessons...’, Q 25(a)(b)(c)(d)’...use a range of teaching strategies and resources...’, Q 30 ‘Establish a purposeful and safe learning environment ...’ In order to achieve some significant augmentation of my skills base, I explored how I might usefully employ a group-based learning process (where students share the responsibilities and benefits of dividing learning objectives into simple tasks performed by an individual within the group, with each group member taking ownership of a task, executing the task, and delivering the proceeds (knowledge) in reciprocity with the other group members) as a means to enhance science learning. In effect, I wanted to be able to use group work in place of traditional teaching strategies; first, as a means of having pupils benefit from peer-peer collaborations; and second, to gain experience in an area of teaching practice I felt less confident in, as discussed in the learning log dated 2nd Feb 2009. My approach will be threefold; 1) I will address current theory, research and policy on collaborative learning; 2) I will discuss how I incorporated group work and present my results, supported by theory; and 3) I will render conclusions and suggest future areas for my professional development. As a preface to my discussion, let me elaborate a little bit on the constructs and semantics behind the ostensibly straightforward notion of ‘group-work’. Slavin (1995) has written on and documented the features of group work and he devised a more precise explanation of what this actually means. For some teachers, especially in the primary sector of education, assigning pupils to a proximal seating plan constitutes a group.(DfES, 2005; Galton, 1987; Galton et al. 1999; cited in Long, 2000, p143 ) Thus it is the physical partitioning of the classroom such that students are positioned in distinct patterns (arranged together on a face to face basis, forming a circle and so forth) that create ‘groupings’. The pupils are not actually sharing or discussing work, but their social sphere within which they are taught and perform as pupils is broken down such that their immediate group partners are opposite and adjacent to themselves. The effect is to limit the amount of extraneous and spontaneous verbal, visual and physical experience/distraction such that the classroom is not made up by the 24 pupils maintained in the room, but is really the group of 5 or so students which make up the pupils’ immediate cohort. There are variations on this theme; for instance group-work may be defined by the allocation of questions/problems in which the pupils collectively seek answers to their assigned bit of the work, (Blatchford et al, 2005) and are assessed by measuring the performance of the group in its entirety (thus gains are measured collectively and weak individuals may benefit from the combined strength of the whole group, as each group member receives the same mark as each other). In fact the term ‘group work’ might be best replaced with the expression ‘cooperative learning’ (CIAU, 2009) in which each group member collects or acquires knowledge; they must describe, explain, demonstrate, and generally transfer this to the other members of the group.(Driver et al, Thus the obvious feature of this process is the division of labour required to obtain the knowledge sought, and the subsequent exchange of the proceeds from each other’s efforts. Alternatively, the process may be one of collaboration in which each group member takes equal responsibility for learning every aspect of the issue or subject, and each member actively engages with the others to arrive at the strongest possible understanding. (Springer, 1999) The rehearsal, and repetition of the work, made in each member’s own unique manner ultimately results in the strongest learning of all for each individual group member. It is worth mentioning that on this latter description of collaborative group learning, Slavin (1995) has also argued that ‘a collaborative group’ is not a homogenous entity, but should be established as a heterogeneous collection of pupils. Thus, he provocatively postulates that schools should aim to foster collaborative relations in groups made up of all academic abilities, be representative of the cultural and racial distribution of the class, integrate special needs and have gender equivalency, and so on. The benefits of using heterogeneous groups have been promulgated by various authors; on the surface this process may appear to be some social engineering directive, designed to foster a positive impression of the researchers (as if appearing politically correct), and make little pragmatic sense. The argument he and his supporters are following, is that by ensuring the groups are composed of pupils from a variety of backgrounds, the group work serves to foster additional and valuable, learning between pupils beyond that of a purely academic sense. (Dillenbourg et al, 1996) Thus, pupils learn acceptance, inclusion, and tolerance of those individuals who are different to themselves; this becomes a secondary goal of group work and has intrinsic value in and of itself. Rather than being an empty gesture of political correctness, group composition based on as wide a variety of pupil, serves to improve the social atmosphere, and diminishes boundaries between pupils thereby enhancing the positive effect of, and response to, the collaborative learning process. Undoubtedly, the classroom environment (Drayton, B and Falk, J 2001) and associated atmosphere of tolerance and inclusion, are laudable goals, but I am far from convinced that in small group teaching sessions, it is really possible to make a representation of the huge variability amongst subjects. In theory then I understand and agree that heterogeneity of the groups might well have positive social influences, but there are reports that such approaches principally facilitate performance and learning in lower-ability groups (Gillies, 2008). Also, I could easily argue that pupils are already ‘grouped’ prior to such in-class exercises. For instance, the in-class groups are formed from a collection of students who have already been assigned to that particular room, and not another. And the class as a whole often sits within a ‘House’ system, such that it forms a vertical collection of classes from Years 7 through to ‘A’ levels. Surely the use of such organised groupings should already be acting to facilitate and augment social acceptance, and be inclusive. I see no particular reason why the reductionist process of assigning pupils to groups within a group, must necessarily be beneficial, although it is intuitively logical to expect and hope for this. Moreover, given the obvious ‘grouping’ that pupils experience across their educational experiences (from within-class, class, House, School, District) it does not really speak to the issue about why either collaborative or cooperative learning facilitates learning and improves attainment in many children. (De Kock et al, 2004; ) Indeed, I am prudent enough to realise that smaller groups allow even the littlest voice to be heard, and not lost in a sea of a larger class size, and surely this must account for some improvement in overall achievement. I considered the issue of how to group pupils with personal reflection and discussions with senior teachers (Log 11/02/09). I arrived at the decision to group based on current achievement and predicted grades; my intent was to match pairs of students within groups as closely as possible so as to avoid confounding results I might obtain. It also seemed inherently logical that pupils at the same academic level would find working together much more pleasing if they were paired with individuals capable of working at the same rate, and with the same quality. If speed, work rate or competence became a factor in the effectiveness of group work, I might condemn myself to failure by setting up non-functioning, groups with too much inertia to be successful. Of course the success of group work is both predictable and satisfying, and it is a process I can now use with more confidence and security, especially as I have experience making adjustments as the process develops, eliminating or reducing problems, and exploiting particular good outcomes by loading on those features in further sessions. For instance, in the log (27/02/09) I noted that having pupils read a simple one sentence out of 3 for feedback purposes precipitated a great deal of discussion and interest. This I noted was worthy of developing into more complete presentations. I am circumspect in my interpretation of the positive group effects I found in my pilot study, and those reported in the literature; and it is not group composition, or year of study that makes me question the outcomes. Whereas it is rather obvious group work facilitates performance for the majority of kids, I am not entirely convinced that it is group work per se that accounts for this effect. One aspect of the study (my own and those of others) is that by breaking up classes into smaller student groups units, can I really state without hesitation that improvements in learning outcomes are due to the comparison of group-led processes with traditional teaching led approaches. In effect I am now wondering if the small group is really a ‘group’ at all. It is less people being subject to more individual attention from the teacher, albeit at a slightly less frequent rate. But as I circulated the class and stopped to engage the student groups selectively, I was actually teaching to a small class. And on this point I shall finish my reflection on this part of the assignment by stating it would be exceedingly useful to compare further group work investigations with an intense, small class, teacher-led approach to verify is it an effect of small group organising, or an example of enhanced attainment with students receiving more direct, intimate direction in a teacher-led process'