Group Work for Interactive Teaching

1. Group Work for Interactive Teaching Rationale

2. Group work for interactive teaching implies: • Pupils learn by interacting with each other • Teachers’ role is to create a supportive environment for pupils to interact • Small number of pupils work together to solve a problem • Pupils construct their own understanding of the problem and arrive at possible solutions

3. Types of talk in a discussion Mercer (2000) has identified three types of talk during group work: • Disputational talk in which speakers… • are competitive rather than co-operative • don’t listen • each stick to their own point of view • make their own decisions • Cumulative talk in which speakers… • share ideas • agree with each other • do not critically evaluate ideas Source: Mercer, N. (1995). The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. .

4. Exploratory talk in which speakers… • all actively participate • ask each other questions ‘What do you think…?’ ‘Why do you think that…?’ • share relevant information ‘Do you remember…?’ • give reasons for their views ‘I think that because…’ • constructively criticise ‘Yes, but if…’ • try to reach agreement but they don’t need to achieve that ‘Do we all agree that…?’

5. What are the effects of promoting Exploratory Talk in the classroom? Pupils… • become more involved in learning • become better at solving problems together • improve their individual scores on reasoning tests and national tests in subjects likescience and maths

6. Group work is useful because: • It works well in very large classes as well as smaller ones because everyone actively participates • It encourages less confident pupils to contribute their ideas • It allows teachers to focus on deeper learning with fewer pupils • It therefore motivates the teachers and the learners • It provides opportunities for pupils to ‘teach’ and learn from each other • It creates a learning culture that is more involving and focuses on problem solving Source: Criticos, C., Long, R., Moletsane, R., Mthiyane, N., & Mays, T. (2009). Getting practical about classroom-based teaching for the National Curriculum Statement. South Africa: Oxford University Press.