Dilemmas of Groupwork

I found the article “The Dilemma of Groupwork” by Cohen extremely interesting since I am a huge fan of using group work in my problems. I was well aware that group work could backfire considering students working with their friends were likely to fool around. I believed that if you assign groups made up of students with high ability levels and low ability levels, the high ability levels would be able to teach and help out those with low ability levels. After reading this article, I know that this is not necessarily all true and good. Like I had originally thought, there are students who are classified into different levels. I was not aware, though, that there was more to this classification. I found it interesting that they too had classified children with an academic status, but also an expert status. I liked that Cohen also went deeper to peer and societal status. I’ve seen multiple times in our classroom these classifications in play. During times of free time, the children automatically form their own groups. In these groups there is always a student who takes charge in the task at hand and one or two that sit back and usually observe. For example, there was a group of four students playing with blocks one day. One student who would not necessarily be classified as a high achieving student was taking the initiative and taking charge of the group. Although this child is not the one that the rest would normally see as being an expert or “high status member” in terms of academic level, this particular child is very popular with his peers because of his humorous personality. This shows that leaders are found all throughout school time and not only in assigned group work.
After reading this article, I found myself discouraged from wanting to use group work. I found myself analyzing and thinking about more examples from the classroom and my own experiences. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Cohen had come to true conclusions. I have been involved in group work where these exact characters come to life. I have also watched group work where I have seen leaders, children being silly, children sitting back and not getting involved and students to shy or embarrassed to chime in. I have also been involved in group work where everyone truly worked together though. The more I thought about it the more I found similarities in all these instances. One was that there were no more than two or three involved. When you work in partners, it is necessary for both people to be involved. The other instances were when the activities were fun and all students were required to be involved. For example, last semester in my TE class, we did a lot of dramatic play in groups. In these instances everyone had to play a part so it was imperative that everyone became involved. The activities were also very fun and silly at times so everyone, even those who were naturally shy, enjoyed themselves and were more willing to put in effort.