Of course, students don’t have to be in permanent study groups to teach and learn from each other. The class can be organized in a number of ways, with the understanding that, in general, sharing the wealth is most effective when successful and unsuccessful students are working together.
Talk to your neighbor(s)
If students are seated appropriately, they can review material in pairs or small groups simply by turning to their neighbor or moving their desks around to form groups. There are a number of geometries to make this work. In general, students need to face each other and be as close as is practical. This approach is particularly useful for breaking up a lecture longer than, say, 10 minutes. It gives students a chance to talk to each other and process the new information before continuing.
Resident experts
Once it is established by means of a check-up or other feedback that some students have mastered new material, those students can become temporary “resident experts” who other students can use as a resource. There are a number of ways to use this technique:
If there is a sequence of tasks, such as solving increasingly complex problems in an algebra class, students who finish the sequence quickly can be given the status of resident experts. They can confirm that their answers are correct with the teacher or an answer key. They can then be designated as experts and can be identified as such by sitting in a special location (say at the head of a row of seats or at a corner table). Other indicators might be a special hat or other clothing or some object, like a flag or folded piece of colored paper, that they can set on their desk. They can then be responsible for checking other students’ work and giving guidance before their peers move on to other tasks.
Following a test or other assessment, students who are successful can become resident experts for the reviewing of the test. While this can be done in study groups, it is also possible to make the review a more active and community-oriented process. For example, successful students can each assume responsibility for a specific question or group of questions. They can then stake out a place in the room where students who got that question wrong can go to get the correct answer. Resident experts can help those students understand how they got that question wrong. They can even hand those students a retest on that question to confirm that they now understand how to solve it.
If a class has open work time with a number of different activities, individual students who are already proficient can become resident experts on one specific activity. Those activities can be distributed around the classroom. The experts can stay in the location of one of the activities and help students master it and talk through their misunderstandings.
Ad hoc study groups
Sometimes new groups need to be created for an immediate academic need. For example, open work time may involve differentiated activities. This will require students to be organized into groups that are working on the same task, or pull-out workshops that will review specific material. Such groups may exist for 10 minutes or a whole period and never happen again.
Similarly, short-term projects may require groups of students who have all chosen the same topic to work on. Longer term projects may involve sustained groups that are completely independent of the class’s permanent study groups.
Once again, there is question of how such groups should be created. The teacher can simply create them as needed and maintain control of the situation. This makes sense if there are time constraints that demand forming groups very quickly or if students are not mature or independent enough to effectively form groups on their own.
Groups can also be formed as a response to academic needs. This may mean creating groups based on the results of a check-up that tells students what they should be working on. Groups can also be formed randomly, particularly at the start of the year, when it’s important for students to get to know each other. Finally, ad hoc groups can be entirely student chosen, based on their needs and, simply, who they want to work with today.
