Teaching Small Groups

Group discussion plays a valuable role in the all-round education of students, whether in problem based learning and team projects or in the more traditional academic scenario of the tutorial or seminar. When it works well, discussion can allow students to negotiate meanings, express themselves in the language of the subject, and establish closer contact with academic staff than more formal methods permit. Discussion can also develop the more instrumental skills of listening, presenting ideas, persuading, and working as part of a team. But perhaps most importantly, discussion in small groups can or should give students the chance to monitor their own learning and thus gain a degree of self direction and independence in their studies.

Problems associated with leading effective small groups

Techniques for effective facilitation in group discussion

Group structures and processes
If a group sits in a circle without a table, communication is likely to be easier. When the discussion has started, it is your responsibility as discussion leader to listen to and respond to the whole group. Listening becomes a problem when the students regard you as an expert or you engage with one or two of the more vocal students rather than the whole group.

You can minimise your internal involvement in the group process by organizing or structuring groups into smaller units, especially when the group process is likely to be problematical. This is particularly so when you wish to mobilize a sense of coherence and full participation among a largish group of students. A sequence of tasks might then be set. For example:

To encourage group interaction consider breaking a larger group into smaller groups of five or six students; organize membership on a heterogeneous or random basis to prevent cliques forming
Your role in this kind of situation may be to move round checking that everyone understands and accepts the task and is doing it in an appropriate way and to encourage completion as the end point approaches. You could leave the room for a while and let the groups work without supervision.

Group round
Each person has a brief time-say, 20 seconds or one minute-to say something in turn round the group. The direction round the group can be decided by the first contributor, or members can speak in a random order. More interest and energy is usually generated, however, if the first person chooses who should go second, the second who should go third, and so on.

Group rounds are particularly useful at the beginning of any meeting so that everyone is involved from the start and, depending on what the group is asked to speak about, as a way of checking on learning issues
Buzz groups
With larger groups a break is often needed:

During a discussion students could be asked to turn to their neighbour to discuss for a few minutes any difficulties in understanding, to answer a prepared question, or to speculate on what they think will happen next in the proceedings. This will bring a sense of participation and some lively feedback. Buzz groups enable students to express difficulties they would have been unwilling to reveal to the whole class. (A variation is to allocate three or five minutes each way to the pairseach phase is for one-way communication.)

Snowball groups
Snowball groups (or pyramids) are an extension of buzz groups. Pairs join up to form fours, then fours to eights. These groups of eight report back to the whole group. This developing pattern of group interaction can ensure comprehensive participation, especially when it starts with individuals writing down their ideas before sharing them. To avoid students becoming bored with repeated discussion of the same points, it is a good idea to use increasingly sophisticated tasks as the groups gets larger.
Fishbowls
The usual fishbowl configuration has an inner group discussing an issue or topic while the outer group listens, looking for themes, patterns, or soundness of argument or uses a group behavior checklist to give feedback to the group on its functioning. The roles may then be reversed.

Crossover groups
Students are divided into subgroups that are subsequently split up to form new groups in such a way as to maximise the crossing over of information. A colour or number coding in the first groupings enables a simple relocation-from, for example, three groups of four students to four groups of three, with each group in the second configuration having one from each of the first.

Circular questioning
In circular questioning each member of the group asks a question in turn. In its simplest version, one group member formulates a question relevant to the theme or problem and puts it to the person opposite, who has a specified time (say, one or two minutes) to answer it. Follow up questions can be asked if time permits. The questioning and answering continues clockwise round the group until everyone has contributed, at which time a review of questions and answers can take place. This could also include answers that others would like to have given. Alternatively, you or the students could prepare the questions on cards. You could also mix the best of the students' questions with some of your own.

Horseshoe groups
This method allows you to alternate between the lecture and discussion formats, a common practice in workshops. Groups are arranged around tables, with each group in a horseshoe formation with the open end facing the front. You can thus talk formally from the board for a time before switching to presenting a group task. Subsequent reporting from each group can induce boredom. To avoid this danger, the tutor can circulate written reports for comment; get groups to interview each other publicly or get one member of each group to circulate; ask groups to produce and display posters; ask the reporters from each group to form an inner group in a fishbowl formation; or use the crossover method to move students around.
Some of these involve more skilled and sensitive handling of group process from within the group; others require imaginative management in the setting of tasks and the organising of purposeful activities for subgroups. Well organised and purposeful group discussion can create a firm foundation for qualities such as openness, networking, and proactive communication-important ingredients in the process of personal and organisational change. The value of effective group management in professional development and lifelong learning cannot be underestimated.

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