A key staple of my classroom is utilizing the profession-based learning. This PBL model helps me to build a classroom culture where the expectations are high and a collaborative attitude prevails. Similar to problem-based learning, project-based learning, and place-based learning, students work in small groups, on authentic problems. These projects give students a chance to learn and apply content and also develop their soft skills. The projects are authentic, often provided by the community, multi-week endeavors, and collaborative in that students are contributing individual strengths and skills to a shared piece of work in partnership with their peers, teachers, and mentors from the community.
I am clear with students that one of the goals of the projects, in addition to learning content, is developing skills like communication, leadership, critical thinking, and teamwork skills. Skills they can take into their internships the following semester and to their post-secondary ventures. As students work together, I want them to consider questions like,
- Am I an effective team member and/or leader?
- How well do I read people or the situation?
- Does my leadership style bring out the best in my teammates?
In order to answer these questions, students need practice.
Profession-based projects are a great way to develop essential skills
In facilitating these types of projects, the problem I found in trying to help students develop their collaboration and communication skills was taking time to put students in groups, but also taking into account who has worked together on previous projects. After the first couple of projects I would wonder, “has every student had a chance to work with everyone else?” I could not keep track.
Random name generators were helpful on the first project, but I wanted to make sure subsequent projects offered a different grouping than the first project. Random name generators could not facilitate this and I found it too time consuming to keep up with who had worked with whom.
“GroupMaker” is a tool built in Microsoft Excel to assign student groups for projects, but takes into account who has worked with whom previously so that nearly all students have a completely different group to work with each project.
A teacher would key in their roster and the ideal group size. Then press “Create Groups’
This gives the teachers a preview for the student grouping. If it is acceptable the teacher selects “Keep Groups.” This puts the student grouping into “Project #1.”
Then for Project #2, the teacher again selects “Create Groups.” This creates another student grouping that is different than Project #1.
The more projects a teacher creates groups for, the harder it is to create student grouping where students have not worked together, but with 22 students and groups of 3 students, I can get through 4 projects with different groups.
This gives students the chance to meet and work with as many different students in the class as possible over the course of the projects we do each semester. There are several benefits to grouping students this way, but the biggest benefit is that each project gives students the opportunity to learn from the previous group dynamics and improve going into the next project. By the end of the fourth project, students are more confident about the strengths they bring to the group and they have experienced a variety of situations that allowed them to improve their leadership and communication skills.
Small group work in classrooms is challenging. Preparing students for internships and other post-secondary work is challenging. Taking into account curriculum standards, projects, individual students, essential skills development, content, community partners, all provide variables to consider, but students who do small group work generally learn more of the material and retain their knowledge longer than students who don’t. In the workplace today, the skill of collaboration is imperative and making sure students have this skill set will help them be more productive and competitive. The GroupMaker was useful for me and if you create groups for long-term projects this might be helpful to you as well.
GroupMaker is available for download on
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/GroupMaker-5802251
A GroupMaker instructional video is available on YouTube here
Imel Learning 