Practicum Week :8

Date : 6th October 2022

Topic of Journal : Group Work Activities in Classroom

1.0 Focused Issue 

This week is the eighth week I am teaching at SJKC Chien Chi. There is no doubt to

say that I gained a lot of skills and teaching techniques during my practicum. When I
am designing activities for students, there are three basic means of classroom
activity, that is, whole-class lessons, group work, or individual work. I realized that I
had difficulties whenever I assigned group work to my students. My students took
advantage of group work activities to chat and play with their friends. As a result, the
classroom became chaotic and the teacher lost control of the classroom. The boys
are running around and playing with their erasers. In another corner, the girls are
chatting. I can only see that only one or two students in the groups are working on
the task given. The rest of the students act as passengers. In the end, the students
requested more time to complete the task. As a consequence, my lessons cannot be
completed because the students failed to complete the task within the allocated time.
They took advantage of group work activities to play around with their friends. In the
end, the classroom became chaotic and the students did not achieve the learning
objectives of the day. Thus, designing group work activities in the classroom is a
challenge for me. 

2.0 Analysis of the issue (Cause and effect of the problem)

Group work activities often lead to misbehavior by students who are excited about
working with their friends. In the original classroom arrangements, the students are
seated individually. This will restrict their movements and interactions with their
friends. Therefore, they were forced to pay attention to lessons when they were in
their usual arrangements. However, when students are seated in groups of three to
four, they are happy and excited because they can finally sit near their friends. In the
end, they played and chatted happily in groups. They dare to play because they think
that the teacher did not notice them as they were seated in groups. Therefore, they
neglected the tasks given by teachers and did their own work. For example, drawing,
playing, and chatting happily. As a result, the learning objectives of the day failed to
be achieved. Students who are too enthusiastic about group activities often disrupt
the whole class.
In addition, group work activities often caused chaos in the classroom because not all
students participated actively in the task given. In a group, there must be students
with higher proficiency levels in English and students who are less proficient in
English. Students with higher proficiency levels in English tend to perform tasks on
their own or to dominate group work activities. This leaves weaker students with
nothing to do during group work. As a result, the weaker students will play around
and leave the tasks behind. These students will interrupt their friends from another
group to play with them as they have nothing to do. From this situation, we can see
that the weaker students will get weakened as they are not doing the tasks but
messing around and creating chaos in the classrooms. The smart students will get
smarter as they are the only ones completing the tasks. In this way, the classroom
became noisy because not every student participated actively in the tasks. The
weaker students who did not take part in the group work activities interrupted their
friends which caused them to lose focus and attention as well.

3.0 Literature Review

Group work is a teaching strategy that promotes academic achievement and

socialisation (Baines, Blatchford & Chowne, 2007). By interacting with others,
students learn to inquire, share ideas, clarify differences and construct new
understandings. They thereby learn to use language to explain issues, which in turn
helps them construct new ways of thinking (Webb & Mastergeorge, 2003). According
to Gilies (2003), students are also more motivates to achieve when working in groups
as opposed to working individually. However, there is a number of teachers who are
reluctant to use group work as a pedagogical tool in the classroom. One oft-stated
reason is that group work can give rise to classroom activities and processes among
students that may be difficult for the teacher to control (Granstrom, 2006). A second
possible explanation may be that teachers lack of knowledge of how to manage
group work and how to organise it in a a productive manner (Lotan, 2006). Davidson,
Major, and Michealson (2014), also argued that teachers’ failure to understand the
theories of learning that underlie different pedagogical approaches can lead to
confusion in practice. Certainly, if teachers themselves are not clear about the
ideological and procedural differences among the various models of small-group
learning, students are likely to perceive group work experiences as inconsistent and
confusing. Thus, organizing group work activities in classrooms requires lots of
efforts from teachers and cooperation from students.
4.0 Suggestions and ideas to solve the issue

Based on the analysis that I have done on the identified issues, I have come up with
a few suggestions and recommendations that would help to battle the classroom
chaos when conducting group work activities. The suggestions and
recommendations are as follows:-

(i) Set rules and punishments for students

(ii) Monitoring group by group

5.0 Duration to solve the issue

One week

6.0 Follow-up action

 
One of the ways to address the issue of students becoming noisy during group work
activities is by setting rules for them. Rules are a must in the classroom. Without
rules, the teacher will lose control of the classroom and the whole class will go
haywire. For example, I can set rules by saying that students who play during group
work activities will be punished as a whole group and not individually. Using this way,
the friends from the same group will encourage their friends to do work to avoid them
from playing around and being punished as a whole group. In the end, the classroom
is under control because the teacher set rules. Students are scared of being
punished. Therefore, they had no choice but to obey the rules. Hence, rules and
punishments are the best elements in controlling a classroom.  

In addition, I can keep the class under control by monitoring them group by group.
Using this method, students will be scared of doing anything other than the tasks
assigned because I am supervising them group by group. Students will not mess
around in the classrooms. They will focus on the tasks given by the teacher as the
teacher is moving from group to group to monitor the progress. In the end, the class
is well-behaved and the students will learn something from doing the group work
activities. Eventually, the students will complete the tasks and achieve the learning
objectives. Hence, monitoring students group by group is essential when conducting
group work activities in the classrooms, especially for primary school students. 
7.0 Date of follow-up action

13th October 2022

8.0 Effectiveness of proposed measures

My actions have proven to be successful. The students behave well when doing

group work activities. They participated actively and stopped playing and messing
around when doing group works. In short, I am pleased with the outcomes. 

9.0 Conclusion 

Group work is very beneficial and should be conducted frequently in classrooms.

Students will learn a lot when doing group work activities. For example, they will learn
to communicate, be tolerant, and be cooperative with group members. But before
that, the teacher needs to ensure that students understand the meaning of group
work activities. Group work activities are not the time for them to joke around.
Instead, they work on tasks with their friends. Students who do not understand the
value of group work activities are the real cause of classroom chaos. Therefore,
teachers need to educate and monitor students to ensure that everyone is
participating in the group work activities and not one person doing it all. 
References

Baines, E., Blatchford, P. & Chowne, A. (2007). Improving the effectiveness of

collaborative group work in primary schools: Effects on science attainment. British
Educational Research Journal, 33, 663–680

Davidson, N., Major, C. H., & Michaelsen, L. K. (2014). Small-group learning in

higher education— cooperative, collaborative, problembased, and team-based
learning: An introduction by the guest editors. Journal on Excellence in College
Teaching, 25(3&4), 1-6. Retrieved from http://celt.miamioh.edu/ject/issue.php?
v=25&n=3%20and%204

Gillies, R. M. (2003). Structuring cooperative group work in classrooms. International

Journal of Educational Research, 39, 35–49.

Granström, K. (2006). Group phenomena and classroom management in Sweden. In

C. M. Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management:
Research, practice and contemporary issues. (pp. 1141–1160) Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lotan, R. A. (2006). Managing group work in the heterogeneous classroom. In C. M.

Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research,
practice, and contemporary issues (pp. 525–540). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates

Webb, N. M. & Mastergeorge, A. (2003). Promoting effective helping behavior in

peerdirected groups. International Journal of Educational Research, 39, 73–97.