Educational Psychology Social Processes: Examples

Educational Psychology

Social processes: Examples and utility

Being a 'team player' is an increasingly important personal quality, in the view of employers. Because of this, teachers are being called upon to incorporate group learning tasks into the curriculum. Group learning activities can serve an important civic function, enabling students to learn how to work together and to tolerate different ideas. Group learning projects can also generate enthusiasm and joy about the learning process by fostering friendship and shared discussions. But group activities must be deployed with the same forethought and planning as individual activities. Work must be distributed equally between group members and one student should not shoulder the burden for several students. Social learning must be suited to the tasks required, and teachers must strategically balance group activities with individualistic activities.

The most common form of group learning are informal learning groups, which usually involve small groups of students working together during a class, such as when students discuss a particular problem or quiz one another on the material recently learned. Students may review one another's homework or produce a short, time-sensitive assignment. Usually, no grade is given for informal exercises (Davis 2002). These efforts at collaboration are effective in immediately reinforcing simple concepts, and creating a sense of enthusiasm about the subject through the use of social interactions.

Formal learning groups, in contrast, are assigned teams or groups that work together on a task in which a grade is given for the final product. Examples of these activities might include laboratory exercises, presentations and research projects (Davis 2002). They are designed to reinforce major academic concepts and to teach students how to think critically and creatively about material and seldom focus primarily on skill-building. While simple tasks can be reinforced in informal group settings, such as when students quiz one another, formal group activities tend to be more interesting and useful when they involve complex learning tasks, with multiple components.

Formal group learning, even when it is only for the duration of a class period, usually has a series of specific stages that must be completed in order. Often, there are certain operating procedures for the group that must be obeyed. For long-term group learning to be effective and equally distributed, teachers may 'check in' on the group, requiring the group to present its feedback and results, and list the roles that will be performed by various group members.

For any group assignment to be successful, the material must be relevant, and there must be some interdependence between students (Davis 2002). Every student must be required to perform specific tasks, such as when one student writes down lab results while his or her lab partner completes the experiment. In an extended research project on a country, one student may volunteer to study a specific aspect of the nation -- such as the impact of the arts, geography, and politics -- and then the students will pool their collective resources.

Teachers must carefully monitor the social learning process to ensure that learning is taking place as desired. Groups must be carefully balanced in terms of high achievers and low achievers, and also according to different student's innate abilities. A group project that is supposed to result in a multimedia presentation should be balanced between students with strong artistic abilities vs. students with strong verbal abilities. Laboratories should not group all of the most scientifically adept students together, but instead should have less apt students mentor others, unless stronger pairs of students are given more challenging 'extra credit' work.

The purpose of the assignment should reflect the nature of the group composition. Students should learn to work with students of different abilities and temperaments, but the teacher must be mindful if the assignment is supposed to produce a final outcome for which the student's performance in the entire class will be judged, versus an assignment which is designed to build skills and can benefit from student mentorship. Extended group learning projects may not be appropriate in situations where all students need drilling in relatively complex basic skills, given that teachers will have less oversight of the process. (Examples might be students who are learning the fundamentals of calculus or the subjunctive tense in Spanish). In these instances, shorter group assignments or study groups (groups where students partner with one another to study, rather than produce a final work) may be more appropriate. Students must have a certain level of confidence and adeptness to ensure that they do not reinforce one another's mistakes and are willing to fully engage in the activity. Even for a simple lab assignment, students should have some basic understanding of the mechanics of the process they are exploring and/or will perform.