Topic: Small-Group Discussion (3)

10-second review: Roles in Working with Small Groups: Familiarizing and Practicing Roles

Title: “Small-Group Discussion.” Raymond Stopper. Xlibris, 2004, pp. 299-303.

To familiarize students with these roles, Litsey suggests having students view a video tape of a group discussion. Each student in the class is assigned to observe one of the members of the group. After viewing the discussion, the students fill out the following evaluation form:

Name of Rater …………………. Name of Participant …………………

Directions: Circle the number which you think most closely approximates the extent to which the ‘ratee” has been each of the following.

(1) Not at all (2) A little bit (3) To some extent (4) Fairly Much (5) A Great Deal

Initiating 1 2 3 4 5

Information Seeking 1 2 3 4 5

Information Giving 1 2 3 4 5

Clarifying, Elaborating 1 2 3 4 5

Summarizing 1 2 3 4 5

Consensus Testing 1 2 3 4 5

Encouraging 1 2 3 4 5

Expressing Group Feelings 1 2 3 4 5

Harmonizing 1 2 3 4 5

Compromising 1 2 3 4 5

Gate Keeping 1 2 3 4 5

Setting Standards 1 2 3 4 5

Blocking 1 2 3 4 5

Aggressiveness 1 2 3 4 5

Seeking Recognition 1 2 3 4 5

Playboy 1 2 3 4 5

Deserter 1 2 3 4 5

Dominating 1 2 3 4 5

Another way in which to familiarize students with these roles would be to stage a small group discussion in which each student in the group plays one of the roles.

After participating in a group discussion or project, students could rate themselves, using the above scale, on which roles they think they played.

Litsey also suggests an evaluation form to be completed by each individual at the conclusion of a group discussion or project:

Our Effectiveness As A Group

Scale: 1…..2…..3…..4…..5…..6…..7…..8…..9…..10

Low High

1. ………. Members of the group felt free to state their real opinions.

2. ………. The group defined its task.

3. ………. All members accepted the responsibility for the outcome of the meeting or project.

4. ………. All members of the group were productive.

5. ……….. All members of the group feel positive about the work n this session.

Copyright (1969) by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.

Comment: Teaching students how to work in small groups requires a complete teaching effort. Like it or not, participating cooperatively in small groups is how the work of business and democracy is accomplished. Students need to learn how to help small groups work cohesively. RayS.

Topic: Small-Group Discussion (2)

10-second review: Roles in Working with Small Groups: Task Roles and Self-Serving Roles

Title: “Small-Group Discussion.” Raymond Stopper. Xlibris, 2004, pp. 299-303.

Assuming clearly expressed goals, maintenance roles are positive in helping the group to achieve its goals. So are the “Task roles.” Not so, the “Self-serving roles.”

Task Roles

1. Initiating: Proposing tasks or goals; defining a group problem; suggesting a procedure.

2. Information or opinion seeking: Requesting facts; asking for suggestions and ideas.

3. Information or opinion giving: Offering facts; stating a belief; giving suggestions or ideas.

4. Clarifying or elaborating: Interpreting or reflecting ideas and suggestions; clearing up confusion; indicating alternatives before the group; giving examples.

5. Summarizing. Pulling together related ideas; restating suggestions after the group has discussed them; offering a decision for the group to accept or reject.

6. Consensus testing. Checking with the group to see how much agreement has been reached.

Self-Serving Roles

1. Dominator: Interrupts, embarks on long monologues; is overpositive; tries to lead group; asserts authority; is autocratic; monopolizes.

2. Blocker: Interferes with the progress of the group by rejecting ideas; takes negative attitude on all suggestions; argues unduly; is pessimistic; refuses to cooperate.

3. Deserter: Withdraws in some way; is indifferent; aloof; excessively formal; daydreams; doodles; whispers to others; wanders from subject.

4. Aggressor. Struggles for status; boasts; criticizes; deflates ego or status of others.

5. Recognition-seeker. Exaggerated attempt to get attention by boasting or claiming long experience or great accomplishments. [Been there, done that. RayS.]

6. Playboy type: Displays a lack of involvement in the group process by horseplay; inappropriate humor; or cynicism.

Comment: Discussion of these roles is always interesting. RayS.

Topic: Samll-Group Discussion (1)

Topic: Small-Group Discussion (1)

10-second review: Roles in Working with Small Groups: Maintenance Roles

Title: “Small-Group Discussion.” Raymond Stopper. Xlibris, 2004, pp. 299-303.

Small-Group Discussion

“A second skill in speaking (after formal speech) is the small group discussion (related today to ‘cooperative learning,’ or group projects), which, in my experience, at every educational level, has been a complete waste of student time. Usually ‘getting into small groups’ meant ‘BS-ing’ about irrelevant topics, and group projects usually became the responsibility of one or two people in the group to complete the project. However, in the real world, group projects are the way in which the world’s business is completed. Group projects involve a variety of talents in producing results that could probably not be attained by any one individual. Teaching students how to work in groups needs to be taken seriously.

“English teachers have the responsibility to train students in the skills and attitudes needed to participate successfully in small group discussions and projects. They need to teach students how to moderate a discussion and how to act as leaders in projects, how to take notes for later reporting to the larger group and how to analyze the roles of various participants in order to learn what helps a group to achieve its goals and what prevents a group from achieving its goals. As usual, the teachers’ performing these tasks as they work with the students provides models to follow. “

David M. Litsey (1969) suggests 18 roles that people can play in a group enterprise. He divides these roles into three categories: ‘Maintenance,’ ‘Task Roles,’ and ‘Self-Serving Roles.’ ”

Maintenance Roles in Small Group Work

1. Encouraging: Being warm and responsive to others; accepting the contributions of others; giving others an opportunity for recognition.

2. Expressing group feelings: Sensing feeling and mood, or relationships within the group, and sharing one’s own feelings with other members.

3. Harmonizing: Attempting to reconcile differences and reduce tension by giving people a chance to explore their differences.

4. Compromising. When one’s own ideas or status is involved in a conflict, offering to compromise; admitting error; disciplining oneself to maintain group cohesion.

5. Gate-keeping: Keeping communication channels open and facilitating the participation of others.

6. Setting standards: Expressing standards for the group to achieve; applying standards in evaluating group function and production.

Comment: Of course, all of these roles are positive in keeping the group moving toward its goals. But “Maintenance roles” do not say anything about goals. You can’t assume that people understand the goals of the small-group work or project. They must be clearly expressed. And the best people to define the goals in their own words will be the people who are part of the small-group discussion or project. In my workshops, I always began with the problem we were asked to solve. We began by reading professional articles related to the problem. Then we defined the problem and the goals of the workshop. Rays.

Topic: Speaking, Listening and Democracy

10-second review: As suggested by Dewey, overcoming disagreements and conflict and working together to build consensus must be modeled in the classroom consistently through the grades for students to use those skills when they are part of adult society.

Title: “Community Dialogue: The Bridge Between Individual and Society.” Gordon Wells. Language Arts (March 2009), 290-301. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary/Quote: “But sooner rather than later, today’s students will be acting out that stance in practice. In countless situations, day by day, they will be called upon to maintain the status quo by repeating what they have learned from their elders or they will attempt to transform it through their contributions to interpersonal interaction with others. In either case, how they speak and act will be of potential long-term significance, not only for themselves but also for their communities.”

Comment: OK, we’ve heard it all before. The classroom should be a practicing democracy. I don’t know how far “practicing democracy” in the classroom can go. I’ve never really tried.

But we’re actually talking about the skills of speaking, listening and cooperating, which are important and often neglected language arts skills. In my book, Teaching English, How to…. (Xlibris, 2004), I discuss how to help students learn to work cooperatively in small groups. In the next several blogs I am going to reproduce that part of my chapter on speaking, dealing with understanding roles in successful group work. The end result may be better democracy, but it begins with the skills of speaking, listening and cooperating. Rays.

Topic: Publication in Professional Education Journals

10-second review: “Publication Does Not Equal Advocacy.” Just because an article appears in the pages of a professional journal does not mean that the editor of the journal advocates that point of view.

Title: “Publication Does Not equal Advocacy.” Louann Reid. English Journal (May 2009), 11-12. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: The author of this “Letter to EJ,” Louann Reid, former editor of the English Journal from 2003 until 2008, responds to charges that the publication of two articles favoring the use of the five-paragraph essay constituted advocacy by the editor and the journal She rightly points out that both articles were opinion pieces and not subject to scholarly evaluation. However, she makes clear that publishing any article in the journal does not constitute advocating it.

Comment: I have been reading English Journal since 1964. I remember clearly that the guideline for NCTE publications at that time was representation of all points of view regarding issues in English education.

However, when the NCTE began making resolutions concerning issues, editors of its professional publications began favoring—it seemed to me—articles favoring the NCTE’s positions. I watched the appearance of a preponderance of articles trashing the teaching of grammar, the significance of the writing process and the unimportance of the writing product, and now a preponderance of articles in various NCTE journals denouncing the five-paragraph essay as a formula for expository writing.

During the time that Dr. Reid was editor of English Journal, she was a model for what the NCTE used to represent—unbiased selection of articles on all points of view toward controversial English education issues. I, too, need to be reminded of her point in this letter that publication does not equal advocacy. RayS.

Topic: Method of Assessing Discussions

10-second review: Listen for…. Count…. and Look for….

Title: “Discussions in a Fourth-Grade Classroom: Using Exploratory Talk to Promote Children’s Dialogic Identities.” K B Renniger and L Rehark. Language Arts (March 2009), 268-279. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary/Quotes:

“Listen for the following: The kinds of questions students ask. The length of the responses (should be more than one or two words). The details students use to support their thinking. Chains of reasons.”

“Count the following: The number of consecutive students turns. The number of teacher turns. The number of interruptions.”

“Look for the following: Student-to-student eye contact. Students looking back to the text.”

Comment: Put these assessments together and you have a pretty good idea of how well students really did discuss. These would be interesting assessments to use at a faculty meeting on the topic of student discussions. Start with what each assessment means and then their implications. Come up with some published guidelines as part of the curriculum for a good student discussion. RayS.

Topic: Reader's Club and Action Research

10-second review: Ten fourth-graders who loved to read met and discussed books they had read in the past and now together. Met twice a week at lunch time. Purpose was to research the experience of reading. 29 initial applicants. 10 selected by lottery. The students were active co-researchers.

Title: “Readers Researching Their Reading: Creating a Community of Inquiry.” LT Parsons. Language Arts (March 2009), 257-267. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: Children and teacher were co-researchers in learning about the process of reading.

Quotes: “The children felt their voices were heard and their ideas mattered.” p. 263.

“…the children re-voiced each others’ thoughts, built upon and contested ideas, and moved toward consensus.” p. 264.

“Disagreement and respect for differing viewpoints were essential to knowledge construction.” p. 265.

[As the teacher]: “…during any given session, I raised the opening question, brought us back to topic when the conversation strayed too far a-field, and summarized my understanding of the knowledge being constructed.” p. 266.

“They [the students] examined their thinking, made connections, and contributed insights as they participated in group discussions. They actively participated in coding, analysis and interpretation of data and later elaborated on, verified and clarified my final interpretation. We did indeed work together as co-researchers.” p. 266.

Comment: Interesting concept. Teacher and students worked together on research involving the students’ learning. Love it! RayS.