Group Work vs. Collaboration: Is There a Difference?

Group work and collaborative learning are often used interchangeably. If the goal is collaborative learning, group work should be able to accomplish this, right? In some cases, yes. But in many cases, group work can lead to what some might call “hogs and logs”. Some students shine in groups: they take on the role of a leader and try to keep the group on task. Other students – the logs – tend to sit back and may or may not participate with the group, causing the whole group to suffer.

Recently, my 7^th graders finished reading the novel The Outsiders. This is the first novel the classes have done. My Mentor Teacher and I knew it would be important to split up the reading so students would not get tired of doing the same thing every day (and so we wouldn’t either) and could participate in a variety of learning activities to compliment the novel.

A project my MT has done for several years is a Trial Project. In this project, the students split into four teams: Johnny’s prosecution, Johnny’s defense, Ponyboy’s prosecution, and Ponyboy’s defense. This project was spread out through the entire book. Students were split into their “trial groups” almost daily to complete comprehension questions and work on their trials.
 
During the trial prep and even the actual trials, it was obvious that the “hogs and logs” pattern was developing. Some of my students were able to just “get it”, while others definitely could have used more background information and guidance through the process. Wouldn’t it be easy if all of our students just “got it”? Absolutely. Would I have a job if all students “got it”? Probably not.

This project is an example of group work that was not collaborative. In group work, students are typically working with content they have already been taught. The goal is to finish a certain task by a certain deadline. Group work is typically very low in structure, giving several opportunities for off-task behavior.

On the other hand, according to Karl A. Smith in “Cooperative Learning: Making ‘Groupwork’ Work”, collaborative learning entails “people working in team to accomplish a common goal, under conditions that involve both positive interdependence (all members must cooperate to complete the task) and both individual and group accountability (each member is accountable for the final outcome)” (Smith).

With collaborative learning, students are forced to be held accountable for their learning. This is partly because the content is usually new to students. In a Kagan strategy called “Simultaneous Round Table”, “in teams, students each write a response on their own piece of paper. Students then pass their papers clockwise so each teammate can add to the prior responses” (Kagan). There is 100% participation and contribution to the group is being accomplished by each group member.

If I were to do the trial project again, I would use Kagan’s collaborative strategies to teach students more background information about lawyers, trials, courtrooms, and other background information needed to help them be successful in the project. For example, I might use the Simultaneous Round Table strategy and ask students to write down a possible argument for why Ponyboy/Johnny is innocent/guilty.

Using collaborative strategies, such as Kagan strategies, would ensure a higher percentage of daily student participation, give students more guidance, and keep them accountable for their learning.
Articles used:

http://www.linqed.net/media/28435/1-useful-for-reading-Cooperative-Learning-Making-Groupwork-Work.pdf
http://cooperativelearningresources.weebly.com/simultaneous-roundtable.html