Clive Shepherd starts a discussion, triggered by David Freedman's The Idiocy of Crowds - which challenges the "conventional wisdom" that groups take better decisions than individuals - to which (22/11/2006) Donald Clark and Mark Berthelemy respond. To varying degrees they are sceptical about the value of "small group work" in learning. DC "The most effective learning takes place on your own or one-to-one". MB "... the activities that rely most on the group are the ones that I feel less ownership of, and have far less relevance to my situation. The group activities are also far more work - mainly to deal with group dynamics issues rather than the content of the activity itself."
What do I think about this?
Usually my understanding (i.e. what I learn) develops if i) I have to express myself about the issue - verbally or in writing; ii) what I say or write about the issue is challenged by others. So on the face of it, "small group work", whether face-to-face, or on-line, should be suitable - for some things at least, depending of course on task-design, group-composition, and the useability of the technology. And in some contexts, learners in a small group can give each other the personally relevant and motivationally effective formative feedback that helps develop their learning (for more on this see Inside the Black Box), more cost-effectively than can a teacher - assuming a good one is available, and probably more effectively than can a piece of interactive software. But small group work on how to write an Excel function, the chemical pathways in photosynthesis, or the mathematics of font-design? Other than as a means of developing confidence in expressing concepts, probably not.
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