Classroom Instruction part of the Education Reform Network

Balancing Various Group Structures

• A professional development school partnership: Conflict and collaboration
  The Professional Develpment School (PDS) is one of the most prominent, compelling, and recent models of teacher education reform. For decades efforts have been made to reform the U.S.
• Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams
  This is chapter from "Tools for Teaching" by Barbara Gross Davis (published by Jossey-Bass)discusses strategies for designing and organizing groupwork, organizing and evaluating student groups, dealing with student and faculty concerns about group work, and setting up study teams.
• Conducting a Literature Circle
  Tips for organizing and pacing small group discussions of text.
• Elevation Educational Consulting
  Works with individual teachers, schools, districts to evaluate and improve literacy programs and instruction.
• Enhancing Critical Thinking through Collaborative Learning
  This ERIC Digest disusses principles, practices, and the instructional phases of group learning. There are five stages in a collaborative learning model presented in this digest: engagement, exploration, transformation, presentation, and reflection.
• Paired Discussion
  Ideas for using students to work in groups of two to exchange ideas, opinions, and problem-solving strategies.
• Student Learning Groups that Really Work
  When students are involved in meaningful group work they remember more of what they are learning, and that learning is in greater depth. This article from the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse looks at the common characteristics of effective groups.
• What Is the Collaborative Classroom
  This guidebook from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory explores the advantages of collaborative learning, summarizes some of the relevant research, addresses some of the issues related to changing instruction, and gives examples of a variety of teaching methods and practices that characterize collaborative learning.