This part of the guide discusses the individual group activities, in the order in which we would use them ourselves. 1) In a large lecture environment with recitations, we typically cover one activity each week, including weeks with exams. In smaller classes, we introduce the activities as needed, averaging one per week.
Ideally, 80 minutes should be available for these activities; this allows time to spend a few minutes getting started, or to answer questions about other topics, such as homework, as well as providing time for a summary at the end, either by students or the instructor.
Realistically, though, most instructors will not have this much time. The activities can most definitely be done in 50 minutes, but it's tight — invariably, some groups are having their “Aha!” moment at about the 50 minute mark. In order to fit the activities into 50 minutes, we therefore recommend:
A word about props: When possible, we have the students put a small whiteboard across their desks, and work directly on that. (Some bathroom tile works just as well, and is much less expensive.)
As for grading, the short answer is that it doesn't matter. We have experimented with requiring individual writeups, group writeups, or no writeups at all, with grading based on attendance only; all of these worked fine. The important thing is to find a way to encourage students to come and actively participate, not to make this such a big part of their grade that it becomes threatening.
Small group activities often work best if each person in the group has a particular responsibility or task. One of the most important outcomes of small group activities is that one's own ideas are clarified by discussing concepts. Teachers tend to learn more than students! In addition, during group work one learns to communicate these ideas to others — a vital skill for the workplace. Small group activities are not a competition to see which group can get done first. If the group moves on without a member, everyone loses.
Here are some possible responsibilities:
Task Master: The responsibility of the task master is to ensure that the group completes all of the parts of the work.
“Part 1 says that we must … . How shall we do it?”
“What you had for lunch doesn't seem relevant. Can we get back to the main question?”
Cynic: The responsibility of the cynic is to question everything the group does and to ensure that everyone in the group understands what is going on.
“Why are we doing it this way?”
“Wouldn't it be better if we did it this other way?”
“I don't understand this part of what we are doing, let's go over it again.”
Recorder: The responsibility of the recorder is to record the group's answers.
“Do we agree that the answer to Part 3 is … ?”
“I have written … for Part 2. Is that what we want to say?”
Reporter: The responsibility of the reporter is to report to the whole class.
We find that groups of 3 work the best, with groups of 4 an acceptable compromise; 5 students is too many. We also find it best to assign the groups ourselves, and we do so in such a way that those sitting next to each other wind up in different groups. We also try to avoid groups with 2 men and 1 woman when we can, as this combination often fails to work well.
At least for the first few weeks, we assign tasks to individual students, such as task master/cynic/recorder. Except in groups of 4, we don't assign the role of reporter in advance, since everyone in the group needs to be accountable for the material.
One way to accomplish all of this is to have the students count off; with 30 students, this might look like “1A, 2A, …, 10C”. The number designates the group, and the letter is used to assign roles, which we change each week.
We typically make new groups every 3–4 weeks; by the second switch, we find that we can often dispense with role playing.
When the instructor asks questions during lecture, somebody is usually able to answer, leaving the impression that everybody knows everything. When the students initiate the questions, almost every conceivable question gets asked, leaving the impression that nobody knows anything!
The truth is of course somewhere in between these extremes, but the only way to discover how the students think is to interact with the students.
It is therefore essential that the instructor interact with the groups at least some of the time.
This is especially true in settings in which a graduate student would normally have sole responsibility for recitations.
On the other hand, the whole point of the group activities is for students to figure things out for themselves; the instructor needs to learn what questions to answer, and how much of an answer to give.
An experienced instructor can properly supervise only 5 or 6 groups. Larger classes require additional helpers in the classroom, or larger groups. In a large lecture environment, the lecturer and a teaching assistant between them can handle groups of around 30 students at a time — the typical recitation size.
Smaller classes are in some sense a bigger problem, since it is hard for one person to effectively supervise more than 20–25 students at once. One possibility would be to use student helpers, typically students who have themselves recently taken the class. Such helpers could be paid a modest hourly wage, or offered credit. Similar models are used by MathExcel [ 13 ] and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) [ 14 ]; some further resources are the Cooperative Group Learning [ 15 ] and Collaborative Learning [ 16 ] websites.
The best group activities are open-ended, requiring thought even to decide what the problem is. Students should be expected to interpret the words for themselves — and instructors must realize that the “right” answer may depend on how they do so.
Many activities are designed with various subtleties built in, to trap the unwary student. The instructor can easily fall into these traps if not prepared! A typical example might be an application of the Divergence Theorem when the given surface is not closed, or the use of casual language rather than precise mathematical notation.
A good group activity also allows different groups to pursue slightly different problems, leaving room for a group discussion at the end to tie everything together — or in the next lecture. Optional followup questions are also useful, as different groups will work at different speeds.
And context is everything! For further steps along these lines, we heartily recommend the notion of Context Rich Problems [ 17 ], developed at the University of Minnesota for physics courses, but easily adaptable to other, well, contexts.
The links below will take you to the Instructor's Guide for each activity, located on the Paradigms in Physics project website. A link on that page will take you to the activity itself, but you will need to use the Back button on your browser to return here (unless you open these links in another window.
The activities themselves can be found here, on the Bridge Project website, or on the Paradigms Project website.