Today's classrooms are filled with challenges that expand the minds and enrich the characters of students. Intellectual curiosity is one condition for learning to take place, but much more is necessary. One critical component is the ability to work effectively within a group, a skill requiring more social skills than intelligence. Flexibility, perspective-taking, and tactfulness, among others, are needed. As teachers ask for more group inclusion of students problems develop for those found lacking. If you know students who could use some coaching in this area, read on:
Prepare students for a different “learning template” when working within a group.
Students must trade the self-guided approach focused upon grades for one that emphasizes shared decision-making as part of the goal. Competition is underplayed and consensus-building is emphasized. Help them visualize the exchange of opinions by drawing a large circle representing the group with several smaller circles that partially overlap at different points along the perimeter. Each member is represented by a smaller circle and the amount of overlap is determined by the level of contribution. Overlap differences are expected but the group should strive to welcome all contributions.
Discuss common pitfalls of group functioning and how to avoid them through social responsiveness.
Bias against certain members, usurping control through bossy behavior, and insensitive ignoring of comments are three examples of interpersonal forces that thwart the group's goal of agreement upon a common path. Address these troubles before groups are formed and impose responsibility upon all students for preventing their emergence. Stress how respectful disagreement, compromise, and open-mindedness keep the group work moving in a positive direction by ensuring the atmosphere is safe and friendly. Distinguish between validation, or the kind acknowledgment of another's opinion (social deposit), and agreement with that opinion. Explain how groups work best when all members feel validated, even if there is still much disagreement.
Keep alert for rigidity and control encroaching upon group cohesiveness.
When children are arbitrarily placed in groups, personality variables inevitably rise to the surface. For those who lack flexibility or hold an inflated view of their intelligence, they may perceive others as unwilling to accept their ideas even though they are so certain of their value. These students benefit from coaching from a parent or teacher who can describe how they seem argumentative or self-centered to other group members due to their unyielding style of contributing ideas. Identify how their tone of voice, frequency of interruption, and dogmatic approach insult and provoke group members, and thereby may render their own contributions, no matter how worthy, null and void.
Use the home environment as a window into your child's inventory of group skills, and don't hesitate to pinpoint tools necessary to their repertoire.
There's nothing like dinner table conversation or long family car trips to gain insight into your child's success at validating the contributions of others by expressing interest, providing helpful suggestions, and acting like a team player. When skills are absent, make a mental note to privately follow up later, and describe how validation might have sounded in that setting. Help them see the home as a place to practice group membership skills by being more aware of the need to validate others.