Tips for Organizing Groups for Group Work

Many lessons in today's classroom call for cooperative learning, which involves students working in groups. A group is two or more students. The question becomes -- What is the best way to organize or arrange students into groups? When a teacher has 20 or more students who have varying degrees of ability, it is sometimes difficult to decide.

There are two basic types of groups: heterogeneous and homogeneous groups. In a heterogeneous group there are a wide range of abilities. In a homogeneous group the students have similar interests and abilities. These are sometimes called cluster groups.

A teacher must decide which type of group would be best for the activity. Cluster grouping works great for talented and gifted students so that they can speed ahead and learn at their ability level. However, heterogeneous ability grouping teaches students how to work together with people with different strengths to complete a task.

Decide how many groups need to be made with the number of students. If there are 20 students and a teacher needs groups of four, then there are easily five groups. Next, get a deck of cards. Choose all of the aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens and nines. Now shuffle the cards. Give every student one card. Tell the students with aces to meet, the students with kings to meet, the students with queens to meet, etc.

A similar tip is to take 20 index cards. Place a red star on four cards, a green star on four cards, gold star on four cards, a purple star on four cards, and a blue star on four cards. Then pass out the cards. This grouping method can be done with different types of candy, suckers, shapes, etc.