Working in group or alone, what do you prefer?

Last Monday, Innovation and ICTs’ class main topic was cooperative learning and, as a result, also working in groups. However, if we approach the reality of today, when the idea of doing group work is raised in a school, it is not something that pleases or motivates every student without any exception. There are those who reject this way of working. Why does this happen? Continue reading!

As we show in class, “the objective of cooperative learning is not to learn to do things together, but to learn together to do things by ourselves”. I consider that if this was exactly like this, it would be an extraordinary opportunity way for learning! Nevertheless, I believe the basis on which these goals are based are not always met. Then, in my view, this is the reason why sometimes working in teams ends up in a complete or partial failure. By "failure", I mean on certain occasions, members of the group may feel disappointed because of their classmates' contributions or even because their project expectations were not accomplished as desired.

On the one hand, I think it is vital for us as future teachers to be trained in aspects such as how to create a group to work in class so that the objectives are achieved. On the basis of my personal experience, I have had lots of educators who did not know how to manage a class by cooperating. To me, that is the reason why many people are still scared of working with other classmates and prefer doing so alone.

On the other hand, I also support the idea students should be taught about how to take their part in a group so that it works properly: what aspects they must contribute with, what their attitudes should be and so on. If they have never been taught to do so, how can we expect they do it correctly? That is impossible! Naturally, it is true, we must take into account there are scholars whose level cannot be as “good” as the one of others, but that is what a class consists of.

All in all, I feel we must learn as a society that cooperating by working in teams should not be a matter of confrontation, of always being better than the other person; but that we must learn from them as well as help them with what we already know. To me, this should be taught since we are children so that we know how to benefit from being part of a team. This is extremely important as reality out of schools is that in most jobs, people work in teams. Thus, it is a must that we are able to manage with those situations. It is crucial to understand each person has his or her role and they are different from us, but that’s the good thing! Then, contribute, cooperate and I’m sure our life is going to be much better in all senses!

Take a look to this video, I'm sure you will learn from it! See you next week!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0RzRAfiHs