Managing: How to encourage and manage active involvement in group work

Working in a low-resource context in classrooms where students are of mixed levels, a teacher shares what she has learned about how to encourage active involvement in group work.

In this video, Merium Aftab from Pakistan shares teachers’ ideas about managing mixed-level classes and passive students who do not contribute to group work.

To ensure each individual contributes, she recommends grouping students according to their level of proficiency and assigning each student a task. Making group work count for final assessment can also encourage active involvement in a grade-oriented system such as hers, so she suggests careful monitoring and evaluation of students using notes and observation charts.

Discipline during group work is also a problem, but involving students in the rule-making process and getting group leaders to enforce them is one way of dealing with this. For group work to succeed, every student needs a part to play and every student needs to play their part.

Reflection and discussion

One of the purposes of these resources is to help you with your own teacher development in related contexts. The questions in task 1 and task 2 are designed for you to think about and discuss with colleagues, either informally or as part of your formal professional development.

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