Productive Group Work: How to Engage Students, Build Teamwork, and Promote Understanding » (New Edition)

The benefits of collaborative learning are well documented-and yet, almost every teacher knows how group work can go wrong: restless students, unequal workloads, lack of accountability, and too little learning for all the effort involved. In this book, educators Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Sandi Everlove show how to make all group work productive group work: with all students engaged in the academic content and with one another, building valuable social skills, consolidating and extending their knowledge, and increasing their readiness for independent learning.

The key to getting the most out of group work is to match research-based principles of cooperative learning with practical action. Classroom examples across grade levels and disciplines illustrate how to

Create interdependence and positive interaction

Model and guide group work s

Design challenging and engaging group tasks

Ensure group and individual accountability

Assess and monitor students' developing understanding (and show them how to do. the same)

Foster essential interpersonal skills, such as thinking with clarity, listening, giving useful feedback, and considering different points of view.

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 Denning Productive Group Work 13

2 Using Positive Interdependence 23

3 Promoting Face-to-Face Interaction 37

4 Ensuring Individual and Group Accountability 51

5 Building Interpersonal and Small-Group Skills 68

6 Incorporating Group Processing 84

7 Getting Started: Questions and Answers 97

Conclusion 109

Resources 116

Index 121

About the Authors 126