A Success Path to Student Group Work

Context

Research indicates that there are many benefits to group work–not only does it help students understand the class content better, but it also helps them build their interpersonal and socio-emotional skills. 

Challenges

The school that requested this training wanted to weave into its classrooms the best teaching practices recommended by research. As a result, the school gathered data on their educator's teaching practices and identified ways their instructional coaching team could help their teachers adopt the best teaching practices that research recommends. 

Solutions

This success path was developed to accompany a series of professional development sessions the school provided to its teachers. Given that group work was a practice that the school didn't really see their teachers incorporate in their classroom, and due to its immense learning benefits, the school decided to coach its teachers on how to successfully do so. In addition to coaching, teachers also requested simple step-by-step guides on the different practices they were being coached on. 

Results

100% of the school's teachers indicated that the success path provided easy access to some of the valuable information presented at the "Group Work 101" professional development session. 70% of teachers indicated that the success path remained at their desk following the presentation, and 50% of teachers actually began to consistently incorporate group work into their classroom instruction.