Group work in science learning - international scenarios and implications for teaching and learning in Hong Kong

Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 2, Issue 2, Article 9 (Dec., 2001)
Teresa T S WONG
Group work in science learning - international scenarios and implications for teaching and learning in Hong Kong

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Regional Perspectives On the Meaning of Group Work
The participants from the six nations/regions have discussed about the meaning of group work around three aspects: emphasizing on individual participation and development of interpersonal and thinking skills in group work, organizing students to take up specific roles in groups to maximize individual resourcefulness, considering of personal growth in students' ability and enhancement of interdependence in groups. These are the teaching aspects that Hong Kong teachers may overlook or not be aware, but are worth their careful consideration.
A member from the United States Collaboration Team stated that: "group work is a fact of life in the corporate work force. It is a way for students to learn essential interpersonal life-skills and to develop the ability to work collaboratively - a skill greatly in demand in the workplace. The success of the group depends on the successful work of every individual." As the modern society has already transformed from an industrial society to a knowledge-based society, interpersonal life-skills have become the most important asset in the human labour force. While keeping abreast of this global trend, the United States as one of the major pioneers in the evolution of the technological world, has long realized this important asset in its students' whole-person development. Although Hong Kong teachers from primary and secondary schools often assign project work involving group work, they may not consider interpersonal and other high-order thinking skills as the learning outcomes when they design the activities.
The German Collaboration Team suggested that group work is different from the conventional kind of teaching: "It is every kind of working and learning with other persons that is not related to an institutionalized student-teacher-relationship. Group work has nothing to do with the following: one person is talking in front of the class and everyone else in the classroom is forced to listen." The hands-on investigative nature of science and active participation are needed to be encouraged in science learning. While developing diverse way of learning is one of the key movements in Hong Kong's education, group work provides an excellent setting for meeting such incentive as well as fulfilling the intended "student-focused" curriculum.
The Czech Collaboration Team differentiated between the meanings of group work and cooperative work. They stated that group work often means merely assembling the students into groups, but cooperative work means more - it includes having specific roles or specific different tasks in the group, and sharing the goals and the assessment. One of the typical problems for teaching is that in reality, the design of learning may not allow for engaging all students at the same time. Even though Hong Kong students are used to doing project work, they are not usually assigned to take different roles within the project. Some science teachers may request their students to complete a form to indicate their individual contribution at the end of the project, but teachers seldom adopt the cooperative learning model (to be illustrated in the later section) and assign different roles to suit students' individual ability on strength development.
The Portuguese Collaboration Team stated that group work must involve sharing responsibility among the group members. It should involve the cooperation of several persons that have a common goal and common tasks to be realized in order to obtain a common outcome. The team listed the following characteristics for group work:

It is an activity done by more than two people to attain a common goal;

There are tasks to be shared;

Socialization is promoted;

They have the opportunity to share ideas and opinions;

Information has to be collected, selected and organized;

All the members of the group have to be responsible;

All the tasks have to be very well coordinated.

The Hong Kong Collaboration Team shared a similar point of view for group work with Portugal in the light of they also believed that, in order for group work to be effective in enhancing student learning, it must consist of "meaningful learning activities" with "specific teachers' requirements" for students to follow.
The French Collaboration Team agreed that an efficient grouping for science (and mathematics) group work should be limited to 4-5 people. In this way, teachers can make sure that everyone has a specific task and will be active all the time. Each task should demand specific skills so that the objectives of the group can only be reached with the effective work of each member and persistent communication within the group. In order to achieve holistic development for every individual student, it is necessary to provide opportunities in rotating tasks (this can be within a particular science group work session, or for a long-term science project). Since teachers are not available for every individual student at the same time during group work, efficient group work requires strong and very well thought-out planning for each function of the group, to allow groups to establish full autonomy in completing the required tasks. They also pointed out that each science group work session must lead to an outcome, where students are aware of the objectives, the completion procedures and the time allowed.
The group size recommended by the French team is in agreement with the ideal team formation as specified by several cooperative learning experts (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1987; Kagan, 1992). These researchers have further suggested that team formation is most effective when four students work together in a specific academic mix: the combination of one high achiever, two average achievers, and one low achiever maximizes peer teaching and fosters the individual learning of each team member. The team should be balanced by gender and by race to promote equity. For local schools in Hong Kong, the race component may be replaced by mixing new immigrants with local students.