Teaching Groups to Work Well

I found the Bean’s section “How Do You Teach Groups to Work Well Together?” in Unit 10 to interesting. I thought immediately that I would like to put into practice most everything of what he had to say in this section.

The notion that the instructor SHOULD teach the group how to work well together is something, I’m afraid, that I might very well have over looked. I think I might have made the mistake of assuming the students knew the value of group work, and they knew how to get the most out of the experience. I see that Bean uses the topic as an opportunity to get the class thinking about active listening, learning styles, and the benefit of conflict. All of these are important educational issues in themselves, but in a composition course that is dealing with argument and communication, I find them all the more significant.