What is groupwork?
Cohen & Lotan(2014) defined groupwork as students working together in a group small enough so that everyone can participate on a clearly assigned learning task. Moreover, students are expected to carry out their tasks without direct and immediate supervision of the teacher.
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Three key features of groupwork
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Teacher:
When the teacher gives students a group task and allows them to struggle on their own and make mistakes, he/she has delegated authority. Delegating authority in an instructional task is making students responsible for specific parts of their work; students are free to accomplish their task in the way they decide is best, but are still accountable to the teacher for the final product. When authority is delegated to students and groups, teachers’ role changes dramatically. Teachers no longer act as presenters or direct supervisors, but more as learning experience designers, and they move behind the scenes. Students are given huge amounts of freedom and responsibility: groups are responsible for getting work done, they are expected to present their work and give feedback to one another. This is a powerful way to foster autonomous and self-regulated learning.
Group:
Students in a group communicate about their task with one another. They ask questions, explain, make suggestions, criticize, listen, agree, disagree, and make joint decisions. Students take over some of the teaching function by suggesting what other people should do, by listening to what other people are saying, and by deciding how to get the job done within the time and resource limitations set by the instructor. Students who lack requisite skills become actively engaged and demand assistance and explanation; students more advanced solidify their own learning by helping others. This process of group interaction can be enormously interesting and challenging to students. Some teachers believe groupwork is a perfect solution to narrow the achievement gap between students from different backgrounds.
Task:
During groupwork, students can engage in two kinds of tasks: routine, well-defined tasks or open-ended, uncertain tasks. Routine tasks follow clear and detailed procedures and precise steps to arrive at a correct answer or a predictable solution. Students can be successful at such tasks by conscientiously following instructions, applying familiar algorithms and formulas, or locating and memorizing information. Groupwork is not essential for routine tasks. Intellectually rigorous and academically challenging learning tasks are open-ended, productively uncertain, and require complex problem solving.
Student Engagement
Lee (2010) explain that while higher institutions may have limited influence in preventing all assaults and hostile acts of discrimination, they nevertheless play a very influential role in bettering the experiences of international students and promoting their success. Therefore, the faculty staff, teachers, and students are responsible for creating a welcoming environment for international students because their engagement often determines their attitudes towards promoting institution to their relations. As Trowler (2010) mentioned, their engagement will define them to the successful career in the future, considering the activities they become involved in as the most important capital for individual development. This engagement involve many things between time, action and any other relevant resources invested by both parties, students, and institutions. There are three categories defined from student engagement attitudes; positive engagement, non-engagement, and negative engagement. In each attitude, these elements contribute to a multidimensional effect on students’ behavioral, emotional and cognitive ability. A student with positive behavioral engagement can also experience cognitive negative engagement by redefining parameters of assignment. In contrast, HEFCE emphasizes that responsibility for student engagement relies only between the institution and student body where they can build deliberate experience to involve and empower student in higher education.
The style of student engagement is divided into four aspects (Coates, 2005). Students with high academic achievement presumably show an intense interest in the learning process since they see all university staff are helpful. These intensely engaged academic students are actively involved in any event on campus and presumably have a satisfied grade in a few courses. Independent learners require a minimum engagement in any social events outside of lectures but they can still achieve the academic requirement with less collaboration with other students within or beyond the class. However, students with extensive social and collaborative interest are more likely to be involved in any events and do extra work for non-academic tasks. On the other hand, students' passive social involvement generally results in a poorer academic performance and with less engagement with the institution where they study.
Theoretical Background
Finn and Zimmer (2012) proposed a relevant theory on this engagement type with four higher education student engagement scale that has been used many times. These four engagement dimensions (1) Academic Engagement, (2) Cognitive Engagement, (3) Social Engagement, (4) Affective Engagement, often appear in the student engagement model. There is research evidence about academic engagement showing that students who exhibit academic learning behaviors, such as class attendance, coming to class prepared, showing effort and persistence in study, achieve at higher levels than those who are less academically engaged. Furthermore, students who are cognitively engaged tend to show an intention to go beyond the minimum requirements and are willing to be challenged. Social engagement includes interaction between students and their peers and teachers to ask for help on the assignment. However, social engagement with peers can take place in both academic and non-academic situations, whether discussing tasks or events in clubs and study groups. Social engagement with teachers refers to interaction regarding an academic topic and discussion as it is believed that social engagement with teachers can improve academic results if students actively seek help from their teachers. For affective engagement, students often strongly feel a sense of belonging to their university. Click here to see the full scale.