A teacher putting John, James, Erika and Christine in the same group and asking them to produce an output is normative and routinely in a classroom setting because it is genuinely to promote social skills, impose unity and friendship and to teach synergy between differences. Unfortunately, this is all until it was not. We are leaving the truth out of the picture- another group project for nth time does not work this way anymore.
Collaborative learning has always been a staple part of the education strategies that is to involve individual learners to form a group in order to solve a problem, complete a task or create an output. This is simply dividing the class into groups, putting John, James, Erika and Christine within it, assigning topics to report or an activity to finish because after all, “more heads are better than one”. Slavin (1980) suggested that these cooperative learning methods increase student’s achievement as well as it benefits social relationships and self-esteem between them. While the motives are undeniably intrinsic in all aspects of education, it does not come off with the expected results that furthermore lead to divide and unhealthy doze of codependence.
Wear the student’s lens on this one. See through Christine for example, a leader and a straight-A student. As you expect them to unify for the production, the group tends to lean on the strongest member of the group which eventually be for Christine. As it is always natural mechanism for groups to find someone to lead, Christine takes the responsibility. She is practiced to be a leader as an aftermath of numerous past group projects. The probability of her taking the majority of the work distribution is high because dependence of her co-members to her higher classroom status is geared towards her.
Results from Zariski (1997) imposes that the distribution of tasks are unequal in group activities resulting suppressed feelings of frustration or anger when dealing with “free riders”, although this is not directly manifested, the conflict may affect other behavior changes. Christine who cares for her grades may be forced to do it then have a negative feeling about it because she’s doing all the work. This is true and evident for every classroom. While it is may appear very “parasitical” for Christine’s part, the domination may increase codependence of students that can later hinder their own growth.
With that being said, look at John, James and Erika’s lens in the activity. Individuals who appear to have lesser leadership skills and academic performance find dependence over their elected leader. This usually results in what we call “Abeline Paradox” or the inability of group members to handle agreement. The Abeline Paradox occurs frequently in organizations and groups wherein the group members fail to communicate their real desires, hindered and controlled, or simply going along with the crowd. John, James and Erika may have a different idea, but due to the consideration and capability divide between Christine and the other members, they may just go with the flow whatever Christine plans to do.
John, James and Erika learn and work at different speed that it may affect their contribution to the group. The greatest tendency of typical classroom group is the divide between the capable and who is not. Most of the times, admit or not, some members’ ideas and perspectives were overthrown by the dominating member. This results into insecurity within the group to voice out ideas because of fear of being rejected. One of them, including Christine is risked of being pressured and insecure in their contribution.
Now, If you have chance to even assess if the point of the group activity that is to teach is successful, you might be surprised that John, James, and Erika have not learn anything from it. Well, in fact Scott (1995) as cited in Zariski (1997) found that many students like them cannot assure whether the group activity really affected their learning process in a positive way. His research also found out that students were uncertain if group projects could give a much superior output rather than from their individual efforts.
For a very long time, this sad truth has been overlooked by many teachers and instructors. A mere group activity is not collaborative learning if, again, another Christine do all the work and some John, James and Erika play as the left-overs. This case is not a determination of whether it is ultimately bad or good. Collaborative learning, as what Slavin (1980) and other supporting researches are teaching strategies for many reasons. The positive impacts of Collaborative learning ranges from improving the students’ social well-being as well as their cognitive development, yet, if this culture will not be prevented inside the four walls of a classroom, there would be reverse effects.
Collaborative Learning is ultimately beneficial if done right. The responsibility of teachers is not left in providing group activities, but to impose cooperation and unity in the activity. The challenge towards instructors and teachers is how they can avoid the scenario of another John, James, Erika and Christine.