Student groups by academic ability

[kaysixteen]

For, say, the average humanities field at the undergraduate level, what is the purpose of requiring students of varying abilities workfor in groups at all, those who don't want to?

[Mercudenton]

For, say, the average humanities field at the undergraduate level, what is the purpose of requiring students of varying abilities workfor in groups at all, those who don't want to?

I share the skepticism of the question about group work if that is defined as working to produce a defined project. I'm not sure there is necessarily benefit in this in humanities at undergrad level. But in terms of helping students engage ideas and encounter a taste of informed debate and discussion as an end to itself, I think so. My question is very niche, of course, since I am talking about the survey class, not an upper-level humanities where one would just have this kind of discussion round table with a smallish class. I'm really just trying to find ways for students to have a more enjoyable experience of the survey, and just maybe one that lights up some students interest in the humanities where they had not previously considered it because they have enjoyed the group discussions.

[polly_mer]

I'm really just trying to find ways for students to have a more enjoyable experience of the survey, and just maybe one that lights up some students interest in the humanities where they had not previously considered it because they have enjoyed the group discussions.

As a strong student who was frustrated with classes where other people didn't do the reading and thus couldn't contribute to discussions, I applaud the effort to try to make the course more engaging.  I'm still annoyed during workshops where people don't make an effort to engage and presumably most of us are voluntarily at the workshop.

On the other hand, I have spent some quality time as faculty at a variety of institutions, so I have a couple questions.

Are you at a place where the majority of the students take their studies seriously enough and are in college to learn?

Or, are you somewhere that the majority of the students are doing the minimum to check some boxes to get a credential?

I agree with other posters that the grouping factor is engagement and related attitude, not GPA, especially if these are mostly first-year students who don't really have a college GPA yet.  Science for teachers was nearly all small group work and tended to attract a good gen ed crowd as being an "easier" lab class.  Sections went really well when most of the students bought in and made an effort to discuss while trying the activities. 

Science for teachers was just painful all around when only 3-5 students bought in and the other 20ish students very vocally questioned the value of every.single.activity while helpfully pointing out they were A students and this was an absurd way to run a class since everyone knows a class should be the professor upfront lecturing. 

While I usually change up groups every couple of weeks, for the severe cases where most of the class were not on board, I'd have each student submit a paper with names of 3-5 people with whom they'd like to be in a group.  Generally, the very engaged students would pick each other and I could then in good conscience group the less engaged with the less engaged colleagues they selected.  Everyone was happier and the engaged students got a better overall experience than random pick.

[Caracal]

Are you at a place where the majority of the students take their studies seriously enough and are in college to learn?

Or, are you somewhere that the majority of the students are doing the minimum to check some boxes to get a credential?

I don't think this is really a good way to group students. I heard about some research a while ago on college students that came to the conclusion that student engagement is something that ebbs and flows for most undergrads. Essentially students are engaged in some classes and not in others, engaged at some times in their college career and maybe not in others, and sometimes even engaged in a class at one point in the semester and less engaged at some other point.

The point is that we aren't just teaching to groups of students with set levels of engagement. Ideally you can engage more in the class throughout the semester. I would worry that grouping students by interest level or their desire to learn isn't going to help accomplish that. I'm not suggesting that all students can become interested in the class. Obviously, we can't make every student care about the class and it is important not to let disengaged students bring everything down, but I don't want to decide at the beginning of the class which students are interested and which aren't.