by Berkley Hudson, University of Missouri

Speed Graphic. The Muckrakers. Narwhal’s Mustache. Mass Media Superstars. Cupcakes. Hoppy & the Four Ladies. Team Fuego. The Bunnies. Narrative Ninjas. The Unicorns. Stone Soup. The Ladies Chablis. Group Without A Name.

My students in classes of different sizes, at different levels, chose these names, and many others, for their small groups. Although I have threatened to buy my students T-shirts, baseball caps, pens and pencils with logos branded with their group names, I have not done that yet. I have found, though, that the more I encourage students to form small cohorts the better that they engage with one another, with learning and with me as their professor.

In classes of every size, I preach the power of small groups. They help to relieve the pressure for the professor to solve everyone’s problems. They help students to relieve their own pressures and help them to learn.

Small groups are one of many strategies that can heighten student engagement. I create “snack clubs” with the members assigned to provide food for class. I bring in masks I have collected from around the world, and then I have students role play with the masks and speak in different personae in response to questions I pose. I bring in apples for them to eat and have them consider the post-modern educational world in which students—with Apples—no longer bring apples for the teacher.

At the start of the semester, I pass out index cards and have students fill out both sides: three things that would make this class perfect, on one side; on the other, three ways the professor and colleagues can help this semester. I compile them and then we take turns reading these aloud at the next class. Students give voice to dreams, to worries. And we fill out index cards with our media diets and then read those aloud.

Still, the small group is one of the best tools I have in my teaching toolbox. As many of us may do, I take the Think-Pair-Share idea and use it in variegated ways.

At the start of the semester I use quirky approaches to divide the class into groups. I may group them by birth months, birthdates or birthplaces. Or I may divide the class into groups of three or four or five and then assign a number to each group. Then I put those numbers into a paper grocery bag and pass the bag around and have the students select one number. Or I may have everyone count off in class and divide them up accordingly.

The students select their group coordinator who communicates with me. And I charge them to come up with a group name. Then I meet with them in class and outside of class. They select the location such as a coffee shop or restaurant on campus or off campus. Now with Doodle Poll and other scheduling tools, it’s even easier to find mutual meeting times.

The group meetings don’t eliminate the opportunity for students to meet with me individually. But with four or five students I can cover in thirty-minutes to one hour common questions and problems.

These are thinking, researching, writing and revising groups. I recognize there are different kinds of small groups and different ways to acknowledge manifold learning styles. I also recognize that grading team projects can pose problems. What to do about slackers and laggards? The pedagogical literature addresses this. There will be slackers. There will be laggards. They don’t deserve as good of a grade.

A recent New York Times opinion piece offers food for thought on collaborative groups.

Author Susan Cain made this argument:

“Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place…Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.”

This kind of groupthink collaboration, she wrote, is counter-productive. “[T]he most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.”

Subsequently, provocative letters to the editor called into question Cain’s assumptions. Washington University professor Keith Sawyer wrote:

“Decades of scientific research have revealed that great creativity is almost always based in collaboration, conversation and social networks — just the opposite of our mythical image of the isolated genius. And educational research has found that deeper learning results when students participate in thoughtful argumentation and discuss reasons and concepts.”

Sawyer continued: “The increasing use of collaboration, in classrooms and in the workplace, is not a short-lived fad; it is solidly based in research, and it works.”

When I was a doctoral student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, our beloved mentor Dr. Margaret Blanchard encouraged us media history students to meet regularly. We did, often at Foster’s Market. Out of that group came dissertations that won prizes, secured jobs and book contracts. Our group of learners bound together in the common goal of supporting each other and creating fine scholarship. Once, Dr. Blanchard hosted a dinner for her past and present media history students when we were together for a regional AEJMC conference in Chapel Hill. She helped us to build a community of learners, a community of teachers. Small groups can do that.

Please direct ideas, comments and questions to HudsonB@missouri.edu.