ABSTRACT

Illustrations in the previous chapters have introduced different applications of group methods from the considerable range available to teachers or trainers wishing to add to more traditional approaches to learning. I have used these examples to demonstrate some of the ideas useful in designing group activities and in making sense of what can result from using them. Some of the points I have emphasized are these:

Group activities involve participants and tutors in more complex processes than other teaching methods. Whatever the intended purpose of a group activity, people's experience of it is more varied than could be predicted from the design. Specifically:

the experience of being a member of a learning group consists of thoughts and feelings about the working relationships which evolve, as well as about the academic focus for the activity.

as with any experiential method, whatever its specific aim or purpose, participants will also make connections with other past or current events and associated concerns and hopes, joys and disappointments.

just as ideas learned through any teaching method last beyond the course or event which introduced them, so too will the processes generated during a group activity (feelings about the group, loyalties, antipathies, feelings of achievement and so on). (These aspects of group methods are discussed in Chapter 4.)

When working with group methods it is worth remembering that:

although much of the participants’ experience of a group activity is hidden, some of this experience may be personally or educationally significant none the less (Chapter 4).

participants can be learning from any of these personal and social processes and even from the values embodied in the method itself. This learning may or may not be intended by the person using a group activity and may or may not be consistent with their aim in using it (Chapters 5 and 6).

the dynamics of a group inevitably reflect broader social and cultural processes as well as the educational or organizational context (Chapter 6).

In selecting ideas and theories about groups and group work, it is important to bear in mind that theory, like education generally, is never value-free. Ideas about groups applied to this field show a preponderance of psychological perspectives at the expense of sociological ones – an imbalance which favours an individualistic view of the world.