Monitor and Intervene
Preparing for Observation
- Decide which behaviors, attitudes, and/or skills will be observed. Broad categories of these attributes would include academic learning and performance, reasoning, social skills, attitudes, and work habits.
- Decide who will be doing the observation: the instructor (you) or selected student or others. You can have students in each group watching for usage of social skills or roving students checking in with the reasoning behind groups arguments. You should always be the arbiter as to how the students and groups are doing academically. You can also draft any visitors to you class into helping observe.
- Develop a sampling plan. Will you observe only one group for the whole class period or will you be roving around observing each group for a short amount of time? This has obvious implications for the data you get from the observation as well as your ability to intervene with different groups should it be necessary.
- Develop the observation procedure. Examples would include standard forms or checklists for tabulating observations or detailed note taking to keep track of the attributes you are trying to monitor. Here is an example of an observation sheet that you can use as a template.
- Observation Sheet (Microsoft Word 30kB Aug3 06)
- Train the observers in the proper procedure. This involves explaining the role they will play and the procedure they should follow, along with practice using the form or checklist they will use. It is also important to process with your observers after an observation period to see what they've learned by observing.
Observation
This step may seem self-explanatory, but generating quantitative data from watching your groups isn't trivial. You are looking for specific actions or verbal cues related to your target behaviors. When a student engages in that action, the observer puts a tally mark on the group's observation form. This is a good reason to start small and only look at a few behaviors to begin with. But the observer should also keep notes about specific positive contributions made by group members to supplement the tally data, as well as to use in praising student actions during processing.
Intervening
In the process of observing your students working in groups, you will likely see patterns of behavior that impede their progress and wish to intervene. These might include misconceptions of the task and concepts involved in the project or deficiencies in use of social skills and communication. If you do intervene, simply telling them what they are doing wrong and how to fix it is not very effective in improving their work together.
Begin by joining the group and having them pause in their work. Then point out the problem you've observed by showing them your data or asking them questions about what they've been doing. It's important to use your observations as a basis for addressing the issue. Then help them develop a solution to the issue that you've helped them become aware of; guiding them with questions, suggesting strategies, and helping them prioritize courses of action.
Don't give in to the temptation of intervening regularly or the groups will come to rely on you to solve their problems. Only jump in when it's absolutely necessary to avoid a "crash and burn" episode either socially or academically. That way the group has incentive to solve it's own low-level problems which will help improve their cooperation.
