Teachers tend to put students into groups for certain activities, but how teachers group their students varies widely. Some let students pick their own groups. Others deliberately set up student groups. Which method is better?
My experience has been that deliberate grouping is more effective. When students self select what group they are in, inevitably they try to sit with their friends. This may not be the best way for them to learn. I put students into groups I called “crews” of about four students each. I explained that a crew was not just a random group but instead was a team of people reliant on one another.
I went over norms of how crew members should work with one another. I also shared my experience in the Air Force as part of a flight crew. I had flown two very different aircraft where we flew as a crew, not as a single pilot. As a crew, we all worked together as a team to carry out our mission. I found that the teamwork I shared with Air Force flight crews was the best I ever had anywhere in life.
I explained that the people on all the flight crews I flew with were extremely diverse. Yet, when we showed up for a mission, we followed the Air Force norms for working together and quickly gelled and performed well. I wanted students to have a similar experience in working with other students with whom they might not normally socialize.
To give students this experience, I purposely grouped students of different backgrounds and abilities so that they would learn how to work together. Working with a diverse group of people with whom you wouldn’t normally associate is a life skill, and many students have told me later that they appreciated having this opportunity.
I used crews as the focal point of most of the student-centered learning that I oversaw. For example, I rarely called on single students if I posed a question to the class or gave them a problem to work out. Instead, I told every crew to work together to answer the question or work out the problem. Sometimes I had the crews put their answers on a small whiteboard that each crew had. Then I would call on a crew to answer, and the students in that crew would work out who would speak—this gave different people a chance to show their knowledge. After that, I would ask how other crews agreed or disagreed with the first crew.
Crews worked together to do labs, engineering design projects, research projects, class presentations, and any other learning activities we did. Students only worked on their own for certain activities where it made sense. I kept students in the same crews for one quarter of the school year. This was a long enough period for them to get used to working together, but not so long that they became sick of one another. Grades tend to come out quarterly, so the groups could also work on big, end-of-quarter projects together.
I hope this tip was helpful. It comes from my book, “The New STEM Teacher’s Essential Guide,” which will be released in early 2027. Please check out my author website at bryanholmesauthor.com and subscribe so that you get these tips in your email and you get a free PDF of the book just prior to its release.
