Grouping Activity

A long while back I read a post from Frank Noschese called subversive lab grouping. In a nutshell, you give students cards which tell them what groups they're in. But it's not as easy as it sounds- there is overlap between the words on the cards. For example, I've given students cards with letters on them. They start by trying to put all the vowels together, or maybe all the capital letters. But it doesn't form the right number of groups (4 groups with three students each), so they have to discard their model and start over. The key turns out to be the number of straight lines used to form each letter. X is two, as are T and L. So that's one group. W, M, and E are similarly grouped. Frank and his followers have thrown down a bunch of other ideas for groups, some of which I've adopted, but I've also made up my own.

My students love this activity and wanted me to write about it. Since this is the first request I've ever received for a blog entry, I figured I ought to honor it! I usually use it in calculus- I'm not sure why, but I haven't implemented it with my other classes yet. Maybe I will... one limitation is that you have to specify the number of groups and their sizes. If students are unexpectedly absent, it can throw a wrench in the works.

If anyone is interested in the groups I use, just say the word and I'll be happy to put them up.