Group work just came up in our house yesterday. Dd (5th grade) was in tears over having to work in teams (of 2) on math. A bit of background - her school does subject acceleration through in-class differentiation. As a result of our successful advocacy (thanks to the great advice here!), most of her math time is spent with her primary math group consisting of two people, her and her twin brother. Other times they do combined activities with the next math group.
Result: Situation 1: she spends entire math time arguing with her assigned partner (her brother) over how to set up the assigned "scenario" that provides the basis for a data analysis activity. Situation 2: she spends entire math time teaching her assigned math partner (not her brother but less knowledgeable on the topic than her brother). She is now frustrated and wants to work on her own so she can focus on learning math. We advised her to talk to her teachers about it.
Dh and I are both scientists and discussed this kind of group work last night, and neither of us get the need for so much of it. We agreed that in the work we do as professionals in teams (something we both do), *coordination* is needed, but each team member spends most of their effort working independently. We both feel classroom "team" activities are overrated/overused. Perhaps we're too "old school" to understand.
