Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms: A Casebook for Educators

While groupwork in heterogeneous classrooms is recommended in most current reforms of teaching, questions and dilemmas about its implementation still persist.. In this timely resource, 16 teachers describe their experiences with groupwork in vivid detail, focusing on both their successes and failures. Their compelling stories are excellent discussion catalysts that will lead teachers to examine their own views, prejudices, and attitudes toward typical dilemmas on groupwork in their classrooms. Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms presents actual cases that will help teachers use groupwork in their classroom. The companion Facilitator’s Guide to this volume provides information needed to use the cases in structured professional development experiences.

This dynamic text addresses such crucial issues as:

. using groupwork effectively

. designing groupwork tasks

. assessing group activities

. deciding when and how to intervene

. crafting groups that support learning for all students

. dealing with uncooperative students and status problems

. communicating with parents

Judith H. Shulman is director of the Institute for Case Development at WestEd. Rachel A. Lotan is co-director of the Program for Complex Instruction and senior research scholar at Stanford University School of Education. Jennifer A. Whitcomb is an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of Denver and director of the Teacher Education Program.