Encouraging healthy group work

Using different types of intelligences
is beneficial for group work 

     My experience with group work as a student and as a teacher has taught me mostly the same things, but from different points of view. As a student I always feared having someone in my group that wouldn't do enough work or just couldn't keep up with the rest of the group. Of course there's also the fear that my working style won't match the rest of the team and therefore I will be the one not contributing enough.

     As a teacher I'm always aware of every team member's contribution and cautious to evaluate every team member in the same way. There is also the eventual complaint about one team member which I try to handle with extreme care (emphasis on extreme) because as I'm about to explain, sometimes these complaints are not what they appear to be.

Believe it or not the secret to understanding and guiding an effective group work lies in the intelligences type theory. It is fairly simple. As explained in the theory section, not  everyone has the same intelligence profile and therefore not everyone can contribute in the same way inside a group. Let's say for example that we have a group of four individuals. If this group has three members with strong verbal / linguistic intelligence while the other team member leans more to the visual / spacial type, the other team members will easily agree on doing a paper with a strong writing component. This means the member with strong visual /spatial intelligence won't be able to contribute the same in terms of both quality and quantity as the rest of the members of the team. That member will probably feel useless and even worse, the others might complain about him/her.

So, what can we do as teachers?

     Although I can't give you an exact formula, here is some advice that might help to promote and guide a better work group environment.

• Encourage and ask for creativity and originality to promote the use and development of all types of intelligence. Don't limit the type of work to just one type of intelligence. Ask the students to present visuals, videos, multimedia, etc. Give points for variety. This way you will be creating assignments that fit the students' skills and abilities.
• Try to structure the tasks so that each group member can make an equal contribution.
• Teach your students to plan and to assign responsibility when working in groups. Presenting a plan and a responsibility chart for an assignment could be the first part of it. Having a clear division of work and responsibilities helps the group assignment to go smoothly.
• Create group tasks that require interdependence. The students in a group must perceive that they "sink or swim" together (Davis, 1993), that each member is responsible to and dependent on all the others, and that one cannot succeed unless everyone in the group succeeds. promoting interdependence includes specifying common rewards for the group.
• Assign group tasks that allow for a fair division of labor, "encouraging students to divide up the labor, and formulating tasks that compel students to reach a consensus" (Johnson et al, 1991, as cited in Davis 1993, para. 10)
• Make the group work relevant not just busy work.

     I think the key terms in all this advice are "promote creativity" and "give options." Being flexible when assigning work is the best way to tap into the students' multiple intelligences and obtain good results.


     If other members of the team are complaining about one (or more) of the members, try to make them see that that member might be able to contribute in other ways more adequate to their skills. Most importantly, remember the different types of intelligences when evaluating group work. Sometimes we as teachers haven't developed a specific type of intelligence and might not understand the students' creativity. Keep an open mind!