Resource 87: Collaborative Learning Technique (CoLT) 4 Analytic Teams

Listening to a lecture, watching a video, or reading an assignment can be passive activities for students. One way to engage students more fully is to form structured teams to analyze and discuss various aspects of the task.

Estimated Time and Effort Required for

Faculty to prepare this CoLT  MEDIUM
Students to use this CoLT   MEDIUM
Faculty to assess/follow up   MEDIUM

Complexity     MEDIUM
Risk of Failure    LOW

Duration & Location   15-60  minutes/In or out of class

Group Size & Structure  Quartets or Quintets/Formal/Some pre-organizing needed

Description

This CoLT analyzes, or breaks down processes we expect individual students to engage in when critically reading, listening, or viewing into several specific tasks that are then distributed among different individuals or teams. This division of labor allows students to concentrate on learning and performing one aspect at a time of these complex critical thinking processes and to see how re-combining the different tasks through groupwork can contribute to their understanding and learning. In preparing this technique, the most challenging aspect is determining how to follow up on the groupwork in a way that will help students meaningfully synthesize the various information and opinions they have heard.

Procedure

1.   Form student groups of four or five, assigning each individual in the team, or each team, one of the following roles:

 Summarizers - Prepare a summary of no more than seven most important points
Questioners - Prepare at least three substantive questions about the material.
Proponents  -- List at least three points you agreed with and state why.
Critics - List at least two points you disagreed with or found unhelpful and state why.
Example givers - Give at least three examples of key concepts presented.

 Make certain that students understand the purpose of the exercise and the intended outcomes.

2.     Present the lecture, show the video, or assign the reading. The actual listening, viewing, or reading can take place in or out of class or, in some cases, on line.

3.    Give teams some class time to prepare to present their analyses, whether as oral or written presentations. Again, these can be done online. Specify and limit what each team will be responsible for presenting, to avoid unhelpful repetition. Assign clear time/length limits.

4.    Follow up group presentations with individual assignments that build on and extend this exercise.