Leadership to ignite learning

How many of us have been in groups that struggled to complete a task that seemed more suited to individual work? How often have we tried to get students to collaborate around a task only to find that for every group that worked well together there was another that fell apart? There is no doubt that groups are challenging to manage, from the inside or the outside, but it does look like group work is here to stay. The Common Core suggests a renewed emphasis on group work as students are asked to consider multiple solutions to problems and as educators are held accountable for engaging every student. And we are seeing a resurgence of group work in classrooms as a key engagement strategy and forum for increasingly complex academic tasks.

Group work doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as...