Group in progress

Both being  part of a work team and managing groups inside the classroom can be difficult. That is why it is very important to develop a set of skills suited to face this kind of challenges, both as a leader and as a team member. The aim of our course was to implement competences and abilities in group managing.

The new edition of the course “Effective Group Management in education: building Teamwork among students” took place in Palermo from 27/08/2023 to 02/09/2023. The participants came from two different beautiful European countries and from three different schools, with Anna, Alexandra, David, Gabor and Istvan from Gödöllői Református Líceum Gimnázium in Hungary; Monika and Monika from ZŠ s MŠ Častá in Slovakia; Renata, Mária, Katarína and Marta from Primary school Nejedlého in Slovakia.

At the beginning of the training course, we focused on the definitions of “team” and “group” and on the similarities but also on the differences existing between a group and a team. We then analysed the different development stages of a group following the Tuckman model, and examples of process loss and process win related to team performance were shown. Finally, on the first day, we talked about the pillars of group collaboration.

On the second day, the main topics covered where team roles and team building. A series of related practical activities were carried on. The participants faced the different tasks with great enthusiasm and cooperation, building the foundations for solid and efficient teams.

On the third day we focused on leadership and teamwork with participants creating very efficient teams while carrying on the practical activities promoted by the trainer.

Almost a whole day was dedicated to practice on Lightning Decision Jam, a workshop model to solve problems in groups. The participants were divided into two different groups and they carried on two separate LDJ; a traditional one, using a flipchart, and an online LDJ, through collaborative shared  online spaces. At the end, each group presented its results and provided a detailed account of all the steps that were taken on LDJ by them.

During the last part of the course, we focused on two important topics: peer learning and assessment and feedback, with peer learning being particularly important to encourage students to become protagonists of their learning process.

During the whole week, participants came to explore a whole set of practical activities designed for the management of groups and they had time to think about how to use them during their lessons.
It was good to see them work with such efficiency and dedication. They built really positive group dynamics and were always open to dialogue and ready to express their ideas.
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It was an amazing week, with a lot of added value coming from the contribution of the participants. We are sure that  they will make good use of what they learned during the training course also in their classrooms, back to their schools and countries.
 
More info on this course here.