Ms. Kahn gave her students many assignments to complete as groups. She wondered whether group work was an effective teaching paradigm. Every year, she asked her students to work in groups to design a bridge with toothpicks. This year, her class decided to conduct an experiment to see if groups built better bridges than individuals. They divided the class into two conditions, so that some students worked in groups and some worked individually. Then they rated each bridge on how long it took to build and how much weight it held. Ms. Kahn agreed that if students worked better in groups than alone, they would adapt their class plans to include more group activities.

Ms. Kahn’s student, Tanya, worked with Ms. Kahn to investigate whether students worked more quickly and effectively in groups.

Do the data give you information about the effectiveness of group work?

Could you change this experiment to compare gender groups instead of groups and individuals? How?

Discussion Question:

Let’s speculate that one gender learns better in single-gender classrooms and the other does not. If this were the case, do you think it would be fair to let people choose?