Facilitating Groups and Student Interaction
Resources on this page explore how to facilitate inclusive group work. Ideas on this page can help you to reflect on how to facilitate equal group discussion and team work.
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Questions to consider as you review the resources on this page:
Questions to consider as you review the resources on this page:
When supporting large groups of students in labs, how do you ensure that your time and attention is distributed to best support the needs of the students in the room?
When groups self-select, does segregation occur along gender, racial or other identity lines? If it does, is this a problem?
In the groups you work with, do you notice if contributions and engagement vary along race, gender or other identity lines?
This video explores why we may get tongue tied and blunder when we encounter people from groups unfamiliar to us
"Me and my coursemates worked on our [group] projects but they’d like to meet up after sunset or even at one point at 1am, and my classmates would keep asking why not as if the time they suggested was reasonable. I didn’t try to explain because I knew they wouldn’t understand but I feel more and more lonely as time goes by. As a muslim I don’t participate in social outings that include alcohol and that makes me excluded as it is, but everyone else (mainly because they’re male and travel in groups) don’t feel the aspect of being unsafe. For me, tho I’m friendly with everyone I don’t really have friends to hang out with so I’m mostly always travelling everywhere alone. "
Quotation from a student in Engineering at the University of Sheffield (Taken from the DiCE project 2023)
The search for solidarity, support and solace
The search for solidarity, support and solace
"Beyond the strategy of emotional detachment to tolerate racism, minority ethnic students appear to find strength and solidarity from fellow minorities to improve their experiences and sense of belonging at university, despite everyday racism. Here, we highlight the importance of strong friendship groups and staff role models. It should not be surprising that most students gravitate towards ‘people like me’ and form social groups and networks that might resemble the establishment of ethnic enclaves. While some students stressed that they have proactively socialised with their White British peers, most admitted that these friendships were largely superficial and fragile. Aside from differences in personal interests and values (e.g., alcohol-related activities), which can happen in any friendship, minority ethnic students felt few of their White peers appear to be able to empathise with their experiences of being an ethnic minority, especially as regular recipients of racial mistreatment and microaggression. As such, most students said they found it easier to build friendship with people who are also ethnic minorities themselves. Ali (British South Asian male), for example, admitted that he does not have many White friends but explained that: At the end of the day when it comes to what we relate to, what we can joke about and what our experience is, it will always be someone of like an ethnic [minority] background. It wouldn’t even just be like brown, I have Black friends and East Asians or African, Arabs, and everyone is like, because we relate more. Like many others, Ali found support and solace from fellow minority ethnic students, even from different cultural and racial backgrounds. These peers, at the very least, share the common experience of being an ethnic minority, which seems to be sufficient for students such as Ali to strengthen their sense of belonging at university. In a related vein, Carol (Black British female) said that ‘I don’t know why, but on my course I know every ethnic minority, and we all sit together’, whilst their white peers are in their own groups. This segregation of student groups, especially by perceived race or ethnicity, is not an uncommon sight in higher education (Chen & Ross, 2015). "
Wong et al., 2021
"There was a consensus that the White British cohort responded to minoritised ethnic (especially international) students’ attempts to initiate conversations with apathy. Typically, migrants are encumbered with the task of integrating but such a narrative reverses the real direction of existing discrimination:
They [White British students] don’t even talk with us . . . I might say ‘Hi’, they’ll just say ‘Hi’ . . . and then if I say, ‘How are you doing today?’ they will say, ‘Fine.’ and that’s it. It stops there . . . So, that’s how I see it . . . I don’t want to bother them, so I don’t insist. (Participant 15: Black African, Muslim, female, 22-24, international UG, Geology BSc)
Singh et al. 2023
Integration vs Inclusion
Integration vs Inclusion
There is a substantial difference between integration and inclusion. Integration is the process of making a person adapt or fit into society, while inclusion refers to the process of changing society to include everyone, regardless of their impairment status. When talking about persons with disabilities the connotations of "inclusion" are positive, while those of "integration" are negative. These terms are therefore not interchangeable.
Active-Learning Classrooms
Active-Learning Classrooms
Active-learning classrooms are a mainstay of STEM education reform efforts and have the potential to support deeper student learning (Freeman et al., 2014). At the same time, the switch to active engagement methods can create a variety of new barriers for disabled (and nondisabled) people (Gin et al., 2020). Here we explore some common access issues.
Small-Group Work.
Small-Group Work.
Small groups provide an opportunity for students to explain their thinking and learn from collaborations with peers. At the same time, students—especially those with learning disabilities or mental health issues—may hesitate to share their ideas for fear of judgment. Similarly, someone with autism might struggle to focus within the context of an intensely social and overstimulating small-group environment. Small-group interactions can also create access barriers for queer students or students of color, who may experience interpersonal microaggressions (Cooper and Brownell, 2016; Shah et al., 2020).
Required Participation.
Required Participation.
Given the documented connection between participation and learning (e.g., Banes et al., 2019), it is tempting to implement policies that incentivize or require student participation. Yet such policies can create barriers for students who are chronically ill and may miss a large number of sessions. Autistic or socially anxious students might also feel uncomfortable participating. Similarly, students whose first language is not the language of instruction face barriers to actively participate in a fast-paced classroom. Finally, given the prominence of white masculine participation norms in STEM, women and racially minoritized students may not be given as many meaningful opportunities to participate, as white/Asian men in STEM take up a disproportionate amount of public space (e.g., McAfee, 2014; Ernest et al., 2019)
Reinholz et al. 2021
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