As group work in schools has become more prominent in education, teachers are developing their curriculum by not only incorporating more group work but also focusing on it. Group work is important, it gives students the opportunity to learn from each other, teaches them communication skills and helps them develop interpersonal relationship skills.
However putting students into groups is not as easy as saying “Class! Please get into groups of four.” Even if this goes smoothly without anyone getting upset or arguing over which group they’re going to go in, sometimes the groups need to be more specific depending on the task.
These are some different ways of forming groups and when you might like to to use each method: