Encourage students to rotate partners
Some teachers assign conversational partners or group for the term,and this has advantages ,such as students get to know each other better this way,and they can quickly get into their groups when asked to,easing transitions.However,there also are advantages to occasionally rotating partners or groups,perhaps every few weeks.In this way,students get to know more of their peers and get exposed to more ideas while still having the structure provided by having a stable group for a period of time.