Chapter 6 Perceptions of Leadership and Collaboration
6.2 The Educational Purpose of Group Work: “My Teaching Style is Not Suitable for Everyone”
6.2.1 Introduction
The initial goal of my thesis was to examine how QOED teachers were actively growing collaborative mindsets within tertiary dance programmes in China so as to guide more teachers towards this aspiration. After reviewing the literature on creativity and collaboration and engaging in my field research, I was disappointed to find that the QOED teachers’
general understanding of collaboration did not align with international theories, and that much of their practice seemed to instead perpetuate former teaching attitudes, albeit within new educational activities and seemingly less authoritarian teacher-student relationships. This was particularly the case within group tasks.
Small, independent group tasks have become pervasive across the world as a means of growing a learner’s ability to effectively collaborate (Hesse et al., 2015). This generally involves teachers presenting learners with an assignment (which may or may not be formerly assessed), which they have to work on together in small groups independent of the teacher’s guidance (Cohen & Lotan, 2014). As collaborative tasks, the learners are expected to come up with innovative solutions or products that emerge from the combined creativity of the group. In alignment with the goal of enhancing collaboration, small group tasks have become a central component of QOED classes, as well as within other classes in the tertiary dance curricula. Through small and large assignments, teachers prompt learners to work together to generate an innovative outcome.
As the following interview reflections reveal however, my interviewee teachers engaged with small group tasks in QOED and in the different courses that they taught across the
curriculum, with varying purposes. These notably extended former processes of cooperative learning, in which learners study together to enhance their shared skills and understandings of the knowledge (Slavin, 1995), and cooperative tasks, in which learners subdivide a larger shared project into smaller parts to undertake individually (Rowe, 2020). I first illustrate how they perceive group tasks as a location for cooperative learning, then show the ways that they consider learning to cooperate (with a clear division of labour and a product-oriented
decision-making hierarchy) provides a rationale for setting group tasks. It might be argued that perceptions of differing purposes for small groups subsequently inform the ways that they value equity and diversity within small group tasks in QOED (which I will examine in Sections 6.4 and 6.5).
6.2.2 Cooperative Learning: “Divide the Big Goal Into Small Goals”
Among my interviewees’ reflections on how and why they set up small independent group tasks within their classes, a key theme that emerged was the desire to engage in peer-
supported learning, or what has been described as cooperative learning (Slavin, 1995). Within this process, students function as co-teachers in small groups to support the learning of their peers (Agrawal et al., 2014; Heller et al., 1992). Tasking students to teach each other was particularly common within their other courses, such as folk dance and Chinese classical dance.
This can lead to teachers questioning their role and purpose of education. The following interview excerpt shows how a teacher found that cooperative learning addressed what she perceived to be her deficits as a teacher. This relates to the idea that the purpose of education is for learners to be able to achieve mastery in a particular skill. As the interviewee teacher explained, the method for achieving this mastery required diversifying who was providing the instruction:
This semester’s course is the water sleeve dance, which represents the culture of Sichuan [shuixiu水袖; water sleeves is a form of cultural dance that involves moving whilst wearing sleeves that extend at least 1.5 metres longer than the arms. The technique for this dance requires that dances sustain the momentum of the movement through the sleeves]. Learning sleeves is troublesome and needs a lot of practice. My experience tells me that my teaching style is not necessarily suitable for everyone, so I divided 20 people into 5 groups. There are many components of the sleeve-receiving technique. If these individual components can be done well, the assessment
requirements are met. I said, ‘Your group can divide the big goal into small goals and discuss a small goal in your group. Then in 30 minutes, your group only needs to achieve this small goal.’ There was one very quiet group. I wanted to help but they did not speak. In the end, I found that I had not explained the small goal clearly enough.
This teacher acknowledged that the main function of the small group task was cooperative learning, in which small groups were formed to allow students to learn and refine certain skills, in this case mainly through repetition. She did however sustain a collaborative dimension to this task, as the groups were expected to deliberate on how the dance might be deconstructed so as to allow particular components to be focused on within the learning process. In doing so, the learners were engaged in collaboratively designing a lesson plan, a creative skill that they might later need as teachers.
This teacher noted, however, that this particular dimension of the task presented too big a challenge for one group, who were more used to following the specific directions of the teacher;
when given a particular group-decision making task, they were uncertain how to act. This emphasises the significance of scaffolding collaborative activities: learners who are used to a more instructional or authoritarian pedagogical culture can effectively transition into a more collaborative learning process (Rowe et al., 2021). For this teacher however, the learners’
confusion led her to the conclusion that small group tasks can require more specific and deliberate instruction, rather than a development of skills in how to make collective choices.
This suggests the ways in which assumptions about the functioning of small group tasks in one context (cooperative learning) may influence the ways that teachers approach the fostering of more autonomous peer relationships and dialogues within the process of learning to collaborate.
6.2.3 Learning to Cooperate: “Assign the Roles”
My interviewee reflections also contained many examples of how they taught cooperative approaches to the small group work. As discussed in Section 2.3.4, cooperation is distinct from collaboration: it does not necessarily involve innovation and shared decision-making, and therefore does not require equity and diversity. Humans have cooperated for millennia in diverse ways, often in very hierarchical social organisations, such as when building pyramids or working in automobile assembly lines. In such contexts, leadership and decision-making is often centralised, communication is often directive rather than dialogic and individuals can be assigned component tasks, without necessarily conceptualising the entirety of the project.
This contrasts with processes of collaboration, in which collaborators are expected to have a
“collective intentionality” (Frith, 2012, p. 2220), and engage in ongoing processes of dialogue and shared decision-making.
As apparent from the following excerpt, this process of learning to cooperate can involve an instructional pedagogic approach: the teacher pre-determines the separate tasks to be done by different individuals, and identifies the necessity for a leader to oversee this division of labour and the completion of the overall project (a theme that will be examined further in Section 6.3). As the interviewee teacher explained, the set task requires learners to design and implement a lesson plan, as trainee teachers:
There will be 5 groups in my class. I will give a topic to each group, and then six students in a group will prepare the content of their teaching class, outside of my class over a week. I will stipulate that some of these six are looking for music and props, one is the main teacher and some are teaching assistants. But they assign the roles by themselves. With the teaching plan they prepared, they will teach two groups of students, and the other two groups will observe the class. This is called ‘moniketang’
[模拟课堂; simulation class].… My purpose is to exercise the student’s ability to teach cooperatively.
This teacher notably referred to the aim of this group task as learning how to “teach
cooperatively”. Within such task, students are required to engage in independent learning or self-regulated learning (Meyer et al., 2008), in this case within a collective context (Bolhuis
& Voeten, 2001). The teacher divided the tasks for the group members by suggesting different roles, and students were expected to complete their individual tasks according to their role, in a manner that complements the other roles so that they can then combine their efforts together to make one teaching plan. While the students “assign the roles by
themselves” and work out the teaching plan after class, the teacher’s instruction nevertheless promotes learners to conform to a fixed model for team-based activity (see Oh, 2013). While individual learners may experience autonomy within the context of how they undertake their specific task, the overall project involves a clear hierarchy in which one student functions as the group leader.
This interviewee went on to describe the second component of the small group task, which involves presentation to peers for peer feedback. Here, other students assess the teaching group while they are teaching in class, which is “a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes” (McManus, 2008, p. 3). In the group work, the formative assessment is completed by students through observation of the teaching group’s teaching.
In this simulation class, students evaluate each other. I let the students who attend the simulation class and who observe the class make comments on the group who teaches the simulation class. I will give the students who observe the class a feedback form to fill. They will make comments on the problems of the class. For example, how is the main teacher’s language expression ability? Do their words make sense? Is the structure of the class good or bad?
Within this aspect of the task, it appears the emphasis is on effective implementation of general pedagogical knowledge and the “principles and strategies of classroom management”
(Guerriero, 2017, p. 104). This underscores the goal of the task as a shared development of knowledge and skills in pedagogy, rather than a process of collectively innovating in classroom design. The teacher’s emphasis on judging structure as “good” or “bad” suggests that the small group’s decisions should be made based on an optimum postulate (discussed further in Section 6.5). Again, this emphasises that the group work is being assessed against standardised criteria, that the group should conform to.
This peer-review process also positions this small group task in the area of cooperative learning, as learners from beyond the group undertake roles as co-teachers within the
assessment process. This can, however, also push learners into more negative states of social interdependence (Johnson & Johnson, 2009), as their groups may be seen as competing with each other. Another interviewee recalled how a similar small-group teaching simulation in her class involved more direct challenges between student groups:
I remembered a stimulation teaching class where a student asked the student-teacher,
‘teacher, what is a four-dimension space?’ The main teacher did not know how to explain the sudden question. Then the teaching assistants started to Baidu (online search) the answer on their phones. The main student teacher felt very awkward. The class could not go on. Then the teaching assistant said to the student who asked the question, ‘Could you not ask this kind of question?’ They did not answer the question.
They taught the rest of the classes according to their teaching plan. When they finished teaching, I made comments for the class and pointed out some problems. I said, ‘What you cannot answer in class is a failing. You should learn it after class.
You did not prepare enough. You did not prepare well for the basic concept, so you will have this situation in the class’.
Here, the teacher presented a more didactic expectation of the outcomes of the small group task, and a clear sense that the learners were having their competence measured against predetermined criteria for knowledge and skills. This contrasts with an expectation that the student-teachers engage in collaborative design of an innovative class structure. The
cooperative learning dimension (with classroom peers acting as students) does not appear to have been undertaken with the intention of co-constructing understandings of pedagogy, but instead served to ‘catch out’ bad practices. The teacher’s response, and determination that the group were ‘failing’, further emphasises this competitive purpose within the development of peer relations.
The activities reflected on in such small group tasks might therefore be seen as particularly distinct from a collaborative process in which small groups are formed so as to collectively innovate and share in decision-making processes. Along with other narratives from my interviewees, these stories indicate that the QOED teachers are familiar with cooperative learning and cooperative models within group activities. They also indicate how such small group tasks might maintain an instructive and authoritarian pedagogy. Moreover, my
interviewees did not express a recognition of diverse purposes for small group tasks. In their narratives, more collaborative ways of working were not clearly distinguished from these cooperative models. This matters because these different mandates for small group tasks can present significant contrasts in educational purpose, and an absence of clarity in this regard
might therefore impact the ways that these teachers approach collaborative tasks within QOED.
6.2.4 Learning Collective Productivity: “It Was a Mess”
My interviewees further rationalised small group tasks in terms of the need to evidence productivity. These narratives generally connected to the production of dance performances, for competitions and end of year shows, in which groups of learners were expected to cooperate so as to achieve a collective outcome. As one interviewee stated, “The students need to do one show together”, and the emphasis on their collective efforts did not so much relate to their learning, but to the value of the performance as a final product. In this sense, the value of the collective work was being measured in terms of how others beyond the classroom, and the institution, might value the creative product as a creative product, rather than as an outcome of learning.
This presented a significant dilemma for some teachers, who were concerned about the reputational damage that might emerge from the autonomy given to students in such small group tasks. This led them to be particularly critical of the group works of students, and expressed concern over how the presentation of these outcomes would reflect on their competence as a teacher. As one interviewee reflected,
When they danced on the stage, it was a mess. I could see that they did not practice.
They did not rehearse before the report. They did not engage in a fine polishing process but just performed directly in public…. Their presentation was a bit like just ticking the box.
This further points to the dilemma faced by my interviewees in terms of the ways they conceive of group work—perhaps particularly in the case of dance teachers, as the learning outcomes can be very visible to others beyond the classroom. It ultimately may lead teachers to consider the quality of the product that students develop through group work as being of more significance than the learning that is taking place within the group through the collaborative activity. This may prompt teachers to both restrict the autonomy of students working in groups, and further prompt learners into a seemingly more efficient mode of cooperative productivity, rather than collaborative innovation.
It is also possible to see how this performance/product-oriented mindset transfers beyond dance performance contexts within the curriculum. Another interviewee reflected on how they manage a similar production process through small group tasks in an education class In order to conduct a report at the end of the semester, I chose a student’s teaching plan as an example of all students’ teaching plans to display. To teach this plan, the whole class needs to cooperate.
Within this process, individual learners compete to present the best teaching plan and, once this is selected by the teacher, all other learners are required to emulate this and practically implement it as part of an examination process. This is rationalised as a cooperative learning process, as learners review each other’s plans and thereby learn from each other, and as an equitable examination process, as all of the learners’ teaching practices are being measured against a consistent teaching plan. This rationale may be seen as extending from the
examination system for dance education in China, in which students are required to present their learning individually and collectively at the end of the semester (Liu, 2018; Yu & Gu, 1994; Zhang, 2020). A competitive mindset is promoted in this examination system, where a
“top-notch” (Ma & Zhou, 2022) student/plan will be selected. While this teacher did not specifically refer to a top-notch plan but chose one plan “as an example” to display, we might presume that this comparative selection process inevitably prompts a competitive mindset among learners. As the students’ teaching process is observed by the classroom teacher’s peers, it might also be assumed that the teacher will want to evidence a high quality lesson plan design “product”, for the same reasons that dance performance teachers consider student performances a reflection on their competence as a teacher/producer.
Of note for this thesis, this perception of the value of peer-learning and small group tasks can be seen shifting the educational purpose for small group tasks further away from an
educational purpose focused on developing effective collaborators. As the learning outcome from group tasks becomes increasingly valued as a visible product of a standards-based form of education, it might be assumed that traditional educational values associated with
hierarchy and conformity remain entrenched.
6.2.5 Conclusion
In my interviews, the QOED teachers did not distinguish between forms, purposes and processes of small group tasks or peer-learner relationships. They did not articulate an
awareness of the differences between cooperative and collaborative ways of working in small groups, between cooperative learning and learning to cooperate or between the learning process and the product that emerged from the small group learning activity. This generalised conflation of ideas associated with the functions and expectations of small group tasks is not unusual among tertiary teachers, as teachers in diverse disciplines around the world have struggled to clarify varied dimensions of student group work (Hesse et al., 2015). This ambiguity over the complex diversity of small group tasks and peer-learner relationships is nevertheless noteworthy in the context of this thesis however, as one of the key goals of QOED is to purposefully shift educational practices associated with dance.
This supports the argument that an explicit metacognition of collaboration is a foundational need for those seeking to teach collaboration within the curriculum (Frith, 2012; Hesse et al, 2015; Rowe et al, 2021). While teachers may possess a tacit or implicit understanding of how diverse forms of peer relationships can be valuable in different contexts, and diverse
functions of small groups can be valuable to achieve different goals, this may not be sufficient when seeking to rationalise the value of collaboration, and therefore the value of equity and diversity, within a learning activity. As the following sections of this chapter illustrate, the absence of clarity can lead to further assumptions regarding the relevance of diversity and equity within collaborative learning activities.