Chapter 6 Perceptions of Leadership and Collaboration
6.4 The Formation of Groups: “Now Quickly and Freely Group by Yourself”
as central values within collaborative activity. Thus, it is vital that teachers have a more explicit cognition of collaborative activity.
6.4 The Formation of Groups: “Now Quickly and Freely Group by
importance of purposefully valuing differences as the basis for group selection. This opens the possibility for a further and more explicit valuing of differences within the development of QOED.
6.4.2 Arbitrary, Randomised and Incidental: “Rock, Paper and Scissors”
While student groups can be formed by students themselves with little or no intervention by a teacher (Connerley & Mael, 2001), the formation of groups by QOED teachers generally involved some degree of teacher direction. In some instances, this involved the purposeful selection of groups according to how particular individuals might interact (which will be discussed in Section 6.5). In other instances, however, the formation of groups by teachers involved little or no rationalisation associated with the individuals selected.
A form of group selection found to be prevalent among the interviewees involved an adherence to existing lines of rows within the classroom. Emulating the standardised
arrangement of desks and chairs in rows and lines in classrooms in China, dance students are generally expected to form and stand in rows and lines in dance studios when called to attention. Such formations can support an authoritarian pedagogy, providing teachers with a sense that they have control over students and can maintain order in the learning environment (Oliver & Kostouros, 2014). These rows and lines also provide existing patterns that can be used to arbitrarily form subgroups within the class. Several of my interviewees described how they “group the students according to the rows”. In some cases, students were required to adhere to pre-allocated places in the formation. However, other interviewee teachers saw this as an opportunity to provide students with agency, as one explained, “Before I started
grouping, the students stood in four or five horizontal rows at random”. Another interviewee emphasised, “the students stand at will in separate rows. I do not stipulate where to stand.
There are just five people in each row”.
Based on these descriptions above, it seems that students have the opportunity to self-select or, at least, a chance to go through a random selection process. However, it can be assumed that due to the deeply ingrained hierarchies among students in dance education in China, particular students will feel certain entitlements and inhibitions, and choose where to position themselves based on their perceived dance abilities within the group (Liu, 2017). Students might also seek to sustain uniformity and form rows of equal measure, influenced by both the standardisation of classrooms and the wider collective culture in China (Oh, 2013).
Regardless of how students find their positions in the formation, the teacher nevertheless arbitrarily determines group allocation, deciding that either vertical rows or horizontal lines will form groups. This process may reinforce a belief that students are all equal and equally valuable within each group, removing a sense that the worst students are picked last or gathered in a separate group (Sharan & Sharan, 1992). The mathematical precision in forming groups in this way might also influence conformity of the group (Bond, 2005), as it reinforces to learners that there is no particular reason why they have been placed in this specific group, other than the fact that it aligns with a specific number. It could be argued that this system, where individual qualities do not serve as a rationale for grouping, perpetuates the perception that students are mere pawns in the teacher’s selection process.
Some interviewee teachers seek to distance themselves somewhat from the group selection process by engaging in more randomised approaches that nevertheless emphasise that the individual qualities of the learners are not relevant to the composition of the group (Nhan &
Nhan, 2019). One interviewee described how she used a “lucky draw” method to group students randomly:
I write five numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then mix the numbers together for the students to draw. All those who get 1 are the first group. The students who draw 2 are the second group.
This randomised approach can appear fair, as all the students have the same chance of being selected for any group and teacher favouritism appears less influential (Hilton &Phillips, 2010). This also ensures that no student will be excluded from a group or selected last (Nhan
& Nhan, 2019). However, such approaches to group formation have been critiqued, as they do not necessarily result in diverse interactions (Bacon et al., 2001) and may lead to low motivation, engagement and communication among the group members (Chapman et al., 2006).
Within research on small group tasks in education, student-led group selection is both encouraged (e.g., Bacon, et al., 2001; Chapman, et al., 2006) and discouraged (e.g., Hansen, 2006). Some interviewee teachers have therefore experimented with alternative approaches that enable a more incidental arrangement of students. In which case, for example, students participate in a self-selection process, either in terms of their groups or, at least, selecting an idea that appeals to them. One QOED teacher elucidated on how she incorporated this process into a creative task:
The students need to find a motive to start their creation. One day, I took an outdoor environmental dance class. I asked the students to find an area and also find a group of 4 to 6. I said, ‘you can choose any area to be your background. Then you choose a thing to interact with, such as sunshine, fallen leaves, tree shadow, water reflection. You have to interact with the environment, not just standing there and performing’. One group saw the fallen lotus and the willow tree on the opposite side of the river. They naturally choose a few people as the willow tree, and the others as the lotus. In this way, the students group themselves and make their own themes.
Here, the teacher sought to trigger the student’s intrinsic motivation through a performance- related task (see Lazaroff, 2001) that led to the formation of groups. By responding creatively to the environmental stimuli (see Wang, 2022), the students were prompted to cluster as an incidental result of environmental features that they found common interest in, rather than as a result of the particular people they wanted to work with. It can be assumed, however, that learners also looked to each other when making their selection; that is, they were guided more by who they wanted to be near than by the natural environment that attracted them.
Another interviewee teacher explained how she used a similar technique for forming student groups based on their own responses to a task:
I taught ‘Rock, Paper and Scissors’. When grouping, I said, ‘we have to divide into three groups, each group choose a shape you like, such as the rocks stand on this side, the scissors stand in the middle, the paper stand to my left, well, now quickly and freely group by yourself’. They each found their favourite characters and stood together. Some groups had more people. I said, ‘I suggest you go to the group with less people’. They automatically moved away.
In this activity, learners were incidentally assigned to teams based on the character they were interested in portraying in the production, rather than who they wanted to work with. Again, it can be assumed that learners tended to stick together throughout such a process, joining groups based on their existing peer relationships, not just their interest in the characters. This self-selection process can inevitably result in more homogeneous groups, as learners choose to be with individuals they are more, not less, familiar with.
It might also be observed that within a collective culture, learners tend to be influenced by the majority and so gather into groups with more people and avoid groups that are less populous (Zhang et al., 2007). So, in the above narrative, there were some groups with more people and one group with less. Moreover, when the teacher asked students to move to less populous
groups, “they automatically moved away”, suggesting that the teacher’s authority maintains a strong challenge to their own intentions (see Rowe & Xiong, 2020).
The process of students self-selecting through what appears to be a randomised process is more evident in the following narrative, as shared by another interviewed teacher:
I will use a small drum in the class. When I beat the drum, everyone can walk or jog at will, but not run. I would say a number plus a part of the body that had to touch. For example, ‘Three: Heads Together’, then they find three people together with their heads making shapes. Then I will list other body parts for these groups to touch, like hands or feet.
Similar to the processes described in the previous two narratives, this one provides students with significant agency in the formation of groups while maintaining a sense that their grouping is influenced by a force beyond simple self-selection. It can be seen as a
combination of student-selection and chance (Chapman et al., 2006), yet it is possible that student influence increases as they become more familiar with the grouping process. This blending of choice and chance can be valuable in preventing social tensions within the classrooms, where some learners may feel deliberately rejected or excluded by their friends who form groups without them. This process may also be useful in initiating creative decision making among the learners, as it entwines the formation of groups with processes of
physically creative invention (Shilcutt et al., 2020).
All of the above processes may be considered non-deliberate, as the teacher is not
rationalising a purposeful grouping of particular individuals. Such group selection processes might be critiqued for not providing the students with a sense that they were purposefully valued and gathered in a particular group for particular reasons. Instead these processes emphasise equality, and the idea that no individual is being deliberately valued or advantaged. These non-deliberate processes may therefore diminish the possibility of diversity, as students inevitably find pathways towards gathering in familiar groups. This tension between equality and diversity is exacerbated when teachers engage in processes of group selection that have far more purposeful rationalisations.
6.4.3 Purposefully Homogeneous: “The Principle of Proximity”
Teachers’ purposeful selection of groups can involve “homogeneous composition groups, and heterogeneous composition groups” (Nhan & Nhan, 2019, p. 4). Within a homogeneous grouping, learners are put together in a group because of their perceived similarities. While there may be varying rationalisations for this valuing of homogeneity, it can be argued that this process can inhibit the opportunity for differences to be encountered, valued and served as a basis for collective creative endeavours.
Among the interviewed teachers, there were several examples of teachers purposefully constructing homogeneous groups. In one context, the teacher selected students based on perceived similarities in the way that they danced:
Some will be divided into a group according to their similar creative movement styles.
If their style is very different, I do not put them into a group. That is, the principle of proximity. Some are random, some are similar.
While this teacher acknowledges that groups are sometimes formed randomly, the idea of intentionally assembling students based on their differences is not presented as a viable option. The teacher’s emphasis on “the principle of proximity” likely stems from a belief that a more homogeneous group can yield better learning outcomes (see Baer, 2003). The
overarching objective of homogeneous grouping seems to be geared towards achieving uniformity in the appearance of a dance, which can be justified by the goal of fostering greater conformity among learners (Oh, 2013). It can be assumed that when learners realise they have been intentionally grouped by the teacher based on their similarities, they may feel inclined to further refine those similarities, rather than exploring differences and embracing diversity within the group.
Other interviewee teachers had alternate reasons for constructing homogeneous groups. In the following reflection, the teacher’s consideration of the gendered dimension of the training regime presented a rationale for sometimes constructing groups based on gender. She explained,
There are boys and girls in our class. I will separate the boys into groups. For example, there are six boys in this class, so there is one boy in each group. Sometimes I will also put all the boys in one group, it is easy for them to practise teaching professional dance class.
While this teacher explains that she purposefully mixes genders by putting “one boy in each group”, it might be argued that this process can simply reinforce normative expectations of gender (Risner, 2009), such as expectations that the male student is there to do the male role of lifting the female students (Haltom & Worthen, 2014). It might also be argued that this process of evenly distributing the boys is designed to minimise the disruption of difference (by only having one boy in each group), and to make this distribution of difference
comparable within each group. This might therefore be seen as distinct from purposefully seeking to construct heterogeneous groups.
This teacher adds that, on other occasions, shepurposefully gathers the male students in one group, based on the perception that male and female technique classes are inevitably divided by gender, and so this makes it easier for the male students to practise teaching other male students. While this approach is not necessarily designed for a collaborative task, appearing to be more associated with cooperative learning (see Section 2.3) and the refining of a particular technique, it nevertheless values peer-learning relationships based on a desire to reinforce normative assumptions about dance and not to purposefully discover and value differences through group work.
Another interviewee proposed that, if allowed to engage in their own group selection, learners would seek to construct homogeneous groups based on the quality of learners in the group. She considered this process to have value, as it might contribute to smooth
engagement within the group, as students tend to feel ease, comfort and trust working in the group they chose for themselves (Hilton & Phillips, 2010). While her narrative does not describe a teacher’s process of selecting homogenous groups, it nevertheless reveals how teachers can perceive the homogenisation process. As she illustrated,
Some students group themselves together because they feel that they are better and have an advantage over others. They may be the top students in the class with good skills, and so they want to be together. They feel that being together can ensure the quality of their group. This will suggest that other students are relatively weak: they are not good at using their bodies, or their physical condition and image are not good, so they are not so confident. These people will then be together, forming a
polarisation. This situation makes the students feel that one group is quite strong, while their own group is very weak.
However, the group’s assumption about their advantages is not necessarily true, and the other group’s assumption about their weakness is not necessarily true. When the
works of all groups are put together, the group with the better students may not necessarily be the best because I believe that new ideas are the most important thing in this class, rather than who has the best body.
So to stop this phenomenon, in the class all students need to be grouped and matched fairly. The teacher needs to do this. It’s not because you have a particularly good body that I will put more efforts on you. It’s not because you wear a thousand-degree myopia glasses and are average looking, that I won’t pay attention to you. Teachers should pay equal attention. At the same time, when grouping, fairness should be considered.
This teacher presents a criticism of the construction of homogenous groups, identifying that the supposed basis for the homogeneity (being a better or weaker student) does not
necessarily manifest in a better or weaker outcome from the group’s activities. Concerned about maintaining equality among the groups, she provides guidance on how to manage the phenomenon of “strong” student groups and “weak” groups, emphasising the teacher’s role in giving equal attention to groups comprised of students who are “average looking”. Her
questioning of this selection process does not necessarily involve criticising the concept of homogeneous groups itself, but rather highlights the teacher’s responsibility to not be biased in favour of only supporting the “better” students. With a good/bad binary view of learners, she envisages the answer as equitable management by the teacher. Yet it is the categorisation itself that is problematic; it needs to be disassembled entirely so that a sense of peer-equality might actually emerge among the learners. The idea of valuing differences and considering diversity as a valuable source of creative ideas is not presented as a rationale for critiquing the student-led process of clustering in apparently similar groups.
These interviewee reflections illustrate how the deliberate intention to form various types of homogeneous groups can be rationalised for different purposes. However, through these rationalisations, the process of homogeneous selection further reinforces expectations of conformity among students in group work, impeding the valuing of differences and hindering the flourishing of diversity.
6.4.4 Purposefully Heterogenous: “Based on Their Strengths”
Within heterogenous groupings, learners are purposefully grouped based on their perceived differences (Baer, 2003; Nhan & Nhan, 2019). This process of group selection aligns with current theories associated with the valuing of diversity within collaborative endeavours (see
Section 2.3), and so might be considered a valuable approach for QOED teachers. The educational purpose behind such heterogenous grouping can be significant however, as simply emulating the process of heterogenous grouping may not have the intended outcomes if the rationalisation for the grouping remains aligned with past educational purposes (see Sections 2.5 and 2.6). As the following narratives illustrate, these educational purposes can actually seek to support the maintenance of conformity and hierarchies.
For some of my interviewees, the purpose of mixing groups was clearly to allow the qualities of good students to compensate for the deficits of other students. This might be seen as lending support to the educational rationale shared by the teacher in the final narrative presented in Section 6.4.3: that there are good and bad students; mixing them together allows for a greater sense of balance and provides an opportunity for the supposedly weaker students to learn from the better students. In some instances, this related to the perceived contrasts in the students’ dance abilities and physical appearances. It also extended, however, to what were considered to be deficits within their personalities. One teacher explained,
It is very important to match the students’ personalities in groups. For example, some students are reluctant to express and are introverted; some students are very active, so I will not put two introverts who are very reluctant to talk in one group. If I put them together, the efficiency of this work is very low. I usually use a student who can express and dare to express to motivate the introverted students.
In this reflection, learners identified as introverts are seen as less capable of engaging in collaborative activity and in need of the motivation provided by more extroverted learners.
This perspective might be seen as emphasising productivity and efficiency, with the need for learners to rapidly generate new ideas. It assumes, however, that introversion is an internal problem caused by a personal deficiency, rather than a phenomenon that might be a response to the environment. It could be argued that introverted students feel discomfort expressing their ideas in response to other students dominating the conversation, and this spirals these students into less and less willingness to share their ideas (Antonenko, 2014). Alternatively, their response could be read as an acceptance of a social hierarchy that assumes the quieter student should follow the louder student. This has led some theorists to argue that groups composed of introverted and extroverted people is less likely to be efficient (Zhang et al., 2021), while others maintain that mixing different student personalities in a group will improve the group’s performance (Freeman et al., 2014).