Giving Compass' Take:

• Collaboration in schools is not only an effective way to build lifelong skills, but it is also a successful way to achieve individual goals, according to The Hechinger Report. 

• How does group work in classrooms affect academic success for black students? In what ways can nonprofits and policymakers in the education sector support such initiatives?

• Learn how group work is helping students better understand math.

When I first became an education journalist back in 2011, there was a lot of talk about individualized instruction, particularly by using educational software to tailor subjects for each student. I visited many elementary and middle schools where students, with bulging headphones wrapped over their heads, stared at separate computers, each learning something different at the same moment.  Some were reviewing topics they should have mastered years ago. Others were jumping ahead to concepts that were grade levels ahead of what they would traditionally be learning.

Along with this rise in high-tech individualized — or personalized learning as it often called — there has also been a backlash. Critics argued that it isn’t good for students to be learning in isolation and that learning is a social activity not only between student and teacher but among students. At the same time, education experts have been injecting new energy into so-called collaborative learning, where students learn together in small groups, often producing projects together. Its advocates argue that group work like this helps kids learn the social skills that are necessary to solve problems in the modern workplace.

Now, a new study out by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a nonprofit research firm, makes the argument that collaborative, group learning might actually serve each student’s individual academic needs quite well. In a study of almost 900 high school students at four different schools, the researchers found that the more high-quality collaborative learning experiences students had at school, the more that the students said they felt their personal learning needs were met and that they were adequately challenged and supported when they needed help.

Read the full article about working in a group by Jill Barshay at The Hechinger Report.