Most, if not all, trainers, including me, started their careers following an ineffective, outdated instructional approach where they lecture their learners and quiz them afterwards on the content of their lecture.  Whatever learning is attained from this approach, it’s attained passively, not actively, which results in low memory retention and rapid skill decay.

Fortunately, it does not take new trainers long to realize that this approach is not the most effective, to say the least.  Trainers start researching learning theories and seek professional-development opportunities to give up this sage-on-the-stage approach and start creating active-learning opportunities for their trainees.

Groupwork is the solution?

Active-learning opportunities can be created using many methods and approaches.  However, for some reason, it seems that groupwork is the exclusive approach followed by most to create active-learning opportunities and learner-centered environments.

Similar to other instructional strategies, groupwork has advantages and disadvantages that must be weighed when designing instruction.  Groupwork may, and may not, be the best available solution.

While groupwork can be useful in supporting social learning and preparing learners for real-life situations, among other desirable benefits, it also has significant disadvantages.

For example, most of the time, group members divide learning workload among themselves.  Even if the division of workload is fair, less effort equals less learning.  This disadvantage is exacerbated in the presence of free riders among group members.  Moreover, the bliss of social learning can sometimes become a continuous-conflict misery that can jeopardize learning objectives.

Groupwork is a solution.

This article does not aim at demonizing groupwork and its important role in some instructional areas.  Rather, it criticizes discounting other sound solutions that can be a better fit for certain instructional challenges.

Independent work

Independent learning is equally important to group learning.  For certain learning objectives, it can be the optimal instructional solution.

It is especially useful in achieving skill-acquisition, memory retention, problem-solving, and cognitive-reasoning objectives.  It is also useful in cognition-demanding topics, such as math, programming, science, and language acquisition.