What: Allowing small group work (usually two to three students in a group).

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How: Assign students to small groups to talk about structured questions, or complete tasks in a given timeframe. You might even want to assign roles in the group, depending on the task you are giving the students.

Why: This is an opportunity to engage every student in the class with clear structure and expectations. By having students work in small groups you are also using the same amount of class time to generate more unique ideas and perspectives that you can bring back into a large group discussion. When bringing back a large group discussion after students have been working in small groups, you might want to consider asking broader questions that ask students to synthesize the information, talk about themes, and talk across groups rather than repeat what they talked about already.