Small Group Learning

Small Group Learning

Assign one person in your group to be the facilitator.
Choose a topic to discuss. Topic information sheets have been provided in your folder.
Once everyone has read the agreed upon topic, the facilitator will start the discussion.
Facilitators, please refer to the ‘ground rules’ before starting. Please end the discussion after 10 minutes have passed.

As a group, take the next 5 minutes to list the strengths and weaknesses of small group learning and teaching. Be prepared to share.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Keeping the four steps of facilitating a small group in mind…

Assign one person in your group to be the facilitator.
Choose a topic to discuss. Topic information sheets have been provided in your folder.
Once everyone has read the agreed upon topic, the facilitator will start the discussion.
Facilitators, please refer to the ‘ground rules’ before starting. Please end the discussion after ten minutes have passed.

Question Types to Use During Small Group Learning

Convergent / Has only one correct answer. Tests rote knowledge of concrete facts.
Divergent / Questions with no right or wrong answers, but which encourage exploration of possibilities. Requires both concrete and abstract thinking to arrive at an appropriate response.
Open / Tend to elicit longer answers. Usually begin with what, why, how. Asks the respondent for his or her knowledge, opinion or feelings. "Tell me" and "describe" can also be used.
Probing / Require respondents to go beyond the first response. Subsequent facilitator questions are formed on the basis of the student's response. Several sub-types of this type of question.

Leading Small Group Discussion:

Diagnose the Personality Type

Personality / Behaviors / Motivations / Intervention
The rescuer
/ Apologize, defend, interpret for others.
Explain away their own and other people's feelings.
Get frustrated or frightened by conflict.
Protect others to avoid conflict.
Preface statements with phrases like:
"I think what she really meant was...".
"You shouldn't feel that way because...".
"You shouldn't say that to Sam because he may take it the wrong way." / Keep the peace and
conflict avoidance. / "I'm aware that you are speaking for Alice. What I suggest is that you let Alice speak for herself.”
“I would prefer that people speak for themselves.”
"You seemed uncomfortable when Joe got angry. Is it true?"
The projector
/ Although they appear to be speaking for other people, they are actually speaking for themselves.
You can recognize them because they either talk in generalities or talk about other people.
They rarely make statements for themselves. / Feelings individuals tend to project are those they are most uncomfortable with. / "You've just made a statement for the group. Is that statement true for you?"
"I'm wondering if that is really the way you feel. Let's check out whether other people are really experiencing the feelings you are attributing to them.”
The space cadet
/ Seems to be in another world.
Often "tunes out," misses directions, or just does not seem to grasp the material.
Play dumb, rather than admit their attention is elsewhere.
Ask leaders to repeat directions.
Their investment in the group seems low. When asked for an opinion, they often respond by saying, "I don't care" or "Whatever you want" or "It makes no difference to me."
During the group, they often have blank expressions on their face. / Not interested or engaged with the material. Could be from a lack of knowledge. / "You seem to be distracted right now. Is there something on your mind?"
If they seem reluctant to give their opinion or to make a choice, force them to choose. Say, "Even though you don't have much of a preference, please make a choice anyway."
The withdrawer
/ Sits quietly in the group, looks miserable.
Calls attention by looking pained, blank, or even disgusted.
Group is generally aware of this person's feelings even though he or she is quiet.
Facial expression clearly communicates displeasure, but the rest of the body gestures are quite still and withdrawn.
Other members of the group generally feel awkward when they notice this person's quiet, but obvious discomfort. / Annoyance, displeasure with group or material or something entirely separate from the activity. / "Is there something about what we are doing that is not of interest to you?"
"Susan, why don't you take this opportunity, while we are evaluating this segment of the class, to express your feelings and thoughts; you seem to be displeased."
"I encourage you to express your point of view. Perhaps you can influence what we are currently doing."
The monopolizer
/ Takes up a great amount of time in the group.
Other group members may begin to withdraw rather than fight for the right to speak.
A poor listener who usually manages to turn the conversation back to himself or herself.
People exhibiting this behavior are often long-winded and tend to interrupt others to state a personal opinion or relate an experience.
Seems unaware that there are other people who might want to speak. Almost always when there is a pause in the conversation, he or she jumps right in, attempting to relate personally to the topic. / Narcissism, genuine understanding and interest in material, or insecurity. / "We have been hearing primarily from one or two people. I'm interested in hearing from the rest of you."
"Notice your style of participation. Have you been primarily a listener or a talker in this class? Practice exhibiting the opposite behavior, and see what new things you can learn."
"You have made some interesting comments. Now I would like you to give some other people an opportunity to speak."

Topic Information Sheet

After reading the following excerpt from an AAP article by C. Healy titled, “How to Communicate With Vaccine-Hesitant Parents”, discuss the following:

Is it moral for a physician to refuse to see a child in his or her practice if the child has not been vaccinated due to a parental choice NOT to vaccinate?

Development of safe and effective vaccines is one the greatest medical triumphs. However, despite high immunization rates in the United States, 85% of health care providers (HCPs) will have a parent refuse a vaccine for his or her child each year. HCPs have the greatest influence on a parent's decision to vaccinate his or her child. To effectively communicate with vaccine-hesitant parents, HCPs must first understand the concerns of parents regarding immunization and understand influences that can lead to misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. HCPs should establish an open, non-confrontational dialogue with vaccine-hesitant parents at an early stage and provide unambiguous, easily comprehensible answers about known vaccine adverse events and provide accurate information about vaccination. Personal stories and visual images of patients and parents affected by vaccine-preventable diseases and reports of disease outbreaks serve as useful reminders of the need to maintain high immunization rates. Ongoing dialogue including provider recommendations may successfully reassure vaccine-hesitant parents that immunization is the best and safest option for their child.

…Contemporary studies have revealed that unvaccinated children are more likely to be white, have parents with higher levels of education and higher salaries, and have a mother who is married and lives in a state that allows philosophical exemption from school immunization laws, whereas under-immunized children often have characteristics that reflect social and economic inequalities rather than true vaccine skepticism.

…Although parental vaccine concerns vary according to knowledge and personal experience, the underlying premise remains remarkably constant: fear that vaccines (and/or their additives) are unsafe, will give the immunized person the infection against which they are designed to protect, or that somehow getting the “natural” disease is healthier.

…Parents (and HCPs) also may have a tendency to selectively grade individual diseases in terms of their importance; studies have revealed, for example, that some parents are skeptical of the need for varicella vaccine.

Some parents worry about the number of injections a child may receive at a single visit, and others are concerned that the immune system is “overloaded,” a view that has been refuted scientifically.

Topic Information Sheet

Please start a discussion after reading excerpts from the below article written by a trauma nurse.

The Human Cost of the Second Amendment

Wisconsin, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine. We all know these place names and what happened there. By the time this column appears, there may well be a new locale to add to the list. Such is the state of enabled and murderous mayhem in the United States…

…Every day 80 Americans die from gunshots and an additional 120 are wounded, according to a 2006 article in The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Those 80 Americans left their homes in the morning and went to work, or to school, or to a movie, or for a walk in their own neighborhood, and never returned. Whether they were dead on arrival or died later on in the hospital, 80 people’s normal day ended on a slab in the morgue, and there’s nothing any of us can do to get those people back….

…Gun advocates say that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The truth, though, is that people with guns kill people, often very efficiently, as we saw so clearly and so often this summer. And while there can be no argument that the right to bear arms is written into the Constitution, we cannot keep pretending that this right is somehow without limit, even as we place reasonable limits on arguably more valuable rights like the freedom of speech and due process.

…No one argues that it should be legal to shout “fire” in a crowded theater; we accept this limit on our right to speak freely because of its obvious real-world consequences. Likewise, we need to stop talking about gun rights in America as if they have no wrenching real-world effects when every day 80 Americans, their friends, families and loved ones, learn they obviously and tragically do.

…So I have a request for proponents of unlimited access to guns. Spend some time in a trauma center and see the victims of gun violence — the lucky survivors — as they come in bloody and terrified. Understand that our country’s blind embrace of gun rights made this violent tableau possible, and that it’s playing out each day in hospitals and morgues all over the country.

Topic Information Sheet

Are social networking sites good for our society?

(Borrowed from the website: Socialnetworking.procon.org)

The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2009. Many users say the sites are good for our society, but others contend that the dangers of social media outweigh the benefits.
Proponents of social networking sites argue that these online communities promote increased communication with friends and family, familiarize people with valuable computer skills, and allow contact with people from around the world.
Opponents argue that social networking sites expose children to predators, increase vulnerability to computer viruses, lower worker productivity, and promote narcissism and short attention spans.

43% of online sexual solicitors were identified as being adolescents (under 18), 30% were adults between the ages of 18 and 21, and 9% were adults over the age of 21 (as of Dec. 31, 2008).

Social networking and blogging sites accounted for 17% of all time spent on the internet in Aug. 2009, nearly three times as much as in 2008.

Twitter was so important to the Iranian protests after the Iranian presidential election in June 2009 that the US State Department asked Twitter to delay a scheduled network upgrade that would have taken the website offline at a busy time of day in Iran. Twitter complied and rescheduled the downtime to 1:30 am Tehran time.

On Nov. 3, 2008, the day before the US presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102 Facebook supporters while Republican candidate John McCain had 620,359. Obama had 833,161 MySpace friends and McCain had 217,811. Obama had 384% more Facebook supporters and 383% more MySpace friends than McCain.

Russians spend more time on social networking sites than people in any other country, an average of 6.6 hours per month compared to the worldwide average of 3.7 hours per month.

Topic Information Sheet

With Armstrong's disgrace, will anything change?

(Borrowed from CNN.com headlines)

Now that Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner, has been thoroughly disgraced, one must ask: Has anyone learned anything?

This day of Armstrong's disgrace has been coming for some time. It would undoubtedly have come sooner but for the fact that the United States is arguably the most litigious country in the world. In order to make its statements regarding Armstrong, the U.S. anti-doping agency had to be more than certain of its facts. That takes time and careful research. There had been too much smoke for too long for unbiased observers not to believe that there must be some fire, as well. What they perhaps did not expect was the resulting conflagration.

You can intimidate some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Some who would have been willing to talk about Armstrong could not afford to defend against actual or threatened lawsuits. Some needed the jobs they had, which would be at risk or disappear if Armstrong wanted that to happen. Others were not willing to risk the harassment and abuse that came from crossing him.

The cheating involved was highly organized, well financed and well coordinated. It was not simply a few athletes trying to get an edge by surreptitious use of banned substances. Instead it was an essential part of the USPS team strategy, and it involved participants in several countries, all working to achieve better competitive results by deliberately breaking agreed upon rules at the expense of athletes who competed clean.

The Armstrong and USPS revelations are so well documented that the cycling union officials have an all but insurmountable challenge if they seek to deny them or to try to sweep them under the carpet. Some of the claims in the report raise questions about whether there was involvement or awareness of the part of the union itself. What will the union do about that? A tougher question yet is whether they can credibly believe that the USPS team was the only team in the peloton that used drugs.

5. But the real question is how -- how? -- could the leading cycling officials, those most familiar with the sport and its riders, not have been aware of the nature and extent to which their sport was compromised?