GROUP WORK

Hazel B. Paclar
BEED SPED 2x3
"EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY"
GROUP WORK

INTRODUCTION
Group work is practiced in many schools around the world. Many authors have made a lot of definitions about what Group work means and what it involves. This paper contains the description and analysis of the group learning process, my experiences in the involvement of a group work , synthesis of readings and researches, and a reflection with regards to group work and learning community. The basic ingredient of group work to be successful lies within the cooperation of each members of a group. To learn cooperatively is the basic objective of the group work. It is much accepted nowadays that group work is indeed effective than self study. You can gain lots of ideas and knowledge because group work is doing a task at hand with the cooperation and collaboration of all of the members of the entire group. They help each other hand in hand and also, they learn from each other. With group work that mixed with collaboration, the task to be done become much simpler, easier and faster than doing it alone. In this way, I can impart my experiences and also, to make my readers know how amusing to be a part of a group work.
WHAT IS GROUP WORK AND HOW IT FACILITATES LEARNING?
(Wikipedia foundation,Inc.,2010) defines Group work as a "form of cooperative learning. It aims to cater for individual differences, develop students' knowledge, generic skills (e.g. communication skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking skills) and attitudes". This means that group work is done cooperatively and it considers the differences of individuals that will develop their own field of strengths in the different areas of learning. By doing a group task, members of the group do their very best to help one another and by completing the task together. By means of doing group work, Collaboration is the very essential part of the group learning process. (Scott London,2010) says Collaboration "is to work together"(Para. 6). Without collaboration of the members, group work isn't possible to exist effectively. It depends on the members on how they lend a hand to each other in order for the group work to be successful. It is said that learning with others is more effective than learning with self activity. Self activity is also very important because you learn from your own effort without the help of others yet the learning that will arise is just limited unlike learning with others because learning with others can widen up every perspective of the members and from one idea to another, they can foresee and can make another idea from the previous idea that is presented. Meaning, with group work, learning is continuous.

I, AS A MEMBER OF A GROUP WORK
(A description and analysis of the group learning process)
I became part of a group work in which I myself is actively participating. Together with my colleagues, we are asked to do a task in which we are about to design our own learning community. To know the task, I wasn't able to be nervous at all since what's on my mind is that the task will definitely be easy if we, in our group just cooperate. Our learning community is about Educational Arts. We intend to make this our subject because we want to design a learning community that both learning and arts resides. For us, the designers of this site has the aim to help individuals cope up with learning through different categories of arts which best interests them. (e.g., Photography, Drama, Painting, Drawing, Handicrafts, Architecture, Dance, Drama, Music, and many others.). (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010) defines arts as modes of expression that use skill or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others (Para. 1). This means that arts is something that results from our imaginations, the different expressions of our feelings for which comes from our senses. In this, we want to let the members of the community learn through the form of arts. While they learn, they also develop their creativity skills and be able to enjoy what they are doing.

SYNTHESIS OF READINGS AND RESEARCHES
(Wikipedia foundation,Inc.,2010) defines Educational Technology as the integrating of Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, and other types of interactive technologies into the classroom to engage students and enhance the learning experience(Para. 1). Meaning, Educational technology is learning with the use of technology. There are lots of things that I had learned in Educational Technology. It doesn't fail to let me learn many things that I have never explored before. From the different online activities and classes that I had done, from the topical videos that I had watched, from the articles that I had read, and from all the experiences to become part of a learning community, the best thing that I'd experienced is that we created our own design of a learning community. I, together with my colleagues, worked hand in hand to select the best subject of design. We shared ideas and opinions and we came up with the best possible idea that we all agreed upon. We decided to make an Educational arts design of a learning community and from that on, we wasted no time and read some articles and different resources with regards to Educational arts. We collaborate and unify the things we had discovered and come up with the production of one entity and that is the Educational arts learning community design.

MY REFLECTION ON HOW THE GROUP LEARNING PROCESS INFORM MY EXPERIENCES OF LEARNING COMMUNITIES
The group learning process that I encountered widens my perspective about learning communities. Learning communities are of big help especially for the students like me. With the group task that was given to us, I explored, discovered, I walk around many possibilities in many situations at hand. It expanded my ideas and thoughts into a much larger views. I became informant and recognizes the importance and the purposes of every learning community that exists. A learning community is open to all ages and to those who wants to gain more knowledge. Scores of information are provided and shared. People in the community collaborate and are actively participating to engage into a much more meaningful learning. My experiences for involving in a learning community had taught me a lot. As (Vernon Sanders Law, 2010) says "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards". It gives a lesson in which we can never forget.

CONCLUSION:
In general, Group work, as one way of cooperative learning plays a very important role in Education. In this type of learning, learning can't be limited with the idea of a single person but with the ideas, reflections and opinions of the entire members of the group as a whole and it widens the knowledge and ideas gained. It is of big help especially for the students since it ensures continuous learning and interest that encourages them to learn more.

REFERENCES:
1. Wikipedia, (2010). Group work. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_work
2. Scott London, (2010). Collaboration and Community. Retrieved from http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/ppcc.html
3. Encyclopedia Britannica, (2010). The Arts. Retrieved from: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/36405/the-arts
4. Wikipedia (2010). Edtech. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edtech
5. (Vernon Sanders Law, 2010). Experience. Retrieved from: http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/experience/index.html