Supporting disabled students doing group work
Effective group work offers students a powerful and highly engaging means of learning. The approach does need to be managed though to ensure that some students are not marginalised or excluded as a result of a disability.
How to get the discussion started?
- Ask your colleagues if they have had instances where group work has proved challenging for a disabled student? What were the issues? Was anything done to enable the disabled student to contribute to the task and become a full member of the group?
- Introduce this advice and guidance sheet for staff that is used at BCU and ask your colleagues to evaluate its proposals and suggestions.
Background and teaching staff involvement
- Working in a group to complete a written assignment, project and/or a presentation can present challenges for some disabled students.
- The following guidance will give teaching staff a starting point to help them ensure that disabled students are able to achieve their full potential when working in groups.
- Whilst group work can cause challenges for some disabled students, they should be given every opportunity to participate successfully and get the same benefits from this type of work as their non-disabled peers.
- Teaching staff may have to take some proactive steps to ensure that this happens.
Source: Birmingham City University