Using Groups Effectively in Collaborative Learning

Several years ago, while attending a regional adult education conference, I overheard two participants walking out of a concurrent session which had just formed into small groups. Obviously distraught over the methodological turn the session had taken, one turned to the other and said, "Don't they just lecture anymore? I get so sick of this group stuff." Indeed, it is a standing joke within the field of adult education that among the first things an adult educator does are to move furniture and form groups. The comments of this conference participant, however, reveal the profound ambivalence that many educators and learners feel towards collaborative learning methods in general and group work in particular.