The Benefits of Studying in a Group for Modern Students

Nowadays, according to the development of economy and society countries need workers who are not only professional but also have a wide range of knowledge. To meet the needs of the society, schools and parents are trying to teach students a lot of things in different field in order to improve their competitiveness. In China, students should learn nine subjects such as geography, chemistry, physics and so on when they are in middle schools. Every day students go to school from half past seven in the morning to nine thirty in the evening. In order to complete study assignments in this period, improving efficient become one of the problems that students care the most and many of them are looking for most efficient way of studying. There are two main popular ways, one of them is studying alone and the other one is studying in groups, then the debate over whether studying in groups is better than studying alone has long been in question and educational experts are deeply divided over this issue. Some of the students would like to learn things on their own because they think self-study can minimize interruptions in order to focus on their own ways of thinking. There will be less interruption if people study by themselves, so no one can distribute with a different way of thinking of the same question. Although this is good for developing thinking independence, which everyone needs and is useful in people’s lives. But in my opinion, I see the benefits of studying in a group which I will share in the current essay.

Our Changing World - is the Reason to Improve Study Efficiency 

The reason why it is important to everybody in the world changes every day. If you don’t learn something new you will be cast aside by society. In order to understand the latest knowledge, people have to learn. But there is a problem, they don't have much time to learn in a stressful working and studying environment. Improving the efficiency of study become more and more important. It is not easy to find out what is the most suitable way of studying for a person even though he or she can find thousands of advices on the internet. This is because you do not know background information about the people who give advices to you, and can not distinguish whether these methods can really help you to improve. Group study can develop students’ methodology that can improve their efficiency in studying. The reason why group study is the best thing for this is there are a lot of chances to see how members in groups study, different people with different characters and different hobbies may have totally different ways of understanding or memorizing knowledge. It is impossible that two people use exactly the same method to study although they are similar. When a person studies with five other people in a group, that means there will be six methods of learning and the person can share his or her method to others and absorb something useful from those people, or even summarize the five methods to improve his or her own method. Some people have a hobby to collect all question they do not understand, or they get wrong answers during exercises and exams. Some of students preview what they need to learn before teachers have classes. They can find out what questions they have and where they should pay more attention when they are having the class. This helps them to follow teachers in the class and they can get what teachers are talking about much faster than those students who have no idea about what they are going to learn in the class. Also doing homework after reviewing is a good way to improve efficiency. If people have these really good methodology that means they can learn things much faster than other people and they can finish studying in a shorter period of time compare with other people who use common methods. So it saves time for other activities if people have a good methodology, and they can have more spare time to develop some interests or just have a rest. The other reason to improve study efficiency when they are studying is a group is students can share their ideas with their group mates. For example, students need to do some research to earn a new theory. If a student chooses to work on his own which means he has to finish reading one web-side before start to read another one. If students decide to join in a study group they can divide into different parts to each member of the group. Many things can be done at the same time and in a short period of time.As you can see, having a good method is very important to everyone. Obviously, studying in groups has much higher efficiency than studying alone.

The Benefits of Studying in a Group for Students

Studying in groups makes students focus more on what they are doing. When people study on their own, they may be absent-minded to thinking something not related to their subjects. Group studying has a characteristic of several people study together that means while they are discussing the topic they have to pay attention to the person who is presenting his or her opinion. Sometimes there may be one or even two of the members are not focusing, other members, will ask them to pay attention. For example, there is a group of five student discussing about their topic, one of them is thinking about what he is going to eat in the evening or what movies he is going to watch in the coming weekend. When his members realize that he is not paying attention to what they are talking about, they may tell him what is going on and tell him to focus on what they are doing. This is a excellent chance for those students who can not really focus on what they are doing easily when they are working on their own. This is one of the ways to push a person to focus on what they are doing. Students cooperate to form a study group makes them feel they should take their own responsibility to their own study assignments. Also study groups can make students participate in studying actively. These can make students focus more on their group projects. There are different levels of students in an ideal study group which means there are excellent grade students, medium grade students and students who get not really good grades in one study group. After teachers hand out study assignments, every student has equal chance to take part in their group activities. During group discussion, students must communicate, open their mind and work together. Students can adopt their strong points while overcoming their weak points and make progress together. If a group of students is working on a project and each of them has different task. One student makes a small mistake when he or she is collecting data. Then the rest of steps will go to a wrong direction not matter how hard other members trying to fix their own part. This is the thing that every student in study groups knows and in order to avoid this kind of situation happen in their groups, they will be very careful when they are doing their parts of work. They will try to focus on their work as much as possible to ensure they do not make mistake that affect other members’ work.

Students study in groups can not only improve efficiency and pay more attention to studying but also can develop student’s communication skills. Humans are living together, and communication is necessary for daily life to transferring messages and presenting ideas in office, at home or even on streets. So having good communication skills is important to everyone in society, and it is even better to train when people are young. After graduating from schools people will go to find jobs and most companies choose to have interviews to find out the most suitable workers for themselves. This is a good chance to those job hunters who can communicate well with strangers. Also after they enter a company, they may do some projects with workmates. Studying in a group provides an excellent environment for students who would like to exercise their communication skills. Maybe students’ communication skills have been improved during group working without anyone noticing. People in a study group normally share information they get from other place and their own opinions about their group projects. Students are communicating when they are sharing their idea with their group mates. When a student is trying to let other students in their group believe that his or her idea is the most suitable answer of the question which their group look for. To ensure every student in the group agree this is the answer they work so hard to find out, that person should doing a lot of research and get well prepare before he or she shares the answer in front of group mates. Find a suitable way to tell your group mates is important. Because it influences whether your members will agree with you. Group studying makes different people with different characteristic corporate with each other, and maybe there are conflicts between members. Then members should learn how to do with conflicts, and maybe some of them will realize what they do is wrong and correct their mistakes as well as say sorry to their members. Reflecting is one of the best ways to improve. If a person does not know how to reflect himself or herself, then he or she may not be going to improve very much in a short time. When you are studying in groups members may point out what you do is wrong and try to tell you how to correct. At that time, you’d better think clearly because it is possible that your member is wrong, and you are correct or both of you are wrong. If you are wrong, then you have two choices, the first one is listening to what members’ say and then correct errors carefully, the second one keeps standing on your opinion and have arguments with your group mates. If you choose the second one, then your group work might be no finished on deadline. If you choose the first one, after having a conversation your work will be done quicker. So, keep calm and be nice to your group mates is important in group working.

Conclusion

In conclusion, according to the needs in the society, students are going to learn more and more different things under stress. There are a lot of ways to learn different things by different kinds of people. Studying in groups is one of the way and it is good for students to practice and improve communication skills which are useful in the future everywhere. Also learning in groups increase student’s efficiency, because they can see many methods of studying and improve their own study methods by comparing those methods that other students use and they think it might work in their own condition. Once they improve their study methods, they can develop their study efficiency. Students can save their time to do other things they are interested in. More importantly, students can focus more on their studying by realizing they have a clear responsibility on their own study and willing to take part in group activities instead of seating on a chair and doing nothing but waiting for those answers that other people get during studying or even just get the answer directly from teachers and the internet. Knowing what they do can directly affect their group members’ result is the other way for students to focus more on their work.The reason is they do not want their group’s result goes to a strange way because of their mistakes.

References

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3. Lou, Y., Abrami, P. C., & d'Apollonia, S. (2001). Small group and individual learning with technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 71(3), 449-521.

4. Slavin, R. E. (1995). Cooperative learning: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

5. Spring, J. (2010). Learning in a group versus learning alone in online and blended environments: Evidence from the National Survey of Student Engagement. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 11(3), 44-56.

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6. Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399.