A Pedagogical Perspective: An Exploration into Feedback and Group Work

Abstract

There is a large body of education literature that discusses group work and feedback in a pedagogical sense. This is predominantly a consequence of a high percent of the literature being substantially social constructivist driven. However, there is still a significant need for research in this area due to a) the ever-changing 21st century and b) the amount of unanswered questions for teachers and practitioners, such as: How does an educator assign group tasks that encourage involvement, independence, a fair share of labor and in line with the curriculum? This short paper explored feedback and group work in a secondary setting using the author’s teaching experience as reference points throughout. More specifically, the paper highlighted strategies such as Kagan have become very popular in mainstream education over the last 5 years. Upon evaluating Kagan strategies, it was discovered that there was a need for pre-teaching of the strategies for pupils.