Decision Making Techniques for Small Groups

Question: Describe about the Decision Making Techniques for Small Groups. Answer: Introduction: From the past years, small learning group technique had reached to an admirable place especially in providing education in school and it leads to encouragement of student and deep learning. Small learning group technique helps to increase student creativity, attention towards topic, retention of knowledge. It also increases critical thinking, teamwork spirit, communication skills, peer to peer coordination, cordial relations and self directed learning. Small learning group technique adopted in school comprises of various methods and here we are going to study them and their effectiveness in decision making. Point: Group Decision Making Group decision-making is one of the effective methods for learning in small group. Adoption of this technique in school leads to increase knowledge of students as the instructor breaks the whole class in small segments, and discussion is carried to come at a decision from various alternatives (Huber, 2003). Effectiveness of this technique is analyzed on the basis that how this technique is used for arriving at a decision in small learning group. Evidence: Group decision making is a participatory process carried in small learning group in which different individuals act collectively, analyze problems or situations, consider, suggest and evaluate alternative courses of action, and from those alternatives, best and creative idea is taken (Heise, 2013). Evidence of this group decision making techniques can be seen in school, to increase creativity and coordination of students. Assessment: The number of people involved in group decision-making varies according to need of situation, but often ranges from two to seven in small learning group (Heise, 2016). The individuals in a group may face cultural diversity as they may belong to different regions. Decision-making groups are generally informally created by the instructor in school to attain a specific goal like for imparting critical skills in students. Point: Brainstorming is an Important Decision Making Technique Evidence: The example or evidence of brainstorming technique can be seen in school, where instructor motivates their students to find out new ways of solving a particular problem. Brain storming is a widely used technique in schools and it leads to creativity in students. It is a process, where new and creative ideas are generated and solutions are derived through intensive and freewheelinggroupdiscussion in class (Huber, 2003). Everyparticipant in the brain storming technique is encouraged to think and suggest as many ideas as possible. The instructor documents all the generated ideas. After generation of ideas analysis, discussion, orcriticismis being done in class that leads to increment in effectiveness of students because of small learning group technique. Assessment: The advantage of brainstorming in school is that it consist the ability to refine ideas and include every person's input to generate specific ideas in small learning group as every one gets a chance to present their ideas (Heise, 2016). Point: Nominal Group Technique Evidence: Nominal group technique is a more controlled technique in comparison to brainstorming .Each member of the group writes his or her ideas and then these ideas are discussed and ranked accordingly. The ideas having highest ranks or votes are prioritized and accepted as a group decision (Heise, 2013). Each group member has to come up with list of various ideas. Evidence of this technique can be seen in school. For example, the group of students in school uses this technique to reach at a decision that leads to improvement in coordination and communication skills. Assessment: Nominal group technique leads to generation of creative ideas than traditional group discussions. This technique balances the power of individuals by limiting the power of opinion maker, as there is no leader who dominates the discussion. In schools, this technique leads to constructive problem solving and it also allows the group member to vote the ideas democratically and on this basis, ideas are prioritized (Huber, 2003). Point: Group leader in small learning group should create an enabling environment for all the group members, so that the challenges of effective group decision making can be reduced. Evidence: Evidence of this technique can be seen in all schools. The schools provide productive environment for growth of individuals. Main purpose of this is to improve ability of student with regard to their skills and creativity. Group leader should explain the rules; remind individuals that their ideas are going to be used as a stimulus for other students (Heise, 2016). Assessment: It is important for group leader to improve the environment at the time of activity to get new and creative ideas from its group members. A group leader can improve the workplace environment through motivational stories and putting success stories of different high performers students (Huber, 2003). Point: There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of small learning group [In reference to school] Advantages: In schools, small learning group leads to various advantages to learner. They are Self direction, active learning, and development of self regulatory skills that are going to help them whole life. It leads to self motivation, allows the student to test their thinking, hypothesis, deep learning and higher-order activities such as analysis, evaluation and synthesis. It develops skills like leadership, team work, problem solving, cordial relationship, management skills and allows them to make an analysis of their thinking (Huber, 2003). Disadvantages: (Huber, 2003).Small learning group technique puts more focus on group rather than individual and because of this students cannot be able to think interdependently. Students usually stick to someone else opinion rather than giving fresh idea. Every student has a different goal and perception which leads to conflict in decision making. In small group learning technique individualism is lost. Conclusion Small learning group technique adopted in school helps in providing good academic environment, and leads to collaborative learning in students. Small group teaching in schools increase the teamwork ability, retention of knowledge, enhance transfer of concepts to new problems, increase student interest, and improve the self-directed learning and critical skills in students. It develops peer-peer interaction and improves the communication skills. Reference Heise, D.R. (2013). Modeling Interactions in Small Groups, Social Psychology Quarterly, 76(1), 52-72. Huber, G.L. (2003). Processes of decision-making in small learning groups, Learning and Instruction, 13, 256-269. Heise, D.R. (2016). Modeling Interactions in Small Groups, ProQuest, 10(10), 01-18.