"What's your major?" "Me, too, I'm undeclared." Every instructor has heard comments, or ones like them, when they thought they had given a full-proof assignment, one guaranteed to keep students on task.
Personally, I believe in group work -- students can form relationships that can aid their intellectual development and research over the course of the quarter. And in my more generous moments, I think that even some of the "irrelevant" or "off-task" behavior can be useful. But we all want students to make good use of the time that we give them to work on in-class assignments. Here, I outline a few ideas (some thieved) for how to keep students on track during group time.
1. Use a quiz question to drive the discussion. This can be a good way to follow up a quiz. For good and for ill (see Alfie Kohn on motivation, punishment, and reward), they take quiz materials seriously, and if they have done some writing immediately prior to the small group discussion, they will then have something substantial to lean back on when they begin their discussion.
2. Give them one clear task, and make sure that the task is not just connected to content, that either you or they eventually connect it to the next major assignment on the horizon. I'll supply a few ideas below.
3. Some people are good at making use of competition to keep the groups focused. For example, I know of one instructor who puts together Jeopardy games.
4. Avoid having different groups working on different questions. When you re-convene, it means a conversation between you and each small group, while the other groups (usually) struggle to pay attention with more or less success.
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