Many instructors can't justify a lost opportunity to "cover" material, yet every journal or newsletter pushes "active learning" and "collaboration" as the best ways to learn. Who's right? Should you restructure your class to include collaboration, and if so, how do you make it effective? This article will address those questions. My experience comes from teaching developmental math through differential equations, but the ideas presented here apply to any subject.

1. How to tell if collaboration could improve your teaching.

Disinterested, unresponsive students, poor performance on homework, and low morale are all signs that a strict lecture format is not doing the job. If these problems are recurring themes in your classes, adding group work is a way to improve. Your out-of-class assignments, in-class activities, and written materials are just as much a part of teaching as your lectures. Find your strengths instead of dwelling on weaknesses.

2. Getting your students "on board."

Students will appreciate group work if they view it as your attempt to help them learn rather than some sort of experiment or a way for you to "get out of" lecturing. Start group work early in the semester and make it a regular classroom activity. Rather than isolating yourself behind a book or a stack of papers, use collaborative work as a chance to connect with the class. Patrol the room, providing hints and encouragement without giving away answers.

3. Assigning groups.

Ask students to from groups, and those who would benefit the most are often left out. One way to handle this is to make all the "left over" students get together. A better way is to assign random groups. A colleague of mine had a novel idea using index cards. She wrote a series of algebra problems on a set of index cards, and wrote their solutions on another set of cards. After handing out the cards, she instructed the class to "find their partners." The same concept could be employed with, say, a set of historical figures and their birth and death dates, or a set of philosophers or social scientists and their schools of thought. The same principle is easily adapted for creating larger groups.

4. Choosing assignments.

Assignments should be difficult enough to necessitate collaboration, but simple enough to complete with minimal assistance from you. I find that collaboration works well for reviewing or extending ideas I have already explained. To introduce new

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