10 problems with breaking into small group discussions

So my New Year's resolution to break is to blog more. Since starting my new call, I have been very scant on here, but I think I could muster at least two blogs a month. I should be able to manage that right?

So here is January's 1st installment (number two is in process and focusing on the Hall of Fame for all you baseball fans out there):

I was recently at a Boundaries Workshop, and it featured something I experienced way too much of in seminary and other continuing education events. I am speaking of course about the small group conversation time. What once was a nice little exercise to do a couple times a semester has become a hallmark in my education recently, which is a shame, because the problem with the small group model is it doesn't really teach a thing! I'm talking about too much class/seminar time spent in little groups discussing topics, experiences, case studies, etc. and too little time in actual lectures learning from experts or instructors, receiving actual information. The model of breaking into small groups turns instructors into facilitators of poor learning.

Think about it, the small group model is more about personal opinion than instructional education. While it has the ability to make you engage and think about the topic, the problem is when overused in any educational setting several scenarios will occur, all of which while interesting/entertaining are in no way educational/enlightening. Here are common symptoms I've experienced in over-use of the small group discussion model.

1. Circular conversations: when there are only a few people together, and no real leader, and no real knowledge to be shared, the small group runs out of insight in less than two minutes. This leads to the same thing said again and again since they have not received adequate education/new material to truly discuss. This also happens when the group differs on something. Both sides try to bring it back around to their points and conclusions, even when that issue is past. 
2. Social Conversations: along with the circular conversations that come as a result of not enough to say, then there are the group of folks smart enough to avoid the circular conversations, and they do that by not continuing the assigned topic to begin with. Usually within 60 seconds of the small group time they feel they have confidently spent every ounce of their in-expertise. They chat about weather, family, sports, basically anything not related to the topic at hand. The best part is they know there is no accountability against this anyways. In academic settings the teacher may swing by their group for about 30 seconds (at which point they default to circular conversations) and then the rest of the time there is no one to challenge them on such a practice. If each group is asked to report on the group topic a meager 12 second soliloquy (which may account for a third of their total conversation) will do. In continuing education settings, this epidemic is much worse as there is no grade to fear.
3. Extroverts become delusional: As an extrovert, I can nail down another clear problem and that is if you invite an extrovert to talk s/he is going to talk. And this is actually a problem. I need the social convention of the classic classroom to shut my trap and actually learn. While it is true we extroverts tend to prefer small group models, it is not for educational reasons. It's for personality reasons. I want small group time so I have time to talk and relate, not because I'm learning more. Extroverts tend to complain in reviews when they weren't able to participate enough, but people should not be so quick to mark that as a learning based complaint (although in some cases it may be, I'm well aware also of the whole science of learning styles if you will). Once I have a chance to talk, that is what I want to do, even if I don't necessarily have good stuff to say. The need of extroverts to share even when we have nothing that will actually educate and teach the group makes small group conversations littered with pointless dribble. 
4. Leadership conflicts: similar to number 3, this is what happens when natural leaders all are in a group together. In seminary - which trains leaders - this was especially obvious. Different people vying to run the group, different leadership personalities clashing, circular conversations (see number one again) by different people trying to take the conversation in their direction at all costs. What is more, is like extroverts, many leaders will tend to want to contribute and since they probably have a sense of expertise in some area they will try to lead the conversation according to where they can contribute the most. This has ironically been considered one of the strengths of the small group model, that is, the participants contribute their own expertise to the situation. But the problem is it assumes their expertise is the most relevant information the group needs. Also, such models will impair the learning of the leader because s/he will often tend to keep the discussion where s/he already knows something on the topic, which will limit the likelihood of his/her ability to learn in such a meeting. Now consider several leaders in a group, they are all trying to make the discussion in a way where they are teaching instead of learning. And as that becomes their goal, then their ability to learn from other leaders in the group even diminishes. 
5. The questions that have no answers: sometimes this happens almost immediately (especially if the group has already identified an inability to have some form of agreement or there has been very little lecture in relation to group time) but otherwise it happens after that initial fruitful first minute or two of conversation. Once you have no more information, if you want to stay on topic (avoiding symptom number 2) but keep the conversation from being trapped in the same circular information sharing that usually happens by this point (see symptom number 1) then you try to go deeper. That is, you ask questions. The problem is you never get an answer. The question leads to another question, or a clarifying question, or whatever. But before you know it you have twelve questions and no answers to any of them. It's quite ridiculous. What I hate about this, is you think you learned. You stayed on topic, you discussed the whole time, you went "deeper". But in the end you really didn't. If the professor/leader stood up front and just asked question after question giving no answer, you might find the first couple thought provoking, and quickly that would diminish to the person being a poor teacher. You'd wonder if they actually know anything. But have those same questions as the outcome of five people talking and you don't realize what you're doing.
6. Sharing with the rest of the group: This is like adding insult to injury. Now that we've wasted five minutes, let's spend another five minutes seeing how everyone else wasted their time too. But of course this period is rarely truly representative of what happened. As I mentioned during the social conversations symptom, a delegate from the group (which half the time is annoying enough to pick and half the time selects the greatest extrovert/leader of the group, guaranteeing a repeat of 3 and 4) can easily make thirty seconds of actual learning/discussion sound like it took the whole time in a 12 second soundbite. So those who strayed from topic look just as clean as those who diligently struggled through the other symptoms. The symptom that is most obvious here is the questions with no answers, because they will often share the first few questions that had no answer (usually something like this "We were discussing x, and then began to wonder y, which led us to also think about questions like z and z 2.0"). Ironically, they still rarely get an answer to the questions posed. But what I think is the worst is when whoever talks for your group, you realize they don't really represent the group, they represent themselves. Either because they do not value or did not really take in what others said, too often the report really focuses (surprise surprise) on whatever that person said in the group. The considerate ones might hybrid in some of what others said, but more often than not it seems like at least 50% of what is reported was what the reporter brought to the discussions (even if that only amounted to 5% of total conversation), and in some cases it is far worse - as if their opinion was the only one discussed. 
7. Sharing within the group: because a small group model relies on the students actually having some sense of experience/expertise to bring to the table, the expectation is also that you will participate. This bothers introverts to no end, who typically require much more time to process  before feeling comfortable talking. And in those few moments where an extrovert like myself actually realizes he has nothing of value to say at the moment, you still are supposed to think of something to say. This really stinks if you're whole group actually realizes they have nothing to say, if most of them have something you might be able to slip by, but overall your participation is evaluated by your ability to contribute. Of course by contribute I mean talk, not actually contribute - there really is no evaluation for that peer or otherwise. This expectation only adds to the crap contrived in small group time, or it shames those who are wise enough not to want to speak.
8. Circling Back: How many times do you realize that after minutes of discussing, you don't remember what you're discussing? Thus you have to do the circle back, usually someone finally goes, "Wait! What was the question again?" and hopefully someone wrote it down or it's projected on a wall or something. This usually happens because you've fallen into one of the other issues like social conversations or questions without answers and try to get back into the swing of things. You think returning to the question will get it going. Sometimes it does, but how often does that circle back get followed with the awkward silence? You know what that silence is? It is the slow revelation that you have nothing to actually contribute to the actual discussion, and everything you had been saying really didn't address that at all.
9. Frustration time: I was also very susceptible to this, when you don't agree with the speaker/teacher, small group time becomes revolution time. So to speak. I mean, we don't ever actually start a revolution overturning desks and such. But much the same way revolutions begin, by like minded curmudgeons complaining together, small group time is a perfect opportunity. I can be very critical of teaching/instruction, it's part of my personality type. Give me a chance to express that and I will. As an extrovert I will naturally and rashly bring frustrations out during that small group time. When this kind of frustration happens, it also leads to revolution. Again, not turning over desks, but yet a resistance to the exercise at hand. And since little true knowledge or work is required to appear fully involved by general evaluation methods, nothing stops one from using small group time subversively. In addition, such an outlet of frustration minimizes the likelihood that the teacher and student will ever truly engage their frustrations/differences with each other. Teachers by and large receive much more open challenges or questions in lecture based classes than discussion based ones. Maybe because they teach more (so there is actual content to challenge), but also because there is no other outlet for such frustrations given. I would wager that direct discussion with the teacher is healthier. It prevents stereotyping, invites response, and ultimately usually I think forces more respect from the student for the leader's expertise.
10. Postmodern Relativism: When you have challenges, frustrations, self-centered soliloquies by group leaders, circular discussions that are pulled in different directions, when you have too many opinions on the table what begins to happen is none of them matter or only the one you brought with you matters. In a classic educational setting, only one opinion/expertise matters - the instructor's. You may disagree with it, but you at least are drawn to pay heed and attention to it, and at every moment you are truly engaging it. And truth be told, in many of these settings where the small group model is used, they need the expertise of the instructor, and they need it far more than that of the students/participants. Too many opinions/directions will literally muddle any sense of conclusions (as number 5 reminds us, it can lead to having no conclusions). We develop this postmodern concept that it is all relative, and once we've done that we will often adopt that view then which is most amicable to us, which is normally our own view. It is a scientific fact that we tend towards facts/opinions that support our own view of things. When you open up the class and learning to multiple views, and in fact invite your own to be a part, it should be no surprise that when someone summarizes their group time to the whole class they will particularly highlight that which they said/engaged the most. In our information age we are being flooded with far more information than ever before, there is only so much your brain will process, and so we can either actually challenge and expand it by limiting what is being processed or allow you to self-limit by over-expanding what you process. Think about that, because it is the opposite of how things once were. It used to be (and makes more sense logically) that limiting people's exposure would make one narrow-minded. But in today's world, limiting it may just expand their boundaries, because it will prevent them from always having access to what they already/know believe. To truly "limit" someone in a way that they could never know any other way is quite difficult in 21st century America. Instead we limit by always having what we desire as an option and small groups allow us to limit ourselves this way.

Now I should say some may not always experience these things. Certain personality types I imagine might be more adept at avoiding some of these, but in general someone in the group is probably going to suffer from this and it will happen with more repetition. There is in truth a place for small group discussions. When there is truly a large amount of material actually given, having a space for people to theoretically put it in practice (I know that sounds like an oxymoron) can be a useful exorcise in seeing how they have processed it all. When used minimally, it doesn't overshadow the lecture portion and many of the issues above arise with much less regularity. But this tool has been overused far too much. Too many classes use it one or more times every class. Day long seminar events should not probably utilize this much more than once. 

Plain and simple, we are replacing teaching with discussing. And when that happens very little learning happens and people actually self-justify and dig in to whatever ways they came with. It's true, each person comes with experiences and expertise, maybe some material taught would seem repetitious for some, but to assume others will learn what needs to be learned by the experience and expertise of those who came to learn is troubling. Whatever expertise I bring does not mean that is what matters for that class/workshop/seminar. Expecting me to essentially be responsible for the teaching of others is irresponsible in that my expertise very well may not be what they need to learn and it is in truth hurtful to my purpose for being there, which should be primarily to learn not instruct. That role should not be confused by small group learning. And when that becomes a dominate portion of the education, that is exactly what happens. Notice how many of the above issues are a result of a) not having enough information given/taught to adequately prepare and focus the conversations and b) encouraging one to be the teacher and shape the solution one's own way. Unless an instructor has adequately guided and informed the people, and spent enough time to make their teaching the predominant source for engagement, small group discussion will divert from it and waste time and in fact take away from what was taught. It is my belief that too many instructors are not giving themselves adequate time to truly turn and focus the class according to the education presented. At that point they turn from educators to facilitators, which I sadly think is the goal for so many. I suspect the intent is good, like to help us figure it out ourselves, or come to a better understanding of our own methods. But that is an exceptionally disappointing expectation because it only cares about shaping what I already have rather than giving me something truly new. I'd rather listen to a horrid lecture than waste my time in pointless discussions. At least when the lecture is over I feel something was shared with me, even if I totally disagreed with it. And ironically I likely engaged it far more than if I spent most of that time talking with 4 or 6 individuals about the same thing.