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Crossover groups
This activity is designed both to make reporting back from sub-groups more exciting and to give all participants an active and responsible role. In the first phase they are divided into groups of approximately equal number to discuss a topic or work on a task - four groups of five, for instance. For the second phase, after a suitable time in discussion, they are asked in each group to number themselves from (in this case) 1 to 4 and told 'now form new groups - all the 1s together over here, all the 2s together there'. Alternatively, a colour coding rather than a numerical one can be employed as shown in the figure.
The task of each group member as he or she moves into the new group can be to report what happened in the phase 1 group following which a new discussion will naturally evolve. This technique is helpful in mixing a new group of students, on part-time courses where the circulation of ideas is never very rapid (Bligh et al.,1981), and with cross-cultural groups where there may be equal opportunities and problems to do with language or culture or both.
A variation on the crossover groups model, the Jigsaw method, is described by Brookfield (1999), based on Slavin (1990) . In this, the students are asked independently to study topics in preparation for a discussion in which they will feature as 'experts', in conjunction with other 'experts'.
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