The Benefits of Brainstorming for Group Work
The brainstorming technique is a work tool for groups which helps people to create new and original ideas related to a given topic. To do it well, you’ll need to create a relaxed atmosphere which will facilitate cooperation among all group members. In this article, we’ll explain the many benefits of brainstorming for your child.
This technique can be very enriching for students, both in the academic and personal fields.
“None of us is as good as all of us.”
– Ray Kroc –
The benefits of working in a group
Cooperative learning is defined by Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, as:
“The didactic use of small groups in which students work collaboratively to maximize their own learning and that of others.”
Therefore, we can say that group work helps students to cooperate and collaborate with each other with the aim of achieving a common goal or objective. The use of this teaching methodology in the classroom brings multiple benefits to the students, such as:
- Favoring the feeling of belonging and group cohesion
- Promoting positive coexistence
- Promoting autonomy and independence
- Allowing students to learn and put into practice certain ethical values
- Influencing the improvement of communication, and being more open and fluid
- Promoting inclusion, mutual respect, and acceptance of others
- Favoring a greater learning and academic performance
- Increasing productivity
- Enhancing social skills
- Allowing the development of better self-esteem and personal self-concept
- Promoting balance, and psychological and social well-being
- Favoring the evaluation and regulation of their learning
- Allowing the acquisition and practice of decision-making skills
For all these reasons, it’s a good idea to teach children to work in a team from a young age. To facilitate this process they can be taught group techniques, such as brainstorming.
The benefits of brainstorming for group work
Before putting the brainstorming technique into practice, you should keep three basic rules in mind:
- All ideas are valid. You shouldn’t reject or eliminate any of the ideas proposed by the participants in the group, no matter how absurd they may seem. In addition, any kind of criticism or mockery is strictly forbidden.
- It’s necessary to listen actively and write down all the proposals that arise, with the purpose of improving them, but without starting to judge them.
- We must act quickly. To this end, we must avoid starting debates, discussions or explanations. It’s a matter of collecting as many ideas as possible on the subject.
“Listen without judging, speak without offending and observe without despising. Three values that will make you fairer to others.”
– Anonymous –
Steps to carry out the brainstorming technique
When it comes to group work, you should take the following steps to reap the benefits of brainstorming:
- Specify the topic of the project
- The group members participate by saying as many ideas as they can think of during a certain time and suggest how the project can be carried out
- One of the group members should write down all the suggestions that people make
- When there are no more ideas, or when time is up, then all the proposals are read out
- The group discusses these proposals and chooses the best ones, along with all the information that will be useful for carrying out the project
At the end of the brainstorming session, the students will have a wide variety of ideas at their disposal in order to carry out the project in hand. If necessary, they should try to improve the ideas that they’ve selected. Finally, before starting the actual project, it’s advisable to make a plan with the points to be included.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Fernández de Haro, E. (2010). El trabajo en equipo mediante aprendizaje cooperativo. Universidad de Granada: Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación.
- Johnson, D.W. y Johnson, R.T. (1994). Learning Together and Alone. Cooperative, Competitive and Individualistic Learning. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T. y Holubec, E. J. (1994). The nuts and bolts of cooperative learning. Interaction Book Co.