Anne, good question. I do it randomly as they come into the class. I have Focus Group paper name plates set out, and as they come into the class room I send them to one group or the other. I have also done it via the class roster. But no matter what the approach, it is all done randomly. I hope this has helped some.

My best man has a son, Scott, who is in 9th grade, and has a learning disability. The High School he is in has gone away from textbooks and everything is done via a lap top. But because Scott has a LD such an approach is not working for him, for a multitude of reasons. He really needs to have a good old fashion textbook, and an individual plan to meet his individual needs.

I use focus/learning groups a lot in my classes, because it helps in the overall learning experience. Additionally, I found that keeping them in the same group for the entire term is the best approach. They have the opportunity to learn from other by learning about one another. But I also found that some students just hate this approach, and these seem to be the engineering students. The thing is this - what job does one really work all alone with no contact with anyone else.

I good friend of mine told me that when something is miscommunicated, the problem mainly resides with the sender and not the communicator. If we accept this presence then the first step in becoming a better instructor is to accept the responsibility that we may not be doing a good job of getting something accross. Once we acknowledge that important fact/tenet then we can work on other skill sets. One involves empathy, patiences and understanding. Another is we need to become better listeners.