When teaching in a collaborative classroom, many instances arise when encouraging work between groups (and not just within each group) can be helpful and productive. Probably the most common example of this is when two groups get different answers. Instead of asserting your authority (e.g. telling the group with the wrong answer to go back and check their work), you can simply tell each group that “the group over there got something different.” This approach is more student centered; it removes you as the arbiter of what is right, and gets the students to more openly argue their points.
Other situations where you can use inter-group dynamics to improve your students’ learning include cases when different groups use different methods on the same problem, when different groups do slightly different, but similar problems, and when one group gets a concept that other groups are still struggling with.
– Dave Kung 1998-08-09