Running head: LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 1

Leaders and Meaningful Conversations

in Small Group Discussions

Coralyn Sunico

University of Hawaii – West Oahu

LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 2

Leaders and Meaningful Conversations in Small Group Discussions

Introduction

There is a difference between working in a group and collaborating. Being a member of a

group means nothing if an individual does not know how to interact with the other group

members or if the individual does not fully understand her or his purpose in the group. To help

students change their perspective of themselves as just members of a group to, more importantly,

collaborators, teachers need to recognize that roles and expectations are the impetus for

collaboration. Roles need to be interconnected in a way that shows students their relationships

with others and to understand that they must work together in order to progress together.

Expressing clear expectations of these roles and the group’s goals can make this happen. Then,

students will look past their membership and realize that they are an important part of a working

dynamic that moves forward, accomplishes tasks, and solves problems as a whole. And, it was

this lack of togetherness that I lacked in my classroom but was determined to develop.

In Spring 2018, I started my student teaching in a 9th grade English classroom. I had two

English 1 Honors and one Regular English 1 classes. After assigning a writing workshop, I

realized that my Period 2 was extremely quiet, quieter the other classes. At first, I thought this

was something to celebrate since everyone completed their assignments, quickly and of best

quality. It was not until I realized after I reflected on my lesson that no one was meeting the

objective: to engage in discussion with group members. During other types of group work,

students would peruse their papers or books in silence and very seldom would they even make

eye contact with one another. What I had expected was some type of noise or chatter to fill the

classroom, but that was not the case for this class.
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 3

As self-directed as they were, I wanted to improve their collaboration skills. More

specifically, I wanted to hear discussions. I wanted to hear students ask and answer questions

about the topic to develop and share ideas together. I wanted to hear them comment on each

other’s efforts and assure that everyone was on task. These are the types of discussions that

generally occur in any group activity, and I wanted my students to practice engaging in these

types of dialogues in order to prepare them for the “real world” after high school where the

possibility of working with others, in college or in the workforce, is inevitable.

To learn more about the ways that I could produce meaningful conversations in my

classroom, I experimented with different groupings and designed activities that encouraged, or

rather forced, students to interact with one another. An intervention that was used for this study

was assigning roles and expectations to each student. The main factor, however, was the

implementation of a leader to each small group because the leaders were responsible for assuring

all members were fulfilling their roles; at the same time, group members were also responsible

for making sure that their leaders were fulfilling their roles. This process was meant to help the

students realize that they were accountable for themselves and for each other. Student feedback

was valuable in rating the effectiveness of leaders and the productivity of their groups while also

recalling some of the conversations. This was combined with data collected during their small

group discussions, as most observed conversations were categorized into six types of

discussions: asked question(s), responded to question(s), gave praise, developed and/or shared

ideas, gave directions, and engaged in irrelevant conversations. The results will demonstrate

whether leaders, and roles, encouraged meaningful conversations between group members.

With that said, the following is the research question for this study:
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 4

- What are the effects that leaders have in producing meaningful conversations in small

group discussions?

Literature Review

Collaborative learning, group work, and roles have been a topic of continuous discussion

and research in the field of education. Every small groups manifests their own dynamic and

culture. For this research, much of my study had been informed by other teachers and researchers

who share the same interested in implementing group work in their classroom. The following

articles that will be discussed talk about different forms of grouping, specific group behaviors

and motives, and requirements of varying group discussions. Some articles cover elements of an

ideal group activity, while other articles simply discussed observations of a group activity. There

are many common aspects of a group discussion, but there is one aspect that naturally occurs

even without a teacher’s direction—a leader.

There were two teachers who facilitated different types of grouping but with similar class

dynamics. Cannon’s (2006) college classroom engaged in small group discussions where

students analyzed articles about international politics. Later, each group came together for a large

class discussion. Young’s (2007) group format was similar in that his history classroom was also

organized in small groups that later gathered together to share interesting parts of their

discussions. Both classrooms started in small groups then congregated at the end. Other similar

features of their groupings were the assigned roles, as Cannon (2006) and Young (2007) both

incorporated leaders. Cannon’s (2006) leaders recorded the group’s discussion to turn in for

participation points, but Young’s (2007) leaders seemed to have been purposive to the groups

because each student was required to be conscious of the leader expectations, such as eliciting
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 5

and moderating student participation, before the day of the discussion, which were not

announced until the day of the discussion.

Whether students were grouped in small or large groups, Flora & Emzir (2015) pointed

out specific behaviors and motives of students that affected their participation. They concluded

that students take turns speaking in group discussions for two reasons: the speaker chooses to

speak, or the speaker chooses others to speak. Each choice was divided into categories that

further explained the student’s purpose for turn-taking. For example, students chose themselves

to speak because they chose to be the leader, to end silence where no one is talking, to interrupt

another speaker, or to change the topic of discussion. As for the students who chose others to

speak, this was due to being unprepared to speak because the student did not come up with a

response yet, to asking for other’s opinions, or to changing the topic. Flora & Emzir (2015) did

not indicate a roles, but students chose themselves to speak to be the leader; this leader roles still

occurred even without the teacher’s assignment. Consequently, the conversations continued,

which assured that all students participated and stayed on task.

Meanwhile, Vaca, Lapp, & Fisher’s (2011) description of their group activity aligned

with many of the features of an effective group discussion described by Shoemaker (1947). The

group activity asked students to analyze and recreate posters made in the 1930’s that promoted

the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, an assignment that inspired interpretation

(Shoemaker, 2011). Afterwards, the students presented a comprehensive set of posters to which

the students were assessed individually and as a group. Relatively, Shoemaker’s (2011)

appraised individuals for their contribution to the discussion and their impression as individuals.

In short, the students learned together, presented together, and were graded as a group and as

individuals. An appropriate feature that was missing from Vaca et al.’s (2011) activity, though,
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 6

was a “good leader,” which Shoemaker (2011) described as someone who keeps the discussion

on task, prevents personal arguments, and summarizes points discussed (p. 509); other

responsibilities included contributing to the group only for the sake of getting responses from

others and to understand the abilities of the group members.

Keeping in mind the current research on group work, I had implemented a few strategies

into my research, specifically assigning leaders in small group discussion; each leader had

specific responsibilities, just as Young’s (2007) and Shoemaker’s (1947) leaders possessed. In

addition, each group member was also given specific roles and responsibilities to ensure

collaboration within the group.

Methodology

Participants

I selected my Period 2 English 1 Honors class. This class consisted of 21 students: 6 boys

and 15 girls. Majority of the students were Filipino, Polynesian, or of mixed races such as

African-American, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Samoan, and/or Tongan. Each student was

recommended by previous English teachers to be placed in English 1 Honors because they were

exceptional in reading and writing. Period 2 was especially talented at being self-directed

learners who stayed on task, worked quickly, and produced quality work. The downside to this

class, compared to the other classes, was that they were poor in collaboration, and for this reason,

I chose to conduct my research with this class to help improve their group dynamics and

discussions.

Data Collection Methods

There were two main methods of collecting data: surveys via Google Form and seating

charts. The surveys were used to collect feedback of the student’s group discussion during and at
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 7

the end of the study. The seating charts were used to annotate six types of discussions that

occurred during each group work. This data was collected by me and my mentor in the span of

two weeks during week 13 and 14, and during this time, the students completed two group

assignments.

The surveys were called Group Reflection 1 (GR1) and Group Reflection 2 (GR2), which

were distributed after the students completed the group assignments (see Appendix for survey

questions). GR1 collected data from the students who worked in their Poetry Group 1 (PG1),

which were their heterogenous groups (see Appendix B for GR1 survey responses); and, GR2

collected data from the students who worked with their Poetry Group 2 (PG2), which were their

homogenous groups (see Appendix C for GR2 survey responses). A student from each small

group was randomly selected at the end of each assignment to evaluate the effectiveness of her or

his group leader in fulfilling the Leader Expectations and the productivity of the group and to

describe conversations that occurred in their small group discussions.

To supplement the Group Reflection surveys, my mentor and I annotated seating charts.

We walked around the class to record data on the six types of discussions that occurred during

the small group discussions. Annotations were made on a seating chart, to which each type of

discussion was represented with a letter next to the student’s name to indicate the type of

utterance. Each type of discussion was chosen to be observed because they involve conversations

that encouraged interaction and promoted the development of ideas for the benefit of the

assignment. Below is a table of the legends that were used to collect data for the seating chart

annotations (SCA).
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 8

Table 1

Legend for Seating Chart Annotations

Types of Discussions Legend
Asked Question(s) [Q]
Responded to Question(s) [R]
Gave Praise [P]
Developed and/or Shared Ideas* [D]
Gave Directions [G]
Engaged in Irrelevant Conversations [I]
*This is also used to indicate general conversations where
students claimed to have just talked or exchanged ideas.

Data Analysis

In order to create a common denominator for the two types of data, all results were

categorized under the six types of discussion. For example, in GR1, Question #5, a student

claimed that her or his group “were discussing the theme and possible answers.” This is

translated to two [D], meaning the two interlocutors engaged in a conversation that developed

ideas pertaining to the assignment. Some descriptions were more explicit than others, such as

claiming a student “asked” what the group was doing, so this directly converted to one [Q] for

asking a question. However, some statements were vague: “we talked about the four-square

poster”; in this situation, it was interpreted as two [D], indicating a general conversation between

two speakers. The last type of discussion, [I], is omitted from the survey results because the

survey questions specified to described conversations regarding the assignment.

The described conversations from the survey were categorized into the six types of

discussions, and there was a total of 39 conversations identified from GR1 and 63 conversations

identified from GR2. On the SCA, each conversation was represented by a letter. The letters

from the survey and SCA were added together. In total, PG1 engaged in 57 conversations and
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 9

PG2 engaged in 82 conversations. The conversations from each Poetry Group was converted into

percentages.

Procedures

I created two different groupings that alternated every day. In each group, a leader was

assigned. In the first grouping, PG1, there were four groups of four students and one group of

five, and the students that were identified as naturally strong leaders were assigned as PG1

leaders. The second groupings, PG2, consisted of the same number of groups and students per

group as PG1. I assigned the students who had the potential to become leaders as PG2 leaders

because all the strong leaders were already grouped together.

I expressed my expectations of the class before starting most of the group activities: to

engage in meaningful conversations. I also described the Group Roles and Expectations that

detailed the responsibilities of the leaders and the group members, which are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Group Roles and Expectations

Leader’s Expectations
1. Help others contribute
2. Make sure everyone is on task
3. Be respectful and encouraging
Group Member’s Expectations
1. Collaborate with others
2. Cooperate with your leader
3. Contribute to the success of your group
4. Stay on task

The students completed two different group assignments on poster paper. The first being

a Four-Square poster was the group activity that I designed to encourage collaboration by

assigning roles to each student. The Four-Square poster had a 2x2 table where each column had

its own requirements. In Column 1, there were two boxes: Box 1 asked students to determine the

theme of their assigned poem, while Box 2 required a visual representation of the theme. In

Column 2 were two other boxes that required the citation of evidence from the poem that
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 10

supported the theme expressed in Column 1. The poems that the students watched for this

assignment were spoken word poems: “OCD” by Neil Hilborn and “When Love Arrives” by

Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye. “OCD” was assigned to groups that had higher performing students

because the theme was implicit and more challenging to determine, while “When Love Arrives”

was assigned to groups that had lower performing students because the theme was explicit,

therefore easier to identify.

The second assignment asked the students to complete a Writing Carousel with their

PG2. This assignment was different in that the students’ roles were not designed to be as

interacted as the first assignment was; instead, the students took turns to respond to the prompts

for each round or rotation of the poster paper. To complete the assignment, the students were

asked to read “Oranges” by Gary Soto. For each round, one person recorded information or

responded to a prompt. In attempt to promote collaboration, I had asked all group members to

complete the task on their own individual copy of the poem first before writing on the poster.

This way, everyone was on the same page and shared their ideas to the recorder to write on the

poster.

Results

To measure whether the implementation of leaders was effective in encouraging

discussion or interaction between group members, I will discuss the results of the Group

Reflections and the annotations of the seating chart. Table 3 shows the percentage of each type

of discussion that occurred in total in the student’s PG1.

LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 11

Table 3

Poetry Group 1 Discussion Results

Types of Discussions %
Asked Question(s) 23
Responded to Question(s) 19
Gave Praise 5
Developed and/or Shared Ideas 21
Gave Directions 18
Engaged in Irrelevant Conversations 14
Note. The percentages for [Q] and [G] were rounded to the
nearest whole number.

The most common type of discussion that the students engaged in are listed as follows

from most frequent to least: asked question(s), developed and/or shared ideas, responded to

question(s), gave directions, engaged in irrelevant conversations, and gave praise. There was a

total of 57 conversations that were collected.

Question #4 of the survey asked the students to rate the effectiveness of their leader in

accomplishing the Leader Expectations on a scale of 1 (Not effective) to 5 (Very effective). The

ratings averaged out to 4.6/5.0. Question #7 asked the students to rate the productivity of their

group on a scale of 1 (Not productive) to 5 (Very productive) as well, which resulted in an

average of 4.4/5.0.

Question #8 asked the students to express their feelings about their leaders and/or group

members. The students from PG1 mentioned some positive comments claiming that their leader

“was pretty good but the other group members didn’t really help with anything other than what

they were assigned to” and that they felt that, as a group, they “did well” because they “all

contributed and the leader especially helped [them].” On the contrary, some students claimed

that they were able to “work things out together and work as a team but […] would rather be
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 12

with other people,” and one student claimed that she did not like her PG1 but did not explain

why.

Table 4 shows the results of the PG2 leaders. There were five groups for both PG1 and

PG2, and one student from each group was randomly chosen to complete the survey; however,

the results from GR2 only collected data from four students. The fifth student was reminded to

complete the survey, but he was unable to complete it at the end of the lesson. By the time he had

told me he forgotten to take the survey, it had been too late for the student to take it or to choose

a different student to complete because the students had already forgotten what happened during

their group discussions.

Table 4

Poetry Group 2 Discussion Results

Types of Discussions %
Asked Question(s) 15
Responded to Question(s) 10
Gave Praise 1
Developed and/or Shared Ideas 24
Gave Directions 17
Engaged in Irrelevant Conversations 33
Note. The percentages for [Q], [R], and [I] were rounded to the
nearest whole number.

The most common type of discussion that the students engaged in are listed as follows

from most frequent to least: engaged in irrelevant conversations, developed and/or shared ideas,

gave directions, asked question(s), responded to question(s), and gave praise. There was a total

of 82 conversations that were collected during the second group assignment. Although [I] was

omitted from the survey, it was highly observable during this group assignment when my mentor

and I walked around to listen to their discussions.

LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 13

The ratings from the GR2 showed that the PG2 leaders effectiveness in accomplishing

the Leader Expectations averaged out to 4.0/5.0. The overall group ratings in terms of

productivity averaged out to 4.4/5.0.

The responses regarding comments about their leaders and/or group members were more

positive than the responses from GR1. For example, students said, “I feel they are okay,” “My

group worked well,” “I like my group and I would work with them again. :)” and “I feel

comfortable because we as a group was actually working.” The only negative comment that a

student mentioned was that a few of their group members “need to be more engaged” with their

group.

Discussion

The students engaged in more meaningful discussions in their PG1 than in their PG2. The

top three types of discussions that occurred in the PG1 involved asking questions, developing

and/or sharing ideas, and responding to questions. There were not many interactions that

involved giving directions, engaging in irrelevant conversations, nor giving praise. This could be

the case because the students were sitting with students they were either not familiar with or

usually do not interact with; thus, less time was spent on socializing and more time was focused

on staying on task and talking about the assignment. The reason for this outcome could also be

attributed to the nature of the leaders who possessed strong leadership skills; they were more

effective in regulating their group members than the students who had leadership potential in

PG2.

When students sat in their PG2, they engaged in different types of discussions that were

not as purposive to the assignment. Most of the discussions focused on engaging in irrelevant

conversations, developing and/or sharing ideas, and giving directions. Though students were
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 14

digressing from the assignment 33% of the time, it seemed that the leaders were successful in

reacting to this issue by giving directions at least 17% of the time. An interesting conclusion

from this grouping was the percentage of students developing and/or sharing ideas. They did not

ask or respond to questions as much as they did in their PG1. This could be the case because they

sat with their friends or people they usually interact with; these were their favorite groups where

they sat with people they liked or were comfortable with. As a result, the comfortability of these

groupings encouraged more developing and/or sharing ideas. There was no need to question each

other, for example, whether their answers were correct or not, which was a common type of

interaction that occurred in PG1. Instead, they were more confident in sharing answers and

engaging in discussions that allowed the students to build ideas with one another.

An unusual trait of the PG2, however, was the 1% of praises that occurred. Given that the

students were comfortable with one another, it would be assumed that they would at least be

comfortable complimenting one another; instead, the opposite was true. Rather than praising, the

comfort levels allowed each student to be frank or blunt to give directions and keep their group

members on task. For example, there were more directions or commands about telling students

what to do, such as getting of their phones.

There were some areas of this study that could be improved if attempted for retrial such

as the assignment and the data collection method. The group assignments were different; the first

assignment was the Four-Square poster while the second assignment was a Writing Carousel.

Both assignments created different types of settings, therefore different outcomes. More

specifically, the first assignment was purposefully made to implement roles that were

interconnected so that the students were encouraged to interact with one another, as their roles

relied on each other’s cooperation in order to progress; but, the second assignment only focused
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 15

on taking turns. The design of each assignment should have been the same to promote the same

intentional interconnectedness and to result in more accurate data. In addition, the data collection

portion of this study could be improved by making sure there were an equal amount of students

taking the survey per group assignment since one student was unable to complete the survey for

the second assignment. Results of the second assignment were incomplete, therefore conclusions

were inaccurate compared to the results of the first assignment.

Conclusion

Given that the leaders were more effective in encouraging discussion in heterogenous

groups, further study could consider focusing on heterogenous groups only. Having more people

involved to observe or setting up cameras and microphones around the classroom could improve

the data collection by obtaining more information since there were five groups and only two

adults who circulated the room to record the discussions. To make the data collection more

effective and accurate, researchers could consider focusing only on two groups: one group of

higher-performing students and one group of lower-performing students. Because it was difficult

to listen to most of the conversations among the five groups, listening to only two groups could

make research more convenient and concise.

Some interesting ideas for a different type of study include researching the discussions

that arise in homogeneous groupings. What are some ways to improve homogenous grouping,

and what type of group dynamic works best? One question that arose during this study was

whether a student’s performance level affected her or his ability to build relationships with

students of like or different performing level because it seemed that the students were with their

friends in their homogenous groups whereas they did not interact well with people in their

heterogenous groups.
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 16

Ultimately, students need to continue working in groups to build their collaboration

skills; they need to know how to be a collaborator but also how to be a leader. With collaboration

comes communication, and it is the occurrence of meaningful conversations that will benefit the

group’s success. There is this reciprocal relationship that occurs in group work where actions and

dialogue must exchange, therefore—to help each other means to talk to each other.
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 17

References

Cannon P. (2006). Quick fix: Enhancing understanding and interest through group discussion.

College Teaching, 54, 211.

Flora & Emzir. (2015). Analysis of students turn-taking in group work discussion. International

Journal of Language Education and Culture Review, 1, 11-20.

Shoemaker C. C. (1947). Management of group discussion. The English Journal, 36, 508-513.

Vaca J., Lapp D., & Fisher D. (2011). Designing and assessing productive group work in

secondary schools. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54, 372-375.

Young J. (2007). Small group scored discussion: Beyond the fishbowl, or, everybody reads,

everybody talks, everybody learns. The History Teacher, 40, 177-181.

LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 18

Appendix A

Group Reflection Survey Form

1. Name:
2. What group were you in?
3. Who was your group leader?
4. On a scale of 1 (Not effective) to 5 (Very effective), rate how effective your leader was in
accomplishing the Leader Expectations.
5. Describe a conversation you had with your leader today that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., leader reminded you to __, leader to you “good job!” leader asked you
questions about __, etc.).
6. Describe a conversation you had with a group member that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., student reminded you to __, student told you “good job!” student asked
you questions about __, etc.).
7. On a scale of 1 (Not productive) to 5 (Very productive), how productive was your group
today?
8. How do you feel about your leader and/or group members? (this will be confidential, so
be as honest as possible).
9. Comments, questions, concerns, suggestions?

Thank you! :D
Your feedback is valuable in helping me create a safe and fun learning environment!
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 19

Appendix B

Group Reflection 1 Survey Results

Results from the first group assignment are listed below. Questions #1 - #3 are omitted for

confidentiality purposes; the last question two questions are also omitted because they do not

pertain directly to the study. GR1 reflects the results of the student’s interactions in their PG1.

Question #4: One a scale of 1 to 5, rate how effective your leader was in accomplishing the
Leader Expectations.
Student 1: 4
Student 2: 5
Student 3: 5
Student 4: 5
Student 5: 4
On average, the Poetry Group 1 leaders were rate 4.6/5.0.
Question #5: Describe the conversations you had with your leader today that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., leader reminded you to __, leader told you “good job!” leader asked you
questions about __, etc.).
Student 1: “we were discussing the theme and possible answers”
Student 2: “The leader helped us put answers for the questions.”
Student 3: “We ask what we are doing and help each other out”
Student 4: “We were talking about the four-square poster”
Student 5: “Leader told me how my answer for 3 (i think) was good.”

Question #6: Describe the conversation you had with a group member that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., student reminded you to __, student told you “good job!” student asked you
questions about __, etc.).
Student 1: “none really lolol”
Student 2: “I said “I put the Hawaiian flag and then the American flag?” They
said yeah. Also since there was no blue and I wasn’t supposed to do the
red, green, yellow Hawaiian flag, [student A] just said to color the
American flag the same colors as the Hawaiian flag.”
Student 3: “Same thing [refer to response in Question #6, Student 3]”
Student 4: “We were talking about the evidence for “Ha” by Noa Helela.”
Student 5: “My other group member told me my answer was good and
descriptive.”
Question #7: On a scale of 1 to 5, how productive was your group today?
Student 1: 3
Student 2: 5
Student 3: 5
Student 4: 5
Student 5: 4
LEADERS AND MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS 20

Appendix C

Group Reflection 2 Survey Results

Results from the second group assignment listed below. Questions #1 - #3 are omitted for

confidentiality purposes; the last question two questions are also omitted because they do not

pertain directly to the study. GR2 reflects the results of the student’s interactions in their PG2.

Question #4: One a scale of 1 to 5, rate how effective your leader was in accomplishing the
Leader Expectations.
Student 1: 4
Student 2: 2
Student 3: 5
Student 4: 5
On average, the Poetry Group 2 leaders were rate 4/5.0.
Question #5: Describe the conversations you had with your leader today that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., leader reminded you to __, leader told you “good job!” leader asked you
questions about __, etc.).
Student 1: “Leader told me to find the theme”
Student 2: “We barely even talked cuz [sic] he was playing games”
Student 3: “She asked us about what words were positive and then she was saying
uplifting things”
Student 4: “The leader was helpful and was very focus on our work today. Plus he
told me to get off my phone LOL”

Question #6: Describe the conversation you had with a group member that relates to the group
assignment (i.e., student reminded you to __, student told you “good job!” student asked you
questions about __, etc.).
Student 1: “I had a conversation about the oranges sence [sic]”
Student 2: “[student A] told me to read the example that she wrote for round 2”
Student 3: “Me and [student B] talked about the bubble chart.”
Student 4: “My group members talked and collaborated.”
Question #7: On a scale of 1 to 5, how productive was your group today?
Student 1: 3
Student 2: 4
Student 3: 5
Student 4: 5