Teaching group work and interaction with peers to elementary students: challenges and solutions (the lived experience of teachers)

Introduction: Group work in school is becoming more popular day by day and is suitable for the new needs of 21st century schools. UNESCO has introduced the skill of cooperation and teamwork as one of the seven general human skills of the third millennium. And the ability to do group work is the third skill after communication skills and analytical skills in people. The purpose of the current research is to identify the challenges and solutions of teaching teamwork and interaction with peers to elementary school students.
Method: The statistical population of the current study was formed by a group of teachers who had the necessary experience in this field, and 11 people were selected as a statistical sample through the purposeful sampling method. A semi-structured interview was used to collect information. The validity of the research findings was guaranteed by using the methods of members' own review, peer review, and collaborative research. Also, in order to measure the reliability of the done codings, open-test reliability methods and intra-subject agreement were used. MAXQDA 2020 software was used for data analysis.
Findings: The findings of the research showed that the challenges of teamwork education include the challenges of students' awareness, teamwork culture, neglecting students' interests, teacher's, family, psychological and biological teamwork literacy. And the solutions include observing the principles of grouping and designing group activities. Discussion and conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that educators should emphasize teamwork skills and interaction with peers as skills that are worth developing, and increase the focus on intragroup feedback strategies.