This approach tends to make for a discursive activity, where peer listening skills can be developed and students can learn from one another’s ideas. The whole-class approach enables considerable interaction between students and their peers and adults in the classroom. As a result, however, such activities can be more difficult to manage. Since all students work simultaneously on the same activity, only one set of resources is required.

This approach offers a balance – on the one hand, students are able to interact with each other and share ideas and, on the other, a degree of teacher control can be exerted by specifying suitable groupings of students or by intervening in groups which are experiencing difficulties staying on-task. This approach requires each group or pair to be given appropriate resources for the activity.

This approach allows little, if any, interaction between peers and will require a greater amount of time to prepare resources for each individual. Nevertheless, the advantages include the fact that adults in the classroom can still interact with individual students and, therefore, the activity can be easier to manage. This approach is often ideal as a means of settling a class, prior to more interactive tasks later in the lesson.