I think this approach will be very useful especially in younger children to help them develop leadership and problem-solving skills. I also think this model is great in helping students develop planning and organizational skills. The idea that students will practice the tasks within their group under direction of their teacher and other group members will likely have more benefits that relying on them to independently practice in homework. I like this model and am trying to think of some ways I can incorporate it into my distance courses. My students are older, but this model should be very effective for them as well. This model should fit very nicely in a management/leadership course.
The barriers to this model would be similar to the barriers of any other type of group learning. There may be some students who don’t get along, some who are shy and have trouble expressing themselves in the group, and some who don’t want to take on a lead role or some that want to totally take over. I think careful planning by the teacher should help deal with these issues. The model identifies the teacher as doing more coaching during the beginning of the lessons and then backing off as the students gain understanding of the material and understanding of how they perform the tasks and take the teaching role. Even though the teacher gives the students more control in the later parts of the instruction, the teacher is still carefully watching and can intervene.
Screencasts and screencaptures should work very well for using this model via the Internet. Teachers can use screencasts and screencaptures in sections as the “cues” and for coaching. I also think streaming videos can be very useful in a distance setting. The streaming videos could be of a teacher working with and coaching a group and then show individual students within the group playing out their roles, working with one another and taking the lead in tasks. This may help give distance students a better grasp on how this system works and what their individual role is. And also, this model is for groups, utilizing some sort of group work software or meeting software would be necessary.
New two-way synchronous tools like Elluminate should also be helpful as students and their expert/mentor/teacher meet together (at least the first time), with the teacher modeling some process and letting the students practice and take on the process on their own over time.