Base groups

I discovered in my reading a good reason for having base groups, i.e. make the students accountable to each other for checking on homework issues.  I also like the idea of a base group creating a "team spirit" within the classroom.  My big concern would be that the base group would become a team in which one member does the work and the others just copy it.  I have found that high school students really do not discern the difference between helping someone to learn a skill and just giving their friends the work to copy and saying that was helping them.  I do like the idea of accountability and may work it into my first block class that I see daily...like a contest of which base group has the fewest 0's on homework or the highest quiz/test scores in one grading period.  I will have to give this idea some more thought and perhaps use it during second semester.