<p>You should probably start by explaining to the other students you practice with that you’re having problems in following what they do or that you’re more in need of practice in actual code writing than they maybe are. Or anyways, discuss in the group about your relative skill levels and decide based on that who should code and who should follow and check.</p>
<p>The point of the three-man group programming (which is commonly implemented as pair programming though) is that there’s only one person who’s doing the actual programming, she writes the code. The two others follow and analyze what the person programming is programming and provide suggestions/improvements or point out mistakes, when they notice something. All three should understand what the written code means, i.e. they should all understand the program and the just written code just like the programmer does. The practice is meant to improve the quality of the written code both functionally and in cleanliness, when there’s two people (or in pair programming only one additional person) observing what is programmed (not just what’s written, but how the solutions are expressed and how they fit into the program or the overall solution. And of course whether the code is easy to understand for another person). Also, in the case that the programmer gets stuck, he has a partner or two with whom she can discuss about the problem. The programmers can also take turns in programming so that they’re overall more productive, when the other person does the hard thinking while the other can take the more observing position.</p>